Category Archives: Startups

Here’s My New ‘Current Projects’ Page, So Y’all Can Keep Tabs On Me

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I am noticing a trend forming in my life.

I’ve been more open to starting a few new projects lately and so I decided to update this blog and create a spot where you can go to at any point in time and check out what I am working on.  You can find the link at the top right of the header menu bar on this blog.

Current Project page.

Below you can see a snippet of things I am up to right now.  More will probably come soon but this is what is happening at this point in time in my life.  Given the fact I am currently also doing some outside contract work for other companies, I am only listing the projects/companies I have founder or equity stake in.

Enjoy.

And reach out to me if you are interested in partnering or getting involved with any of them.

Current Projects

Seconds logo

Seconds is a payment system allowing you to swiftly complete transactions via the desktop web, mobile web or text message. It shouldn’t matter what method you use, the payment experience should be as quick, simple and intuitive as sending a text message.  Realizing how important ongoing relationships are between customers and merchants, and also realizing the main point of entry into our world is now through our mobile device, we see an incredible opportunity.

 

Callin'it logo 2

Callin’it is a mobile web based real-time sports prediction and data analysis platform.  Using Callin’it, people are able to test and share their sports knowledge by publically predicting – or calling – stats, plays or outcomes of an upcoming sporting event.  For instance, right now I am calling the Miami heat will have more rebounds than the Chicago Bulls in tonight’s game.  Using real time sports data, we then compare the specific call with the actual result to build out a score for each user based on the accuracy and difficulty of their calls.  If Twitter and the ‘SAT’s for sports’ had a baby, Callin’it would be their lovechild…

 

Founders Raw logo2

Founders Raw is my newest project, a video blog with conversation style interviews focused on bringing out  raw stories early stage founders experience in their rough and tumble entrepreneurial journeys.  I invite founders to talk openly over a beer or a coffee about the “truth” of how they survive and grow their companies.  We intend on slicing up the conversations and sending out daily videos no more than 3 or 4 minutes long so we all can receive daily nuggets of the entrepreneurial truth.

 

Published Books

The Agony and Ecstasy of Entrepreneurship

The Agony and Ecstasy of Entrepreneurship has been adapted from this blog, So Entrepreneurial, and placed into book format.  They are my thoughts and musings on all things entrepreneurial, meant to help you understand what it takes and how to think like an entrepreneur in today’s world.  Far from perfect and by no means the only way to go about the journey, they represent my lessons taken straight from the trenches.  Since my thoughts originated as blog posts it’s best to take them piecemeal, maybe even digesting just a few topics each day. You will find my main perspectives are around mobile, digital and internet technologies but the principles can be applied to any other entrepreneurial focus.

You Are Never “Too Good To Step Aside” As CEO

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Sometimes your ego will write checks your body can’t cash.

This is so true for the startup founder who chooses the role of CEO in his own company.

I thought of it recently as I read a great post by Jonathan Strauss, former CEO and founder of awe.sm, about stepping down from the founder/CEO role after 4 years.  In it, he very honestly describes his feelings on the decision and what ultimately brought him to remove himself from the leadership role.

Jonathan aptly describes entrepreneurship:

To be an entrepreneur I believe one must have a somewhat irrational belief in your own capabilities, otherwise you’d never be dumb enough to start a company. Regardless of any perceived glamor, most entrepreneurs I know will tell you that starting and running a company is fucking hard and there’s often more misery than joy.

He. Nails. It. On. The. Head.

If you are a frequent reader you will know this description of entrepreneurship can be found here on this blog as well.  No doubt, founding a company is one of the most difficult and emotionally taxing things in the world.  It’s a wonder company creation is actually on the rise when you read statements like these.

Jonathan goes further on why it was so hard to remove himself:

I put hiring a CEO in the same category as taking an acqui-hire or just closing up shop and moving on — things I would think about at 4am in the office on those darkest nights when I’d have a bout of sobriety about the insanity I’d turned my life into. And ultimately, things that represented the one unacceptable option motivating me to push even further beyond my limits I’d long surpassed: failure. In the early days, the only way for me to keep awe.sm from failing was to tie my fate with the company’s. If awe.sm failed, I failed. But as we switched from lean startup to growth company, I didn’t fully realize how making my ego a shareholder went from being necessary for survival to being a limitation on what we could achieve.

One of the toughest “checks” to cash as a founder is to think you are the sole reason for company success or failure.  Notice how Jonathan admits he attached himself and his fate with the fate of the company.  It is indeed one of the inherent flaws of us founders.

I commend Jonathan for his decision but I am also not letting the lesson pass me by, and you shouldn’t either.  The ego issue is very dangerous for both of you and your company.

Founders need to have a healthy balance of ego.  On one side you need to have an almost superhuman confidence about yourself and your vision because that is the only way you can get thorough the really tough times of starting the journey.  But – and THIS IS A BIG BUT – you also need to understand you are not Superman and the company can actually succeed with someone else at the helm.  You aren’t the only person on earth who can identify a market, describe a vision, build a team, sell customers and increase monthly revenue.  Other people can do that too.  And even with you still on the team.

More importantly, others might be able to do it all better than you.

So, take Jonathan’s example and learn from it.  Sometimes removing yourself from the most scrutinized and stressful position in the company is the best decision for everyone involved.

Even you.

When Your Startup Feels Less Like A Hockey Stick And More Like A Hip Check

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We all love to talk about the hockey stick moment for a company, referring to the moment when users and usage really starts to take off.  It’s fun.  It’s exciting.  And  it’s so elusive we all want to dissect what the specific company actually did to achieve the stratospheric growth.

But what about the hip check?

What’s that you say?  Never heard of the startup hip check?  Well, take a look at the image below and I think you can get an idea of what I am talking about.

3HipCheckPretty scary huh.

This head-over-feet-over head-over-feet feeling can happen at any moment of a company founding experience.  Sometimes it happens within the first few months of a new idea as the honeymoon wears off and founders realize the pieces don’t fit and they don’t have a starters chance of even putting something together.  Other times (like mine) you get up and running – even get some initial customer wins under your belt – and then it hits you when you least expect it.

BAM – “what the hell was that!?”

In any regard, getting hip checked throws you and your company completely off your feet and off course.  There is a good chance an injury has occurred and you may never recover.  It feels like what I imagine the hockey player above must have felt as he was brutally checked right onto his a**.

And you know what?  It happens to EVERYBODY.  All athletes.  All entrepreneurs.  everybody.

So what do you do once you shake the cobwebs out of your head and realize you just got taken to town?

Pause

Simply pausing and taking account of your status is the first thing you should to do.  At this moment do not let tempers or emotions get the best of you.  Athletes ask themselves questions like: Do I have all my limbs?  Are my legs situated in the right direction?  (Anyone watching this years NCAA basketball March Madness tournemant will know know you should now check all your limbs after a bad fall.)

Rather than get emotional and retaliate, athletes need to assess why it happened.   Was I too slow?  Did I make the wrong move?  Was he just flat out better than me?

Entrepreneurs need to ask similar questions:  Why did that just happen?  What did we miss?  And what is our financial status, how much money do we have in the bank?  What do the others on the team think and feel about our situation?  Are they hurt and need to go recover, or can they keep at it?  Also, who else knows we just got hip checked?  Was it reported in the media and did we take a PR hit?

Through these questions you will determine if the company can and should continue, or if indeed it’s best to step off the ice.

RICE

Rest.  Ice.  Compression.  Elevate.

My education taught me RICE was the simplest injury treatment protocol, basically placing it in a state of limited movement and maximum preservation.  Same for a startup.  If continuation of the company is desired, I am suggesting taking a similar approach with your startup.   You have to stop the bleeding (financially) and start the healing process (working) as quick as possible.  If needed, go get a paid gig as quick as you can so cash starts flowing into the bank once again.  I waited way too long on this one and can tell you it wasn’t pretty.  Cash really does solve many problems and helps to open back up the creative process since a huge pressure valve is released.

Open the communication lines with your team, have long discussions about why the hip check happened so you can start the healing process.  Through these discussions the weaknesses will be revealed and the ways forward will emerge.

Elevate yourself.  A strange (albeit predictable) thing happens when founders get hip checked – depression.  Since it takes a certain chutzpah to start a company, namely audaciousness and ego, I have noticed those also work against the entrepreneur once they find themselves face first on the ice.  Of course this isn’t what you expected as you started out and most definitely how you didn’t want others to see you.

But there you are.

You must get up.  You must inflate that ego (figuratively speaking) back to where it was before, when you believed in yourself and your team.  A positive and forward looking perspective is the only way to recover from the hip check.

Skate Again

If you watch a hockey game it doesn’t take very long to notice how often hits and checks happen to all players.  And you know what?  They get back up and shake it off.  They try again.  It’s quite the same in the startup world.  Everyday, founders are getting hip checked to founder hell and back.  Yet, the ones we end up reading about are the ones who got back up and tried again.

Elon Musk has probably been checked more than most other successful entrepreneurs out there.  Did you know there was a time he was literally broke as he was building Tesla and SpaceX?   At one point he put the last of his millions he had made previously into his companies so they wouldn’t go under – personally financing them and risking everything he had worked for  – and then lived off loans from his other millionaire friends.

Yes, and now people say he has it too good as a billionaire and CEO of two incredibly innovative technology companies.

Hmm, well there’s a reason Musk refers to founding a company as “it’s like eating shards of glass and staring into the abyss of death.”

Because it’s true.

I simply say: Just get up and keep skating.

Earth To USA Today and JP Morgan – There Are More Startups Today Than Ever Before

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A recent column in the U.S.A Today makes the bold claim that there are less startups today than compared to the 1980’s, during the Carter administration.

The rationale:

At any rate, the latest data indicate that start-ups are becoming rarer, not more common. A new report from JPMorgan economist Mike Feroli indicates that employment in start-ups is plunging. New jobs in the economy tend to come from new businesses, but we’re getting fewer new businesses. 

I am going to guess Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a professor and the author of the post, is not an entrepreneur and has never been one.  If he was one he would know basing innovation metrics and the quantity of “startups” solely on the amount of people they employ is an incredibly flawed argument.

Screen Shot 2013-05-06 at 8.00.44 PM

Diving deeper into the JP Morgan study, they lay claim to a few reasons on why we are seeing an apparent slow down in startups:

Hudson’s possible suspects for the slowdown: a) higher business taxes, b) Obamacare, c) an IRS crackdown on US employers that hire U.S. workers as independent contractors rather than employees, and d) a steady barrier erected to entrepreneurs at the local policy level.

But whatever the cause of the entrepreneurial decline, two possible impacts: 1) A less productive and innovative economy, and 2) higher profits for big business thanks to fewer upstart competitors on the horizon.

Here are a few observations on why I feel this assessment is off the mark:

1) Assuming Obamacare is a factor completely misses the point, since Obama wasn’t even in office when the decline in jobs started (see chart above).

2) Although a local policy issue may influence certain industries – since we’re talking the entire nation here it’s irrelevant to include local policies because they vary state to state.  I, for one, can tell you it’s quite easy to get going in your own new venture.

3) The IPO market really cooled off over the last decade, suggesting a rise in mergers and acquisitions.  Simply stated, startups are being bought by bigger companies before they beef up their workforce, which also will affect overall startup employment numbers.

4)  If anything, they miss the most obvious reason why people would choose employment at a larger corporation rather than a startup: job security and dependable paycheck in a shaky economy.   Although this also doesn’t apply since the economy didn’t tank until late 2008 and beyond, so again, not a very high correlation.

5) The largest omission in this report can be seen by evaluating technological progress and the resulting drop in computing costs.  Comparing the chart from the JP Morgan article and a graph of Moore’s Law (which is exponential) you now realize using a simple number like the number of employees of startups is probably the wrong approach when determining the current status of innovation.  Moore’s Law states the computing power is increasing at the same time the cost is dropping.  So, it is easier to start a business than ever before. The cost of computing, virtual work environments, AWS, instant and free communication tools, and the proliferation of the web have coalesced to create a startup nirvana.  Looking at two charts from the same timeframe you will notice the stark drop in jobs at the same time a drastic increase in computing power?  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

So am I missing something here?

Maybe if they simply stated “startups are employing less people” I wouldn’t have a problem with the report.  But they didn’t.  They claim (in fact lead with) the idea that there are less startups and innovation than in the 80’s and 90’s, which I feel is wrong – or at least how they came to that conclusion is currently flawed.  They go on to make a few solid points regarding higher taxes and government regulation and how those influence an early venture hiring but lack any real depth for their argument.  Maybe they should have consulted an entrepreneur or two who could help them sift through the chaff a bit further.

Moore's Law of Computing Power

Moore’s Law of Computing Power

My take: it takes less people to achieve more today.  What once took a team of 10 to accomplish now only takes 2 or 3 people and a wifi connection.  So I am claiming the exact opposite of the USA Today and JP Morgan.  We are seeing more products, apps, and startups created today than ever before.  Ask any VC or startup founder and I guarantee they will say the same thing.

Hell, Instagram and their entire team of 12 employees was sold for almost $1 billion to Facebook in 2012.  So whatever you do, do not believe there is a lack of innovation and startups out there.  If anything, there’s more innovation and startups created each day than ever before because we can do more with less.

One just needs to look closer and use the right measuring stick.

To Change The World Solve A problem – Just Not “Your” Problem

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As founders we’re generally told the best way to build a business is to solve a problem in the world.  Find a problem, create a solution and someone will pay you money for it.

Great, I think we can all agree with that.

Issues arise when you are advised to solve “your” problem, which I have noticed happens quite often.  And on the surface it makes sense – the easiest problems to find in the world are the one’s right in front of your face.  So we are told to look at our life and determine what needs to be fixed.  Next step, we go out and build our solution so our lives can be made better.  Then we think, “if I have this problem, then others must have it too!”  We dream about getting lucky, the moment others figure out they have this problem as well, and think we just might hit the home run and cash in on our new idea.

I started thinking about this the other day when I read or heard on video someone mentioning the fact that this is precisely why we have so many copycat startups around Silicon Valley.

Think about it (yes I am generalizing): pretty much everyone in the valley is of the same demographic and has mostly the same problems in their life.  It’s hard to argue we are in a relatively small bubble and can only see our own groups unique problems.  Simply put, we all have the same problems in our small little startup world.  That ‘s why we have so many founders trying to make an incrementally better photo sharing app, food ordering app (or input-any-cliche-mobile-app-example here).  We are too narrowly focused on what’s in our palms each day we don’t lift our heads towards the rest of the world and see what they are dealing with.  We all walk around with smartphones in our pockets and cannot stop thinking about how to make our lives 10% better with this new app, or that new website.  This is how we get 10 Pinterest’s and 50 Instagram-wannabes.

That’s all fine and dandy for the 1% in our bubble but what about the 99%?  What about the person that doesn’t have a smartphone or doesn’t want to think about being plugged in it 24/7/365?  The problem is we don’t know what all the problems are out there in the world because we aren’t really thinking about the rest of the world.

So how do we get away from all the copy cats and towards real world changing ideas?

We need to start solving problems, just not “our” problems.  We need to start talking to other people outside our network and our little bubble, maybe they aren’t as fortunate as us and still have challenges we aren’t aware of but could help solve.  We need to shut up and listen to what they are struggling with and then start thinking about how to bring a solution to them.

Real customer development happens when you have many conversations – hundreds or even thousands – and you find random people are all having the same problems but lack a viable solution.  That’s when you know you are onto something – not when you have a thought in the shower about this thing in your life that really needs to be fixed.

Uniqueness will come when you look outside of yourself and your little bubble and discover issues people not like you are dealing with.  If you have the problem as well, even better!

So If you really want to change the world, solve a problem.  Just don’t solve your problem because it’s probably not something the 99% aren’t even thinking about.

16 years to one million… 18 months to two million

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Crowds of people gather on the mall to watch the swearing-in of U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington“It took us more than 16 years to get to one million paid households but just 18 months to double it.”

I read an article today that talked about how well Angie’s List did last quarter, posting impressive growth around users and revenues.  If you are not familiar, Angie’s List is a new age Yellow pages, a marketplace for service oriented local businesses.

One sentence caught my attention: “It took us more than 16 years to get to one million paid households but just 18 months to double it.”

How’s that for patience?  I had no idea Angie’s List  was even 16 years old.  More impressive, I haven’t heard of many companies where it took so long to reach a milestone like that.  Both are impressive feats of patience, persistence and obviously hard work.

But what’s fascinating is how quickly they reached 2 million paid accounts – just 18 months.

18 months vs 16 years.  Wow.

I’d be curious to know what they did to increase the paid user base so quickly.  Of course, a certain amount users will come from viral, word of mouth actions of existing users.  But, in the local space it can be more difficult to achieve viral growth.  It would be great to hear what has worked for them.

Never forget, the amount of work it might take to get to your first big milestone isn’t necessarily the amount required to reach the next milestone.  Just test a lot and keep doing what’s working and stop doing what isn’t.  Things do get easier and the system can start working for you once you reach a certain critical mass.

I have never really been a huge fan of Angie’s List, but I certainly have more respect for them now.

Fail. Learn. Live.

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I failed.

Phew, there I said it.

Even though Silicon Valley and the startup culture in general celebrates failure and preaches  how founders shouldn’t hide behind their mistakes, it’s not an easy thing to admit or talk about.  Naturally, we tend to put our best face on in public and act like all is well even when it’s not.  And when it becomes too overwhelmingly difficult to face publicly, most run and hide and miss the opportunity to help others by addressing challenges openly and honestly.

Well, not me.  I believe in telling the truth and having an authentic discussion around the not so celebrated aspects of entrepreneurship.

Taking more than enough time to think about what I just experienced and how I should respond to it, I feel it’s time to talk openly about it hoping maybe I can help someone else be more open with their failures when their time comes.  Failure is hard to cope with no matter how strong you think you are and by opening up and examining the lessons that accompany failure we can all walk away better, not bitter.

“Just dust yourself off and try again.”

That is what you hear from others when you fail at something, like they know exactly what you are going through and how you feel.  “Yea, sure… thanks man, but you have no idea.”  That is my internal response.  If only life was that easy.

There’s no way another person understands the dynamics of a founder’s mental processes during the moment they realize it ain’t working.  I sure as hell hate to hear someone relate to my experience to something as simple as a kid tripping over a crack on the sidewalk during dodgeball at recess.  So much emotion, time, money and energy is wrapped into the entrepreneurial journey, especially when it turns out not as one expected or wanted.

Yet, during my time of reflection I have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff, come to understand some things are under our control and many things simply aren’t.  This is my attempt to dissect and relate back to the world some of the things I could have done differently.

I Failed.

The experiment failed.  Seconds, my mobile payments startup here in Seattle failed to attain a level of usage and customers to become sustainable.  What’s more, we failed to secure outside investment to capitalize our company for the near/mid term in order to grow into a sustainable company.  We simply came to the end of the runway (cash) and have now decided to navigate the next direction of the team and product.

To say I earned all the gray hairs I now have in the last 15 months would be an understatement.  I dealt with a cofounder and CTO of the company leaving 6 months in because he realized it was going to be tougher than he thought it would be, leaving me with a tech startup and no technical leader to write any code.

This sucked.  Since I had to spend most of my energy in finding the right replacement for this critical puzzle piece during the middle of 2012, we failed to gain any momentum in on-boarding more customers and making necessary product improvements.

I should be more proud in retrospect, I was able to find a new CTO and thus pulled the plane out of a downward spiral and at least leveled it off into a smoother glide.  But as a result of the slow glide we found ourselves in a foggy, hazy and scary place.  In nowhere land, we became a not-dead-but-not-really-living company.

A zombie startup, as they are now calling them.

I, as the CEO, take full responsibility for the outcome of Seconds.  Although not the person responsible for code and development, I was the person responsible for leading the team, driving the customer base and growing the operation.  I failed to uphold my end of the bargain and in the end the company’s fate went down with it.

I learned.

Given the fact we failed at growing Seconds into a successful mobile payments company, it’s important to remove the layers and find lessons applicable to my life and  future companies I will inevitably start or join.   Steve Blank says failed founders are actually “experienced founders”.  I agree to an extent.  More important is the ability to evaluate your failure, pick it apart and glean nuggets of wisdom to apply to your life.  That, or all is a waste.

Below are a few things I now realize in hindsight led to the demise of our experiment.

a) jumped to quick – I was recruited by one of my co-founders to join as the CEO in fall 2011.  I jumped too quickly into the company and within 2 weeks of meeting the team I was full time and ready to take on the world with people I had never met before.  I didn’t know their ups and downs.  Nor their gifts or their faults.  In retrospect, I am not sure this was the best decision and probably would have benefited from a longer deliberation and research of the team I was joining as well as the market we were attacking.

b) didn’t obsessively focus on customers – We didn’t focus enough time and energy outside the office talking to non-customers, potential customers and existing customers about their specific needs and how our product can help them.  Even more basic, although it’s easy to preach about lean startup methods and customer development principles, it’s quite another to get your ass out of the office and into uncomfortable conversations with people who will inevitably knock down your idea and hypothesis.   We didn’t validate the problem/solution clear enough.  Yet that is the only way to go from an erroneous hypothesis to a more valuable one; one which can then use to grow into a sustainable business model.

c) Underestimated fundraising – ha, I actually thought it would be easy to raise money.  Boy did I get that one wrong.  Investors are very strange creatures and at the end of the day they really can’t tell you why they invested in one company and passed on another.  It’s a tough nut to crack – especially for a first timer lacking glorified credentials like Stanford or Ivy League degrees or a past (successful) startup experience.

I figured we would lean on a quick seed round of funding for the first year or so and go from there.  I figured it would buy us some time to dial in the revenue model.  That wasn’t good enough.  Founders must figure out how to build a sustainable operation from day one (or until investment does finally hit the account) or they risk losing it all.  (read:  once you perfect your business model on a spreadsheet you actually have to execute on it and bring in a critical mass of ongoing revenue or the game is over before it starts. See b above.)

The “throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks” method does not work for early-stage, cash-strapped startups.  Got it?

d) didn’t recruit talent – I did not place enough value on recruiting and cultivating talent within our team and personal network.  I naively thought discovering dev talent was for the job of  a CTO/Lead Developer and I should not really put in the time and effort to find these people.  My bad.  Whether you are technical or not, it’s the CEO’s responsibility to reach across the isle and get to know as many talented and gifted engineers as he can.  Yes, a conversation for me is a lot smoother /easier with a non-technical person, but in the long run a network full of strong relationships with both technical and non-technical people will always be better than one or the other.

Easier said then done but team is most important.  You should never stop cultivating relationships and building your dream team, even if it’s just in your head at the moment.

e) emptied the tank – I allowed the tank to hit empty.  Empty of money.  Empty of belief.  Empty of customers.  Empty of options.  Empty of vision.  Empty of energy to keep going.  Empty of emotional strength and connection.   The determinist would say it ran its course and as the world turns… but in the end we just didn’t execute where we needed to so that we could keep (all) the tanks away from the fatalistic empty point.

There should always be another lever you can pull and pivot you can make to keep it going but… I let myself go first and once the leader’s tank is empty not much else can be done.

More lessons are in there for sure… a lot more.   But I cannot find the right words or analogies to make sense in my mind, let alone in this post so these five will do for now.  I am sure over the course of the next months/years I will hit upon another revelation and compose a nice piece for all to learn from.

Needless to say I learned a lot in the last year and a half.

Would I do anything differently starting over?  Of course I would.  If it were Sep 2011 all over again I can’t say I would.  It’s impossible.  Looking back, these lessons could only have taught me something by living them firsthand.  I am grateful of my experience and appreciate what it has taught me.

Failed entrepreneur = experienced entrepreneur.

I lived.

Here’s where it gets tough.  Recent coverage has detailed the fate of a few people in the startup community who – by all means looked great from the outside – but on the inside were tearing themselves apart due to massive stress they were facing in their personal/professional lives.  In the end they decided to take their own life rather than deal with their challenges.  I cannot (and will not) attempt to defend or attack their decisions, but I can only say I now understand.

I was both terrified and haunted when reading through and trying to understand what had happened.

I, too, have thought about it.  I have stood and thought about things I never imagined I would need to think about.  Not about ending it all, but about my place in the world and the value I bring to it.  I figure someone who follows through with an act such as ending one’s own life must feel as if there’s really not much to live for anymore – or else they wouldn’t have made the fatal decision.

The emotion of a failed startup is rooted in rejection.  None of us want to be rejected and we just want to be proud of what we have accomplished.  As the plane enters the downward spiral and you as the founder cannot gain control, things (shit) starts to hit the fan.

The scariest problem is how quickly it can turn into a downward spiral.

The fact that these people were driven to and ultimately succumbed to suicide are the true failings of entrepreneurship, the tech community and society in general.  If founders feel they truly have no more value to add simply because they didn’t live up to outside expectations and lost investor’s money, we are in big trouble.

And if it has anything to do with media coverage and the resulting negative shitstorm of outside comments we now face when our failure is publicly written about, we are in very big trouble.

Founding a company is one of the most emotional activities people will experience in their lives.  Most companies are extensions of their founders, everything from the code created to the core founding principles of the organization.  A founder’s greatest dream is to take an original thought and see it spread around the world, influencing millions if not billions.  When that doesn’t happen – your vision or idea doesn’t take off and start spreading around the world – you stubbornly start to question yourself and your value.

You also start to slide down a slippery psychological slope that might not have a (positive) end.  Once the slide starts, seemingly mundane daily occurrences start to pile up.  Problems arise in a founder’s mind when rejection becomes more than just a no.  To a rejected founder, an unreturned email from a potential partner becomes more than forgetfulness.  A no from a potential investor becomes a fatal rejection, such as a shove off a large cliff meant to kill an opponent.  A customer discontinuing their service is akin to a tribe shunning you from their tight knit society.

To an outside individual, these small insignificant acts are commonplace and normal during a business day.  But to a founder who is teetering on obscurity and rejection – they can indeed be the straw that breaks the camels back.

By all accounts I am homeless – I find myself sleeping on family/friends couches and spare rooms so I don’t have to deal with rent during this chunk of time.  I have been living on a few dollars per day and being really creative on staying alive.  I have no car or personal transportation, casualty of my decision to be an entrepreneur.  I have strained my family life to a place it has not been before.  I also have strained my financial position to a place it has never been before.

Truth be told, it’s a tough time right now.

But I’ll be alright.  As hard as it has been the last 6 months, I made the decision I was going to live through it.  I have committed to live through the toughest of times so whenever I do get back to normal I will be stronger and more humbled than before.  I decided that if I choose to end it now – to quit on life – they will have won.  All those people who say it’s impossible, snickering cowardly behind a twitter account or tolling comments on blog posts and news articles will have triumphed over us.  That would be the tragedy.

Life is worth more than the ignorant comments from cowardly people.

I remain committed to becoming a successful entrepreneurial story no matter how long it takes, even if it means I need to join another company in the near term.  Why?  Because the world needs more examples of people overcoming hardships.   Also because we don’t need more people driven to suicide purely because they feared what TechCrunch, PandoDaily, The Verge and Business Insider (and the idiotic cowardly commentors) were going to say once it was known they failed.

We’re better than that.

Fail.  Learn.  Live.

How A Biz Dev CEO Is Learning Design And UX On His Own

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Biz dev founders get a bad rap in the startup community.  We are looked down upon by our more technical brethren, brushed off as amateurs and mostly considered non-essential to starting a company.

How do I know?  Because I am one and definitely sense the slightly negative vibes coming from my own community.

I guess they may have a point, besides the fact that someone on the team has to organize the legal formations, talk to investors, man the PR station, create the business and marketing plan (and execute those plans) at some point get customers/users/investors/advisors on board and generally keep the ship pointed in the right direction.  But I digress….

As a non-technical/biz dev founder, I do not possess any of the technical chops engineers see as essential to building a product.  Yet this has not affected me one bit.  Outside of handling all the responsibilities listed above, I noticed myself wanting to be hands on with the products I build from day one.

So if I can’t code, what I am doing?

ui-paradeI am focusing on the user experience and the look and feel of the app, more often referred to as Design and UX.  I tend to have a lot of the ideas about what our products do and how they should function from the end user’s point of view, so that is where I stay when we are building it.  I make sure I keep at least one foot planted in the average-Joe-end-consumer’s-shoes to make sure the final product will make sense and appeal to those people.  (This is due to the fact our target market is consumer oriented and we are building consumer products).  The lesson here is make sure at least someone on the team is entirely focused on how the target market will see and experience the product.

If you are the non-technical founder I feel it is your responsibility to holistically own the product from start to finish.

Most likely you are the CEO, or the leader of the team, and with that responsibility comes knowledge and understanding of all sides of the project.  Knowing you cannot get your hands dirty in code, you need to be on top of other areas of building the app, namely design and user experience.  You will not be laser focused on one thing in the project like front-end or back-end developers, but will be focusing on the entire process and how all areas of the application are coming together from the outside-in.

How does the interface look and feel?  What happens when I tap this button?  Would this action make sense to the average user as opposed to a technical engineer?   Does the interface emote a positive or negative feeling when someone glances at it for the first time?  What about when something goes wrong, what do the error messages say?  What about the emails I receive from the service?  Do they make sense?  Are they human?  Do they come from “your company name” 0r does it say “DO NOT REPLY”?

I have come to realize those questions are not usually asked by highly technical people but the answers greatly affect how users respond to the earliest versions of your product.  The beauty of being a non-technical person is the natural ability to see things in more human and emotional ways, as opposed to highly technical and non-emotional ways.  I am sure you can guess which ones have a greater positive influence on how regular people interact with your apps.

The answers to those questions can also be identified as early as the beginning of the design/development process with wireframes, mock-ups and prototypes.  It turns out, non-technical people with adequate design and UX understanding can greatly enhance the team by owning the wire framing and mock-up stages, opening up the dev team to hack together other areas of the project.

Once you decide to build a product, form a company and get all the initial stuff (listed above) out of the way, the main focus is building and launching the product.  PR, press, customers, investors, and all the other stuff doesn’t matter if you don’t have a world class product.  Suffice it to say you – as the CEO/non-technical cofounder – must orient yourself as the Chief Experience Officer.

Through recent studies, I have started to gain a better understanding regarding design.  It’s not just the colors of your site and the placement of buttons on your app, it’s how the user experiences all aspects of your application.  There’s too many considerations to list here but having a holistic view of what you are building and the quality of experience a user will have is paramount to your app’s success.

So as the non-technical person, you can’t code but you still need to make yourself valuable during the initial stages.  You don’t want the rest of your team  sitting around without you and wondering why are you actually still around and a major shareholder when you aren’t really doing anything productive…

I spend time each day reading articles to gain a better Design perspective, also working through workflows of design features we are focusing on right now.  It’s not perfect stuff but it’s a start.  And it’s actually quite fun.  Below are some of the ways have I been learning Design and UX recently:

52 weeks of UX – This is a year long blog (2010) broken up into 52 sections, each one sent out once a week and covering all aspects of Design and User Experience.    It is a tremendous resource to not only provide a solid understanding of these topics but the more you read the more you start to think like a designer.  (I guess that’s true about anything but I definitely noticed it here).

Hack Design – “An easy to follow design course for hackers who do amazing things.”   Hack Design is also a weekly series of emails sent chock full of design lessons, articles and unique topics.  I would suggest starting from the beginning and making it a habit to do one a day or week.

UI Parade – I stumbled upon UI Parade a while ago and it has really helped me with ideas and perspectives on the appropriate interfaces to use.  They provide a huge list of examples, anything from Nav Bars, to buttons, to drop downs, to sign in forms.  Sometimes it helps to just skim through and get ideas on various looks and feels.  (Tip: pick on, open your favorite design tool and commit to making your own copy of the visual you just picked out.  It’s fun!)

Inspired UI – Here you will find an exhaustive list of all the mobile designs you can imagine.  It’s a great place to go when you are evaluating in the early stages what you want your mobile interface to look like and how it should function.  Trust me, you will definitely be inspired.

Spring Is In The Air And Something New Is Upon Us

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This post is part wind-down announcement and part new product news.

We started Seconds (back then called Order SM) in September 2011 with the goal to experiment around mobile – text ordering at local restaurants.   Our assumption was people would want to simply text “burrito” to their local mexican restaurant and then be able to swing by and grab it without having to wait in line for their food pay with a physical credit card.  Everything would be taken care of in the background on the web.

We learned a ton, but the biggest thing was both merchants and customers really liked being able to just pay for something by sending at text and not mess with all the other communication crap, so we ended up moving towards specifically focusing on a mobile payment system.   We changed the name to Seconds and rolled it out in Jan 201n2.   We saw a dramatic market interest in our unique take on payments, receiving inbound request from almost every continent in the world.   Unfortunately, we weren’t able to secure capital it required to scale our team and out product and so we basically stalled out at the end of the year.

Rather than being a Zombie-startup, I decided it was best we make better use of each members skill set (go get paying gigs) and wind down the operations on Seconds, as a mobile payment startup.  This means we are not taking new customers or putting in new work around the product.  It also means we are retaining the IP and tech, placing it on the shelf for a while as we determine the next phase for our ideas.  As I said to the team when we made this decision, “with each passing day, people will only get more comfortable with mobile payments and we’ll make more and more mobile payments as the months and years go on.  I don’t think this is the end of the line for our ideas, just not the right time and place for Seconds as it is today.”

This was definitely a tough decision and one I probably put off for a few months not wanting to accept the reality of the situation.

For all you who know me personally you will be quite familiar with my challenges as I built Seconds.  It is not easy to be a founder, no matter how “rock star” it may be described nowadays.  It’s lonely.  It’s stressful.  It stretches you in ways you will never imagine.  It mentally challenges you to the point where you actually think you are crazy (and probably could be) yet just normal enough to not be committed.

Frequent readers will recall my many posts on what it’s like to be a founder.  Rollercoaster is an understatement, mainly because when you get off the ride you say to yourself “wow, that was crazy fun” and then simply go back to your normal, unaffected life.  No so when you jump head first into your life as an entrepreneur.  There are scars from this journey that will take years for me to fully recover from.

With that said, we are not finished.  Strangely, I am scarred yet more excited and more prepared for future success.  A backstory will help you understand what is about to transpire from here on out.

About 7 weeks ago the Seconds team took the Super Bowl Weekend and entered Sports Hack Day, a 3-day hackathon to see who can build to coolest thing using sports oriented data.  What a weekend.  It was full of late nights, massive brainstorming and beer infested hacking.  Although we didn’t end up winning any prizes or awards, we emerged from the weekend with a kernel of a cool idea that as sports fans we just wanted to use as we went about our life.

“What if you predict – or make a call – on any stat, play or outcome of a sporting event, and in Twitter fashion simply be able to shoot it out into the social sphere telling the world you think ‘X’ will happen in this game.  If correct, your score would go up.  If wrong, it would go down.  You could then challenge friends with a simple finger swipe on your phone and then go back to watching the game.  And what if we could then determine who knew the most about sports by this running number, similar to a Klout score but for sports.”

We liked the idea so much we decided to continue to work on the concept after the weekend concluded.  I couldn’t get it out of my head and as a sports fan I wanted to use it – like really bad.  I don’t normally play fantasy sports leagues because it feels like such a commitment of time and mental energy.  But if I could simply make a few predictive calls on my mobile as to what I think will happen in the Bulls vs Knicks game tonight, and show my friend I know more about sports than he does, I’m into that.  It’s addictive.

So the 3 of us wondered what it would look like and continued to build it out.  It ended up more of an undertaking than we realized and has required many late nights over the last month.  We are now almost ready to release it to the world and see what happens.  That is all I will be saying until we announce the release very shortly, but needless to say we are interested to see what the world thinks.

As for me, I will be hired here soon and will have new daily responsibilities with another company.  Am I excited to join another company?  Yes.  Do I wish I was full time (and paid) in my own company, not having to work for someone else?  Yes indeed.  Will it just take a little more time until that happens?  For sure.  Will I give up on pursuing my creative side as an entrepreneur?  Hell no.  Do I realize my time building Seconds is pretty much the only reason I will be hired into this next position?  Yep.  It’s not lost on me all this has been worth it no matter the financial outcome or the pain associated.

Spring is in the air; no better time to emerge towards a new direction and pursue an exciting new opportunity.

The Code Of Culture

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Culture is a interesting animal.  It can be the difference between attracting world class talent or settling for sub par standards.  In a word, it’s paramount to a company’s success.

Just as an engineer uses a specific language and types characters into the terminal to create a product, so does the founder as he embeds certain principles and characteristics into an organization to create a unique company culture.

Culture happens if you know it or not.  Be careful founders, you reap what you sow.  Better plug in the right code as early as you can.

Today I stumbled upon the greatest presentation on company culture I have ever seen.  It’s great.  It’s comes from HubSpot, and accomplishes its goal of making me want to work for them.

In fact, it also accomplished its goal of helping me form my perspective on how to cultivate culture within my own organization.

I hope it does for you too.

Why Do We Do Our Best Work For Free?

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Why do we do our best work for free?

The question has been sitting in my mind lately as I contemplate the current entrepreneurial climate in addition to my current situation.  I don’t have a job – I own a company.  As an un-funded startup at the moment we are not paying any salaries to anyone on the team, thus we are working for free.

Let me say it another way: we are working long and hard hours, quite often late into the night or early into the morning, and doing it all for no money at all (well, none right now anyway.)

So why do we do this?

It goes against normal human motivations, which includes the “you give me X per hour for me doing Y for you” mentality.  The thinking seems to go something like, “well, I don’t really want to show up here to do this thing each day but since they are paying me money I guess I will do it.”

That’s the workers mentality.

There’s nothing wrong with it and people who think that way are rightfully doing their duty as a family member, societal member and taxpayer.  And it allows the circle of life to continue around and around…

Fortunately or unfortunately, there is another motivation that drives human behavior and it’s called creativity.  People who are Creatives have a yearning to build and create something from nothing – to see the future before it happens and then go forth and create it out of thin air.  Often times this happens outside of work and does not originate from the “doing X for Y” agreement so the result does not create immediate monetary value for the individual.

Yet they keep doing it.

mad_scientist_at_work_come_on_in_funny_door_sign_ornament-p175291926278339191b7flz_400And more often than not this is the area they excel in their life.  It’s the area they are most excited about and can’t wait to get back to once they are off the clock if they have a day job or other responsibilities.

It’s also the area where they do their best work.

I think they do their best work in these areas because it’s driven by passion, not money. Do you think Thomas Edison clocked his hours in his laboratory?  Or looked at his watch and said to himself “phew… only one more hour and I’m free to go grab a beer with the dudes!”

No way.

The time he devoted to his craft was driven by curiosity, passion and purpose.  He was a scientist first, capitalist second, employee never.  And amazingly, he was paid handsomely for his work in the end because of the quality.  I believe this was due to the fact his motivations were rooted on his standards and not anyone else’s.

This can be said about any artist, musician, entrepreneur or individual who pursues their passion regardless of immediate returns.

I noticed this in my own life recently, as we were diligently working on some new things.  No one is paying me, expecting me to show up at a certain time or demanding the project be done on a certain date.

No one but me.  It’s my standard I am working against.  It’s my passion to work on something challenging, to see it through and learn a hell of a lot in the process.

I noticed this last night as I walked to the coffee shop where I was meeting up with my CTO.  Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything or anywhere else I wanted to be at the moment.  I had to just stop and appreciate the realization we are all not quite so different than Thomas Edison cranking away in his laboratory.

And the craziest thing about it is the fact that when we hold ourself to the highest standard possible, we tend to deliver a high quality finished product.   To do otherwise would be to go against your very self, against your own standards and integrity.

This is when you know you are onto something and in due time you will see the rewards.

If you want to do high quaility work, do it for free.  And when you start to work for free you may eventually be surprised at who will pay you handsomely.

What It’s Like Inside SURF Incubator After A “Wild And Unforgettable” Year

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Screen Shot 2013-02-24 at 6.52.04 PMIt’s 4:45pm on a cold and wet Thursday afternoon in downtown Seattle. Perplexed and a bit agitated as I walk down 2nd Avenue , I find myself rushing back to the office like I’m late for an important meeting. Being February – still cold and rainy in Seattle – it’s not a good day to be trekking back across a PNW city. In fact, it’s blistering cold. You know those days where it’s a wind-whipping-your-face type of evening, making your walk that much worse. A better idea would be to stop and wait inside a warm building for a cab or grab an Uber.

But I don’t care! It’s happy hour at 5pm at SURF and I ain’t missin’ out!

Over the past few weeks, I have been reflecting on my last 12 months and I cannot talk about the year without mentioning SURF. SURF Incubator opened their first full time location in Seattle almost a year ago and Seconds had the opportunity to be a tenant pretty much from the day they officially opened.

I wanted to take a moment and review the last year with SURF Incubator, what they are about and what they are looking to do next, because I believe it’s one of the best things to happen to Seattle’s tech scene in quite a while and you should probably hear it right from the source.

To begin with I must admit I wouldn’t be here today – not only writing this but as a startup – if it weren’t for SURF Incubator and the support of the two individuals running the show, Seaton Gras and Neil Bergquist. If only to speak for the larger group, I feel the support, encouragement and the SURF community is truly a blessing for an early stage startup still trying to find its way.

Seconds could easily be the prototypical startup Seaton loosely refers to when he describes SURF and its story of survival, evolution and filling a need for early stage startups.

According the Seaton:

“For three years, prior to being in the Exchange Building, I ran SURF Incubator at numerous locations – including Regus, friends’ offices, FiberCloud, restaurants, coffee shops and even my condo’s meeting room. It was a wonderful time to experiment with different ‘products’ from consulting and meetings to networking and roundtable discussions.”

“The sad thing was that I did not have enough square footage to offer any long-term working space for my members. Even so, the membership in my two Meetup groups continued to grow and was more than 1,000 strong when I began looking in earnest for a permanent large space to call home and fulfill the bigger vision that I had for SURF Incubator.”

For those who aren’t familiar with SURF, it provides office space for tech-oriented startups so they don’t have to work out of their homes or in random coffee shops around Seattle. They host events, organize meetups, partner with local service providers (legal, recruiting, etc…) and help young fledging startups with the nuances of getting out of the gate on the right foot.

Maui Huge Wave

Realizing SURF needed a permanent home, Seaton secured office space in the Exchange building in Downtown Seattle and officially opened their doors in April 2012. “Now, with the new location at the Exchange Building with more than 15,000 square feet, we have been able to create and/or host some amazing events. Having a permanent location has really helped SURF Incubator do much more. We have also been able to host some wonderful happy hour events as well as some fantastic networking parties and meetups.”

Four years into their journey and almost a year into their permanent residence (and seeing it first hand) I can say Seaton and Neil have pulled it off. I am quite impressed and it’s only the beginning. Walk down to any coffee shop or talk to entrepreneurs at various events and their ears perk up when you mention you are a SURF startup. It is obvious SURF has exceeded expectations of both their tenants as well as the greater Seattle startup community.

But more waves are forming on the horizon.

SURF just announced their biggest deal to date, and in my opinion have just set in motion a chain of events no one inside SURF could have predicted. The newly announced B2B accelerator 9Mile Labs will be taking residence inside SURF and holding their 3-month program in SURF’s office space.

This is great news and you can literally feel the change taking hold inside SURF. It’s like we just dipped down on the rollercoaster and are now speeding up the other side.

According to Gras, 9Mile Labs was attractive for a few major reasons. First, they are unique because they are focusing on Business-to-Business startups and are offering follow-on support. “Their program was of particular interest to me because they offer more than just a 3-month program. Three months, in my opinion, is not enough time to really gain adequate traction and in the B2B space, this is even more of an issue. So, I think it is wonderful that 9Mile Labs is looking at 3-months to Demo Day, followed by 3 months of continued support.”

And although 9Mile Labs is a newly formed accelerator, they have already gathered amazing traction and a strong board of mentors. The long list of high-quality mentors is very impressive and will positively impact 9Mile startups as well as the larger SURF community. “These mentors offer a vast amount of experience and since experience can make all the difference for a startup, it’s a great opportunity for the chosen group of 9 startups,” Gras added.

Very true: with experienced professionals by your side startup founders are much less likely to make fatal mistakes.

The 9Mile Labs deal cannot be understated. For a fairly new incubator space still in its infancy, SURF just further solidified its place in the larger Seattle tech ecosystem. In addition, by partnering with an “accelerator” program SURF now expands the opportunities it can offer early-stage entrepreneurs.

IMG_0008

Every day is unique at SURF. With the diverse companies inviting friends, families, customers and advisers to take a tour, we have always a different mix of people. The companies run the full gambit from medical and educational to gaming and cloud services (and payments!) and any given day you will find yourself in a conversation with someone who can teach you about a new industry or business model.

In addition to local visitors, people from more than 30 countries have stopped by for a tour.

This is especially interesting for Seaton, since he spent so many years traveling around the world. “For me, it is such a pleasure to get to meet these wonderful entrepreneurs, get to learn about their plans and see their vision unfold. And sometimes, I get to ‘lend a hand’ by sharing my own perspective, which was learned the hard way … my own struggles with building my businesses,” said Seaton.

According to Neil Bergquist, the year has been “Wild, it’s nothing what I expected but has become everything I wanted it to be!” He also added it has been a huge learning experience for not only him but also the entire SURF management team.

To say the last 12 months have been wild is an understatement. My take is it’s quite possibly the best place to plant yourself as an early-stage founder in Seattle looking to soak up startup knowledge and wisdom. You could meet possible cofounders like I did, engage in numerous happy hours and gatherings, learn from various service professionals and continuously meet interesting people. All those are important, especially when you are just getting out of the gate.

“During the last 12-months, we have held about 200 events. Topics covered included two main areas: Business Development and Programming. For the business development, we had professionals present detailed informative sessions on marketing, corporate formation, intellectual property, employment issues, graphic art, go-to-market strategy and much more. For the Programming side, we held meetings where programming languages were discussed and demonstrated. For example, Ruby on Rails, PHP, MySql, Scala, Android, HTML5, XCode and Windows8.”

So what’s next for SURF?

Neil mentioned expansion is on the horizon but the need to operationalize (which comes with growth) is paramount. They will soon be adding a complex educational program for members – both in programming and business development. Seaton strongly believes programmers need to constantly learn about the new features of their particular programming language and hopes the education can be supported by a grant.  “These languages are very dynamic with new features added almost every day. Without vigilant study, a programmer may actually go backwards and may ultimately ship an obsolete project. I know this … because it has happened to me.”

He’s totally right. No matter how seasoned an entrepreneur may be there is always a need to learn the latest perspectives. For example, Twitter and other social media tools have forever changed the way businesses promote their products, services and even their existence. We all, regardless of age or experience, need continual education on how to leverage the latest technical advancements.

I can tell you 12 months ago I had no idea I would be sitting here thanking these two individuals for not only opening their doors for me and my team but changing the Seattle startup landscape in the process. It’s amazing what they have accomplished in such a short period of time and I can only imagine what this next year will bring.

I know one thing for sure – those typical “two guys in a coffee shop”, even though they are working dutifully, are definitely making a mistake.

Blood + Sweat + Tears + Code + Polish + Sales + Luck = Startup

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Startups are tough…..  Here’s a simple equation to get you headed in the right direction.

Blood + Sweat + Tears + Code + Polish + Sales + Luck = Startup

BloodSweatTears_02

Blood – Like an initiation to a gang, founders basically cut their hand and make their pledge to build a successful company.  No Blood, No Commitment.

Sweat – A massive work ethic and a JFDI attitude  will be required to break down all barriers and knock down all doors along the way.  Better bring your gloves, water bottle and a sweat towel.

Tears – You will feel pain.  You will cry.  It’s ok.  A better way to think about it is if you haven’t cried because of your startup experience you are on the road to nowhere.  Comfort doesn’t equal success.

Code – Something needs to be built and someone needs to code it.  Piecing together other services or just pulling API’s is not defensible long term.  Figure out what you – and only you – can create and then protect the IP.  Once you build the secret sauce you can outsource all other technical needs of the product.

Polish – Design is quickly becoming the great differentiator between the good, the bad and the ugly of technology.  User experience, or how the end user interfaces and understands your product, should be your number one focus.  If a user doesn’t enjoy using your product why should they tell their friend to use it?

Sales -Plain and simple, customers pay the bills.  A startup’s need for sales and marketing talent is still undervalued in today’s technical heavy Silicon Valley.  Minus a large investment, your startup will wither on the vine if no revenue is ever generated.  And if VC’s ever do invest they will want to see revenues, so either way sales and marketing are a core function of startup success.

Luck – Perhaps the most important of all is luck, which unfortunately is out of the hands of the founders.   But the saying goes “you make your own luck” so being in the right place, at the right time, in the right market, talking to the right people and releasing the right product all can be influenced by the founders.  The more chances you take the more lucky you get so get out there and get discovered.

Pretty simple stuff.

Should He Stay In Grad School Or Start His Own Company?

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Below is my response to a recent email I received from a follower asking some very important questions as he ponders his own entrepreneurial journey.   While I was responding to him it occurred to me you too might be grinding over the same issues.  So here’s my answers to his questions.

His questions are in bold.

I am curious if you are having the same thoughts and if you agree with my positions.

=====

Hey ______,

Great to meet you and thanks for reaching out with your questions. Glad you are a fan of Seconds!  First off I commend you for considering a direction as a founder. It’s one of the most exciting experiences of your life, but also will probably be the most scary and challenging. Just know I wouldn’t second guess myself for the world!

1. I’m toying with the idea of quitting grad-school and going full-time on my 4 month old startup..what is your philosophy on the value of education in school vs education via building a business?

If you are serious about your startup, quit school now. In my opinion, grad school will always be there – but your window of opportunity in tech/business will not always be there. Business climates change, technology moves forward, your solution (the idea) will probably not be applicable in its current state a few years from now so if you see something right now – go for it. You will also learn a hell of a lot more about the real world and how to live a successful life when you fully commit to building your startup. The ability to build a product, how to evaluate the market, figure out your product positioning, learning the ins and outs of VC’s and raising capital to fund your business, talking with larger companies when doing business development deals, hiring, firing, leading a team of people, conflict management, doing reviews and salary negotiations, budgeting, cap table/equity allocations, etc…

Do you think grad school will actually give you those experiences in a hards on, real life environment?

2. Do you think it’s possible to build a meaningful business in this modern age of automation without hiring anyone?

It is possible to build a profitable, cash flow business without hiring anyone. If you are technical and can build out the tech side of things, than yes you might be able to go at it alone. And this is probably what you should do until you can affordably bring on others to help you.

In terms of meaningful business and company, I would have to say it will require others to fill in the gaps and help you create the right culture for your company. In my opinion, meaning comes from purpose, passion and culture. It’s the “why” of the organization. “why does your company exist?” is the question you will need to answer. Even in today’s high-tech automated world, there are things only us humans can do, and do well. I would suggest finding others to help you fill those gaps.

Plus, life is more fulfilling when you have others there to experience it with.

3. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done as an entrepreneur?

Ironically, the hardest thing I have done as an entrepreneur is quit my job and going out on my own to build a sustainable company. It’s like being a trapeze artist without the safety net, and it can be really scary. Truth be told, Seconds is not all the way there yet and I am still fighting in the trenches of entrepreneurship, trying to build my company as well as survive through life. It’s a full contact sport. You have to be ready to do more than you ever thought you could with less money than you ever thought was possible and with it taking longer than you ever thought it would.

But to me, that is the most fulfilling aspect of being a founder. You get to overcome insurmountable odds and do things most people are too afraid to do. You get to live your own “Rudy” story. I don’t look at entrepreneurship as a way to get rich or famous, which happens from time to time. I look at it as a duty to move our society forward; a positive contribution to our world. And in the end, that is one of the most rewarding feelings anyone can be given.

Hope that helps!

Seconds Is The Fastest Mobile Payment Method Involving Dwolla Or A Credit Card

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As the name suggests, Seconds is the fastest way to make a mobile payment using either Dwolla (digital cash from bank account) or a credit card.

If you are familiar with Seconds you may already know you a transaction can be completed by simply texting the merchant phone number with a keyword (that they previously set up) or any dollar amount value you wish.  With an account already created and payment credential already in place, the transaction instantly takes place securely in the cloud and you are done!

No text boxes to mess with, pinching and zooming or other hassles.

It’s that easy.  Watch this video to see just how easy Seconds payments are…

If you are walking through the mobile web experience for the first time with no previous Seconds account, you will see below we’ve made it a piece of cake to complete.

Click here if you are interested in accepting payments in Seconds >

Go to getseconds.com

payment1

Find the merchant.

payment2

Input the amount.

payment3

Complete payment with Dwolla.

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Or complete payment with credit card.

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It’s that easy.

Click here if you are interested in accepting payments in Seconds >

Watch How Easy It Is To Give In Support Of Hurricane Sandy Recovery Efforts

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Here’s a video showing how easy it is to participate in GIVENATION and use Seconds to give to IRD in support of Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts.  Although he’s paying rent and booking a hotel room, your payment experience will be just the same.

It actually takes longer and it’s more difficult to stand in line and order a latte at Starbucks.  Today, hold the latte and give to those who need it.

Text dollar amount to 202-999-3736

or

go to getseconds.com/givenation

http://youtu.be/WEOW871bHdE

Seconds Announces GIVENATION, A Nationwide Challenge For Sandy Relief

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Today, Seconds is excited to announce GIVENATION, a nationwide competition during the holiday season challenging you and your state to give whatever you can to help with the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.

We thought it would be encouraging to establish a friendly competition between states to determine “the most giving state” based on amount of dollars contributed using Seconds during this year’s holiday season.

Seconds is also excited to announce a partnership with International Relief and Development (IRD) on the nationwide campaign to raise funds for Hurricane Sandy relief.

As families shop for gifts during this holiday season, it is important to remember that our neighbors in New Jersey and New York are still in need. GIVENATION encourages people to give what they can. Even $5 or $10 can help rebuild a home or provide a winter coat or blanket for someone in need. Imagine what millions of Americans can accomplish by giving up one holiday latte and gifting that amount to help others.

The funds collected through this challenge go directly to IRD, a global non-profit that has distributed $3.5 billion toward disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, and development programs since 1998. Funds raised for Sandy relief will support IRD’s immediate disaster recovery efforts. IRD is working in association with FEMA, the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD), and several local organizations to supply water, blankets, winter coats and clothes, cleaning supplies, hygiene kits, and other items to individuals in New Jersey and New York. This is just the first step toward a long-term recovery and rebuilding plan for the region.

To donate—and represent your state’s support for Sandy relief—go to getseconds.com/givenation, where you can make a donation in any amount you wish. You can also text your donation dollar amount to the phone number (202) 999-3736. For example, texting “5” will instantly send back a link where you can quickly complete a $5 payment using a credit card or bank account.

Seconds will be mapping the competition results in real-time starting November 3 and continuing through December 31. Visit IRD’s Facebook page at facebook.com/irdvoices to download and share the “I Gave” and “Did You Give?” images. And learn more about the GIVENATION campaign at getseconds.com/givenation.

For more information on IRD, visit www.ird.org, and visit the IRD Voices blog to read first-hand accounts from IRD staff in the field.

Full press release below image:

Seconds and IRD Launch GIVENATION, A Holiday Challenge For Sandy Relief

Which state will give the most to help the recovery efforts of Hurricane Sandy?

SEATTLE, WA – November 16th, 2012 – Seconds, the company enabling quick payments using mobile devices, is announcing GIVENATION, a holiday campaign encouraging the nation to get further involved with the Sandy recovery effort.

Hurricane Sandy recently caused billions of dollars in damage, destroying cities and displacing millions of people. People may have already given via The American Red Cross or other relief campaigns but there are still a lot of people who are in need and Seconds believes much more can be done.

Today, Seconds is announcing GIVENATION, a nationwide competition during the holiday season challenging you and your state to give whatever you can to help with the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort. “We thought it would be encouraging to establish a friendly competition between states to determine “the most giving state” based on amount of dollars contributed using Seconds during this year’s holiday season,” says Seconds CEO Nick Hughes.

So as people are buying toys, clothes, electronics and other items for family and friends this holiday season, they are urged to not forget about a nation in need. People are encouraged to give what they can – even $5 or $10 – and help rebuild their country. Imagine what millions of Americans can accomplish by simply giving up one holiday latte and gifting that amount to help others in need.

The funds collected go directly to International Relief and Development (IRD.org) a global non- profit which has distributed $3.5 billion towards disaster relief, and will be put towards immediate disaster recovery efforts. IRD is working in association with FEMA to supply water, blankets, winter coats and clothes, cleaning supplies, hygiene kits, and diapers in addition to other important recovery efforts.

To donate, go to at http://getseconds.com/givenation where you will see the map and a donation box to enter any amount you wish. Mobile users can also simply text a numeric dollar amount to the phone number (202) 999-3736. For example, texting “5” will instantly send back a link to quickly complete a $5 payment using a credit card or bank account via payment partner Dwolla.

“While we hope and pray for the full recovery of those affected by Hurricane Sandy, we are excited to partner with IRD in encouraging the entire nation to give any amount they can during the holiday season to help with the disaster recovery,” says Hughes.

Seconds will be mapping the competition results in real-time starting Nov. 16th and proceeding through Dec 31st, 2012.

About Seconds

Seconds enables any device holder to send or accept payments, whether through the web, mobile web or a quick text message. They believe the payment experience should be as quick, simple and intuitive as sending a text message. Founded during the fall of 2011 in Seattle, the original idea was to enhance mobile ordering and commerce for small local businesses. After pilot tests proved both merchants and customers just want the payment experience to be completed as fast and easy as possible, they decided to only focus on the mobile payment experience. They have a vision of any individual being able to interact and transact with any merchant in the world, holding any device they wish. Currently they hold office space in the recently opened SURF Incubator in downtown Seattle. 

A Mobile First Mentality

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Fred Wilson has written extensively on designing for mobile first, desktop second.  I couldn’t agree more and that is exactly what we are doing at Seconds.

When looking at our initial user interface design of both the mobile view and the web view, one will see quite a few similarities.  This is not by accident, this is because we start with the mobile view first.  We first ask ourselves which mode most people will use our service, mobile or desktop? Given the fact Seconds is a payments platform oriented around mobile devices, mobile takes highest priority.

Also, the fact that more smartphones are shipping than feature phones and the estimation by 2017 is the majority of web traffic will come from mobile, we feel designing for mobile first is a safe bet.

Finally, it’s such a pain to view a website on a mobile device only to have to pinch and zoom to even read the content and click the desired button.  We feel it’s better to design for the smallest screen and allow the larger screens to pull the content/visuals out.  It’s the reverse perspective of the pinch and zoom experience you mostly see today.

So, if take a look at our desktop web presence you will see pretty much the same information and visuals, just aligned slightly differently since there’s quite a bit more real estate.

How did we do this?  Did we use a different service to create a “mobile optimized website” to augment our desktop website?  One with drop down menus and a very different look and feel to it?  Nope.  I don’t believe this is the right approach.   Unfortunately, farming out your mobile experience to a third party white-labeled service removes your branding and familiarity of your product.   (For example, view this blog article on a mobile device vs the web and you will see what I mean.)  You can refer to this mentality as desktop first, mobile second because you are not allowing the mobile device constraints drive overall user interface design.

Without sounding too redundant, why would you focus on desktop first when as a society we are clearly spending more and more time on mobile devices?

So how do we go about it?  As stated above, we have a mobile first mentality.  We design all Seconds experiences mobile first and then scale up to desktop.  You can see this in play when you access Seconds on a desktop browser.  (Try resizing your browser and shrink the width of the page.  It’s responsive.)  If anything, one might initially feel there is something lacking in the desktop view.  You might think maybe there’s not enough imagery or things to look at… yet is that really the reason to go to Seconds?

You know what, we don’t care.  We know people aren’t coming to Seconds to view pictures, to browse friends’ profiles or to see anything else.  What we care about is that the primary functions of the system, which is to complete a transaction as quickly as possible.  This is paramount.  We measure user experience in mere clicks and finger swipes and most times the more visually stimulating the design, the more clicks/swipes to complete the desired experience.  Those extra steps, in the end, often result in a lost transaction.  Just ask PayPal.

Our mobile first mentality allows the design and UI constraints of the smaller mobile screen to aide us in development of Seconds.  Why?  They help us sift out all the unnecessary and focus on the essentials.

Brevity is always refreshing.  Clean and clear is more compelling than busy and confusing.  Adding things when it seems right is always easier than trying to determine what to remove from the 100 options that could be the problem.

What Is GIVENATION? Would You Give A #@$%?

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What is GIVENATION?

Hurricane Sandy recently caused billions of dollars in damage, destroying cities and displacing millions of people. What if GIVENATION was a holiday challenge to give whatever you can, helping with the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort?

 

What if we established a friendly competition between states to determine “the most giving state” based on amount of dollars contributed during this year’s holiday season?

What if Seconds just partnered with one of the largest global non-profits focusing on disaster relief around the world?

What if, as you are buying toys, clothes, electronics and other items as presents for family and friends this holiday,  you didn’t forget to give a gift to a nation in need?

What if we announce something big this Friday, November 16th 2012?

What if GIVENATION was real?  Would you give?

 

Ask The Right Question At The Right Time

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There are certain moments, typically in business development conversations, when you sense the entire future of your company is resting on that exact moment in time.  You realize what you say next will either result in an affirmative commitment to your company or a “thanks but no thanks” response.

I just had one of those and boy and I glad I knew it was happening.

The conversation was with a self-identified skeptic for which they were asking why they should consider working with Seconds.  This individual was very cordial and nice, yet opened the conversation with an obvious “you’re behind the 8-ball” tone.  It was up to me to unravel where they were coming from, identify where we fill the gaps and bring them to a point where they wanted to work with us.

I learned (or maybe realized) a few lessons as we were working our way through the conversation towards an agreement.

1.  No is easier than yes

People are naturally programmed to say no.  You must work towards the yes, which requires taking that person on a journey through why they are better off with your solution than not.  Saying yes requires one to actually commit to something.  Saying no requires no commitment, thus it is the easier option.  Remember, most people are commitment phobes and would rather say no than have to stick to a commitment.

2.  Conversations turn with one question

As we worked through our conversation and they received answers to all their questions, it became apparent to me I needed to take control of the conversation if I was going to get a satisfactory outcome.  At one point they mentioned they were already working with a “somewhat similar” company, and asked why they should consider working with Seconds?  My response… “how’s that working out?” and then waited for the answer.  I followed up with “are they rolling out nationwide with your organization being the only organization involved, meaning your organization will be highlighted and singled out?”

At that moment, the conversation changed.  It became clear there was no logical reason for this person to say no and we started down a very positive brainstorm on how to make our partnership even better.

3.  People need to be led

What this really comes down to is the fact that most people just need to be led to a decision.  Since people are programmed to say no – even when yes is the better answer – they need to be led to understand why yes is the better answer.  This takes courage for sure, because going out on a limb and calling someone out can be risky, they might get upset and you might even lose the opportunity.  Yet, it may be the only way you earn a new customer or distribution partnership.

You can learn a lot from one conversation, next time pay attention to how you are handling the questions you are being asked.  You might just help them help you.