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Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

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Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#21

Post by nona »

mbesto wrote: post #16
randall wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Subsequently many of the points won't sit well with the techie crowd." I'm not sure what you mean? Why wouldn't battle-tested well-worn advice work with the techie crowd? And who is the techie crowd? Programmers? Tech lovers? I'm just confused by your comment.

Good point. I should have explained. Things like: "Stop writing code" "Don't worry about engineering" "It's a marathon" Won't sit well with technical people (mainly programmers, CTO co-founder, etc)

As a tech co-founder, I thought this deck was spot on. Maybe it's because I've been through that experience that I don't feel threatened at all byt hat slide.

"Stop writing code/did you talk to your customers yet?" - he's so right. I've had to trash a lot of iterations of our code because we didn't heed (or grok) this advice.

I still think code is very important. But coding the best thing ever and it not being used is a nearly 100% waste of effort.

I can imagine that developers who haven't gone through such an experience might feel different, though.

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#22

Post by kareemm »

jroseattle wrote: post #11

A friend of mine manages a TechStars outpost, and many of these slides reflect a common point driven into the TechStars community: focus on users. It's a great point as well. The only point I might take issue with would be the talk-to-customers-before-you-write-code scenario. It depends on the circumstance, but it's been my experience that sometimes you need write some code in order to talk to customers. In our parti…

> In our particular market, we won't get in the door without having something to put in front of a customer, simply as a talking point to start a conversation.

Would wireframes not work? In my experience, telling a story about how your product solves a potential customer's problem with wireframes will get you a lot of conversations, IF the problem you're proposing to solve is important enough.

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#23

Post by kriro »

Maybe I'm naive but I have to wonder how you can raise a decent clip of angel money and none of the angels told you any of this. Seems like you should add "get angles that are interested in the business and can provide more than just money"

Either way, nice read. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned :)

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#24

Post by codegeek »

jmtai wrote: post #9

Question: "So why didn't anyone tell me?" Answer: "Because it wouldn't have mattered." Before I made the plunge and decided to form a startup, I read everything I possibly could about the process... what to do, what not to do, etc. I knew all the mistakes first-time founders make, and I was pretty sure I'd be able to recognize the issues and avoid making any of the really big ones. I didn't expect to get it all right…

"Because it wouldn't have mattered."

This. Kinda like marriage and relationships. No matter what your married friends/family tell you, you cannot plan it. You have to go through your own set of experiences, mistakes, ups and downs etc. etc. It is nice for someone to get advice BUT I would rather advice "You will go through your own shit. Remember there is no magic mantra and just be ready for the journey. Commitment is the key"

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#25

Post by ikonst »

jmtai wrote: post #9

Question: "So why didn't anyone tell me?" Answer: "Because it wouldn't have mattered." Before I made the plunge and decided to form a startup, I read everything I possibly could about the process... what to do, what not to do, etc. I knew all the mistakes first-time founders make, and I was pretty sure I'd be able to recognize the issues and avoid making any of the really big ones. I didn't expect to get it all right…

It's been said that stupid people learn from their own mistakes and smart people learn from others' mistakes.

However, this is untrue. Smart people learn from their own mistakes, and stupid people never learn.

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#26

Post by jroseattle »

kareemm wrote: post #22
jroseattle wrote: post #11

A friend of mine manages a TechStars outpost, and many of these slides reflect a common point driven into the TechStars community: focus on users. It's a great point as well. The only point I might take issue with would be the talk-to-customers-before-you-write-code scenario. It depends on the circumstance, but it's been my experience that sometimes you need write some code in order to talk to customers. In our parti…

> In our particular market, we won't get in the door without having something to put in front of a customer, simply as a talking point to start a conversation. Would wireframes not work? In my experience, telling a story about how your product solves a potential customer's problem with wireframes will get you a lot of conversations, IF the problem you're proposing to solve is important enough.

That's a practical answer and good suggestion. For us, wireframes don't quite work -- we need a little interactivity (customer base, plus existing market entrants, require something...mostly for appearance of progress.)

But yes, I can think of plenty of scenarios where wireframes would do the job.

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#27

Post by jchonphoenix »

kriro wrote: post #23

Maybe I'm naive but I have to wonder how you can raise a decent clip of angel money and none of the angels told you any of this. Seems like you should add "get angles that are interested in the business and can provide more than just money" Either way, nice read. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned :)

Have you done it before? Just curious what you're experience was. I've always found that the angel who's willing to put in a lot of time (not just at the inflection points a la every angel group) is really hard to find.

A good metric on this is the number of investments they've made. More than 4 and you're probably not getting any time.

Re: Things about being a founder I wish I knew years ago

#30

Post by Yoni1 »

yesimahuman wrote: post #20
zeroami wrote: post #12

I can't agree with the "investment != success" slide. It's easy to get caught up with all the things you read in the media about Y company raising X amount. Soon, you start to use that a success metric. This can lead to a lot of tension, frustration, aggravation, and self-doubt if you never raise that round.

From what I can tell, you guys are agreeing on that point.

Yeah, I was wondering whether he meant to write "I can't agree more".
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