All posts tagged startups

Take Advantage

by Jason on November 12, 2012 in General with 2 Comments

Michael Phelps Olympics 2008

Michael Phelps recognized and took his advantages. Shouldn’t you?

At Startup School 2012, Jessica Livingston, a partner at Y Combinator, gave a talk on the challenges that founders face. It’s worth reading for anyone interested in or knows someone interested in early stage startups – you can find the full text here.

In the discussion of the talk on Hacker News, there was a rather spiteful comment that suggested Jessica’s success with her book Founders at Work, which helped establish her expertise in startups, was due in large part to her personal relationship to Paul Graham (then a successful entrepreneur featured in the book who eventually became her husband)

The comment was false, rude and was down voted to oblivion as it should have been, but there’s a dangerous suggestion contained in it that I want to address.

The World is Not Fair

Most people believe in the “just world” hypothesis, meaning that people get what they deserve and smart, hardworking and capable people are rewarded for their efforts. In the United States, and especially in technology, this is often the case. While this is a good belief to hold, it can also lead to sniping and cries of “not fair” when people see others move ahead of them for reasons that might feel “non meritocratic”.

The fact is that resources and talent are NOT equally distributed. People born into middle class families in the United States have a incredible social, educational and financial advantage over people born into impoverished families in Sub-Saharan Africa and have way more upwards mobility to boot.

Where you are born and what family you are born to are two factors that have nothing to do with merit, and everything to do with luck. And yet it makes such a big difference. Remember that the next time you complain about someone’s “unfair” advantage.

So what should you do instead of complaining?

Develop and Leverage Your Advantages

No matter who you are, you posses certain qualities and have access to certain resources that make you better positioned to succeed in certain fields than other people. Maybe you have a knack for a good turn of phrase. Maybe your father is well connected in an industry you’re interested in. Maybe you find that people you just met tend to trust you. Maybe you are willing to concentrate for hours to solve complex problems.

These strengths are your competitive advantage. Should you ignore them in the name of “fairness” and only pursue activities where you are more evenly matched against other people? It’d be foolhardy to ignore these advantages.

Instead, you should leverage the hell out of them.

Successful People Win Because They Leverage Their Advantages

Michael Phelps’s lanky body and double jointed ankles made him a record-breaking gold medal winning Olympic swimmer. But trust me, that body would have made him terrible gymnast.
JK Rowling’s introverted nature and whimsical creativity would have made her a poor candidate for Secretary of State. Similarly, Hillary Clinton probably would have had far less impact on society as a children’s author.
Warren Buffett is one of the wealthiest people on the planet and yet he admits he’s part of the “lucky sperm club” and that his analytical abilities would be worth nothing if he was dropped in the middle of Africa.

Know Thyself

This is why I think self-knowledge is so important. Understanding and leveraging your strengths/weaknesses and the resources you have at your disposal allows you to maximize your own effectiveness and impact.

Note: leveraging your advantages does not mean being unethical. I am by no means advocating lying, stealing and cheating – playing by the rules is the only way to go. But I’d bet good money that you’re not fully leveraging the advantages you do have at your disposal.

Paul Graham boils being a good founder down to two words: relentlessly resourceful. There is no doubt that people who are relentlessly resourceful make the most out of every advantage they have.

So don’t waste any time complaining about other people’s accomplishments, and focus on creating your own.

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

Crafting a Mobile App: a UX Design Case Study for Startups

by Jason on October 3, 2012 in Essays with 5 Comments

GUEST POST: Suelyn Yu is an interaction designer at frog (see her portfolio) and worked closely with the team at Ridejoy to help craft our iPhone application. I feel very lucky to have worked with such a kick ass designer and I think this case study should prove useful for any startup that’s looking to build a mobile app. Now, on to Suelyn!)
- Jason

[portfolio_slideshow]

BACKGROUND

Do you remember the last time you were traveling on the highway? I do. There are usually countless cars all around me, and yet most of them are full of empty seats. I often wonder to myself, “Why isn’t there a way for people headed in the same direction to travel together?” One company, Ridejoy, aims to solve this problem by helping people share rides anywhere, anytime.

As an interaction designer at Frog, I’ve designed to encourage people toward pro-social, offline actions. When Ridejoy was preparing to build an iPhone app, Kalvin, one of the co-founders, reached out to me for help. I worked with the Ridejoy co-founders; Christine Yen, who built the app; and Seth Warrick, who created the brand and visual design.

It just launched in the US App Store.

IPHONE DESIGN PROBLEMS

After running Ridejoy.com for several months, the team learned a great deal about their current user base. In developing an iPhone app, we wanted to do far more than just “port” the site over to mobile – but instead, craft a new experience.

We identified 3 key challenges:

How we get drivers and passengers to post more rides?
How do we speed up the process of making driver and passenger matches?
How should Ridejoy facilitate “arrangements” between drivers and passengers?

CHALLENGE 1: ENCOURAGING POSTING

For a rideshare service to be successful, it needs to be able to draw from a large pool of rides when matching up passengers and drivers. We know that many people are driving by themselves or are looking for an affordable ride, but if they don’t post their travel plans on Ridejoy, there is no way for these people to get matched up. Continue reading →

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

How Derek Flanzraich Got Six Pack Abs AND Grew Greatist to 1M Monthly Uniques in <1 Year

by Jason on September 13, 2012 in Kick Ass Interview with 4 Comments

Derek Flanzraich is a good friend – we started off as blogging collaborators, writing about how to land startup jobs out of college, and now have followed parallel paths into entrepreneurship. Derek’s NYC-based startup, Greatist, is the fastest growth health and fitness site on the planet, with over 1 million (count ‘em) uniques a month less than a year after launch.

In this honest conversation we had in late August 2012, he shares the hardest thing about doing a startup, how to really get six pack abs, the most important quality to creating sharable content and much more. Stay tuned at the end for a very special opportunity you won’t want to miss.

Jason = Grey background Derek = White background

Let’s start from the top: what brings you into SF?

I’m here for the Health Innovation Summit hosted by Rock Health. We’re demoing Greatist and honestly it’s a chance to meet new folks and catch up with people. I haven’t been to SF in a while to see the city I like so much. We’ll set up a booth and just chat people up – any chance I can reach a relevant audience with Greatist, I jump at it. Rock Health is well respected as an seed accelerator for digital health startups. We’re good friends with many of the companies that have gone through the program and we also did an infographic on how The Future of Health is Your Smartphone.

Now, I know you recently went on an adventure to get six pack abs and wrote about it on Greatist as a series called Six Pack Abs in Six Weeks: The #Absperiment. Will you A) show me your abs now and B) summarize what you learned from the experience?

You are not the first person to ask this question [about my abs]. They are gone. It took me 6 weeks to get them, 1.5 weeks to lose them.

Bummer.

And that was a choice. I mean I couldn’t stop eating for a week after so maybe it was something in between … but anyway, the ultimate takeaway was that you can get six pack abs but the sacrifice that you have to make to accomplish that goal in a short period of time may not be worth it and may not be lasting. I came to the conclusion that I don’t necessarily want six pack abs, I just want to be healthy, happy and fit.

One other thing I realized was that I usually eat a lot more than I need to. [During the #absperiment] I basically cut my calories in half and honestly wasn’t that hungry. Now, I no longer order, for instance, double meat at Chipotle, because I realize I’m going to be full anyway.

For readers who want details how Derek did it, you can scroll to the bottom (I’m also throwing in a free picture of “Six Pack Derek”. Now personal experiments aside, what kind of content do you think really stands out? What are the most popular articles to read on Greatist?

The most popular articles are really comprehensive, exhaustive lists that people can refer back to. We have some amazing user engagements for a content site. A lot of that is because we have pages that people bookmark and come back to. Continue reading →

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

How Coffee Meetings Power Silicon Valley

by Jason on August 1, 2012 in Essays with 31 Comments

Photo Credit: Diego Sevilla Ruiz via Compfight

I just had a coffee meeting with a friend in San Francisco today.

Well, he’s not quite a friend, more like a guy I find smart and interesting, who I’d like to stay connected to. We first met when he was working at Twitter and applied to work at Ridejoy. While we mutually decided it wasn’t a good fit, he’s since left Twitter and started freelancing at some cool companies.

In our meeting we talked about how Ridejoy was doing, the value of teaching a Skillshare class, the power of long form writing and the mechanics of freelancing as a marketing/social media person. We finished the meeting without any particular takeaways, but I’m certain that deepening our relationship will pay off greatly in the long term (many times the value of $6 + 1 hour + 3 weeks of scheduling)

I have these kinds of coffee meetings 5-10 times a month and I think it’s one of the magical things about Silicon Valley.

These meetings are an opportunity to meet new people, build existing relationships, get advice, learn insider news/gossip, recruit new members and more. While blogs, forums, social media, phone calls / Skype and meetups can also achieve these things, they are not a replacement for the in-person, one-on-one, casual coffee meeting.

It’s one of the big reasons why startups should really consider moving to Silicon Valley – many of the smartest/ most influential people are here, and you’re going to build the strongest and most worthwhile relationships with them if you can connect in person.

Preferably over coffee.

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

The Story of How a Business Guy Earned the Opportunity to Co-Found a Tech Startup

by Jason on July 18, 2012 in Essays with 10 Comments

I recently heard the story of how my friend met his cofounder and had to share it. I think there are some great lessons here for business folks looking to team up with smart technical people. I changed the names and am vague about certain details because they don’t really need the attention from this story, but it’s all true.

Chris’s First Startup

I met Chris at Stanford: really smart guy who studied CS and has a great eye for design. He cofounded a company right out of college, a collaborative editing/viewing tool, raised a round of funding, grew the team to six and eventually sold it for a small sum to a much larger technology-for-enterprise firm.

Chris stayed on post-acquisition, working on various projects for his new employer. While heading up a mobile app project, he ran into an challenge and can’t find a good solution for it in the marketplace. He decided to start working on a home-baked solution on nights and weekends as it was somewhat tangential to his day job, but wisely kept his employer in the loop about his efforts*. The entrepreneurial side of him started to wonder if there might be more firms out there with the same problem.

Meeting the Business Guy

Chris began working on it as a nights and weekends project, letting his firm know he was making this for the company, but that he also saw greater potential for it. One day, at a tech meet up event, Chris strikes up a conversation with a guy named Mike. Mike is a few years older than Chris and has been a part of the tech scene for some time, having most notably hacked on a consumer web product that got strong traction in the early-to-mid 2000′s.

However, these days Mike spends his time blogging, advising startups and angel investing. He’s turned into a “business guy”. Mike is intrigued by Chris’s side project and tells him:

“That’s a great idea. But you gotta stop calling it a side project, because it’s clearly a startup idea. Listen, I’d like to be involved. I think I could really help you out.”

Chris rolls his eyes. Having sold his last company, he doesn’t really need money – there are lots of investor who want to back a successful entrepreneur with a new idea. What does Mike have to offer? He has been out of the game technically for a few years and his experience is in consumer web, not enterprise, which is what this new idea would be for.

“Sure, whatever,” Chris replies, “I’ll let you know if I take it further.”

Hustling Pays Off

Some time passes and Chris has nearly forgotten about the whole interaction. Then, out of the blue, he gets a phone call:

“Hey it’s Mike.”

Oh boy, now what?

“Listen, I was serious about helping out. Over the last two weeks, I’ve called over 40 companies and pitched your product. I’ve gotten 30 who are willing to integrate with your service and try it out.”

Whoa. Now we’re talking.

I’ll skip ahead.

After meeting up, talking quite a bit more and working together, Chris and Mike eventually decide to join forces and co-found a new startup together. They raised a seed round and then a series less than 6 months later, have gotten tons of press and most importantly, has been a hit in the mobile development industry, with 100′s of customers ranging from one-man dev shops to publicly traded companies.

Lessons Learned

It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from a story, but every data point is worth something. Here are two take aways:

You gotta be legit. Mike was already an impressive guy, with money, connections, professional clout and a technical background. But being legit wasn’t enough.
You gotta overdeliver. Mike didn’t complain about how Chris didn’t “appreciate the value he brought to the table”. He went out and proved that he could bring in business for the company. Getting a hold of the right person at 40 companies in a few weeks and actually convincing ~30 of them to say yes on a cold call, without a demo or even screenshots, is very hard.

If you’re a non-technical guy looking to co-found a startup, realize that you have far less leverage than whoever you choose to work with for your technical co-founder. You have to prove your worth both from the resources you have access to, the skills you can bring to bear on the project, and your relentless resourcefulness for getting sh*t done.

Do you have a story about co-founders meeting that you’d like to share? Leave it in the comments!

Photo Credit - stuck in customs

FOOTNOTES

*the company, to their credit, was pretty open and happy about Chris’s side project efforts

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

All posts tagged startups