2012 February

Ideas don’t make you an entrepreneur. Building it does.

Ideas don't make you an entrepreneur. Building it does.

I’ve heard quite a few people tell me that they have the ‘greatest idea ever’ for a product or a startup. Even at last night’s SproutUp Toronto meetup, people came up to Kurt, Mark and me (3/4 of the Lesson Sensei team) with nothing but an idea.

The ironic thing is that former Digg Creative Director and Milk co-founder Daniel Burka at February SproutUp Toronto said that “ideas are cheap. Building is hard.“ I agree with him. Ideas are a dime in a dozen. Everyone has ideas. I have 4 to 5 possible startup ideas in my head right now. If you’re reading this, chances are that you have an idea yourself. But, what sets people apart from the crowd are those that actually pursue to build their ideas!

Gather a team of builders

Daniel Burka, former Digg Creative Director and Milk co-founder, presented a great talk at last night's SproutUp Toronto

So you have a great idea. How do you go about building it? Daniel suggest you build it yourself or find friends who can build it. But, Burka doesn’t just suggest you pick some random friends. You want to gather ‘builders.’ People who are willing to get their hands dirty and sweat from the hard work.

But, what if you’re not technical, how do you find technical co-founders? Burka said that if you don’t know how to build an app or don’t have any friends who can build it with you, then you’re doing it wrong. Quit running around trying to raise VC cash so you can hire that dream product development team. Go hang out with product builders until you’re friends with them and you’ve learned some technical skills as well. You can’t ‘network’ to find technical people – you have to go out and make real honest-to-goodness friends.

That’s the pattern I’m seeing. Most co-founders are friends first before they work together. As I previously mentioned, finding co-founders is like finding a wife or husband; it shouldn’t be a trivial decision. You have to find friends who are builders. This is exactly what Burka did. Burka started his first startup at eleventh grade with a few friends in the attic of his parents’ century-old farmhouse at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island..

I’ve been fortunate enough to know Edmund, Mark and Kurt. I’ve worked with all of them in several church events. So I know their work ethics. I also know that they are builders. Together, we have the skills, passion and motivation to build Lesson Sensei.

Focus on building

Another thing that I got from Burka’s talk last night is that the role of everyone in a startup is to focus on building. It’s so easy for early-stage startups to start handing out ‘C’ titles like Chief Executive Officer, Chief Marketing Officer or Chief Technology Officer. You don’t even have a product yet! Everyone’s task should be focused on building, whether it’s interviewing potential customers, coding the actual product, gathering customer feedback or creating a launch page to gather potential beta testers.

There is absolutely no excuse for not focusing on building. With such a small team and (in my case) everyone being busy with full-time work or school, every wasted energy and time are costly. With Edmund, Kurt and Mark, there have been times when we wasted a whole day arguing about what we should do. Looking back, I realized we wasted our time and energy. What Burka recommended is to talk for 30 minutes, then try it out and build it for the next 30 minutes. Keep what works. Remove what doesn’t. It’s almost like trial-and-error experiments. You push the boundaries by trying to see if the impossible is possible.

All too often, an idea or concept is quashed by other team members even before it’s been explored. That’s a wrong mentality. Burka says that you don’t know what works or what doesn’t work until you try it out and get feedback from the team or customers.

Conclusion

Ideas are a dime in a dozen. Don’t sit on your ideas. Start building it. There are products out there that can help you start building it without technical knowledge such as Prototypes App or Mockingbird. But the best way to build a product is not to hire a development team, but to gather a team of builders. Go out and make real honest-to-goodness friends.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: brand, build, builders, design, entreprenership, ideas, product, startup

Entrepreneurs embrace embarrassment and pain – lessons from snowboarding

by Ramli 4 Comments

Just like my first time learning how to snowboard, entrepreneurs have to embrace embarrassment and pain to be successful

After being in Canada for 17 years, I finally went snowboarding for the first time 2 weeks ago. So here I am, a 27-year-old guy, on the bunny hills with little kids who are probably 7 or 8 year old passing me left, right and center. Not only that, about 80% of the time, I’m either on my ass or on my knees while those little kids perfectly carve the slopes. I feel like such a fool.There’s a part in me that says, “you’re too old for this. Just give up.” But, I push on, get up and try again.

Not only that, the next day after snowboarding, I felt like I was 50 years older than my age! My whole body was in pain: my wrists, elbows, neck, shoulder, knees, ankles and, especially, my ass! All the pain and embarrassment wasn’t all in vain. At the end, I finally got it.

Here’s what hit me after falling a gazillion times: The only way you can really learn something is if you’re willing to embrace embarrassment and pain. Why? To learn something, you have to put yourself beyond your comfort zone. You have push yourself to the point of failure. If you’re not pushing yourself to the point of failure, then you’ve probably already embraced your greatest enemy, status quo.

As I’ve mentioned before, if status quo is Goliath, entrepreneurs are the first ones who step up to take a swing at the enemy. Entrepreneurs always push themselves, their startup and their team to the point of failure. That’s why entrepreneurs embrace embarrassment and pain, especially those who are applying the lean startup techniques to their startup.

Embrace the embarrassment

One of the central principles of the lean startup method is to get your product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible. But one common worry with this concept is that this might lead companies to “release crap,” shipping too soon with a product of such low quality that you embarrass yourself and alienate potential customers. But, as Eric Ries points out in his blog, this thinking assumes so many things. What if customers actually like the “crap” product? Or what if we can’t get any of them to even try it? Or what if the features they demand you build are different from the ones you were planning to build? That’s why you build your minimum viable product and get it to your customers’ hands as soon as it’s possible.

But, the minimum in minimum viable product does not mean that you should ship just anything at the earliest possible date. It means to ship as soon as it is possible to learn what you need to learn. It’s an opportunity to learn what attributes customers care about. Receive feedback from your customers that are both qualitative (what they like and don’t like) and quantitative (how many people use it and find it valuable). You can’t learn if you don’t ask. So, don’t be afraid to ask your customers and be embarrassed.

Embrace the pain

But building a minimum viable product is not enough. You also have to measure progress and learn from the results. Then you have to repeat the whole build-measure-learn cycle until you find a business model and product that’s profitable and scalable, which could take a few weeks or even a few years. If it sounds painful, it really is.

Some people think being an entrepreneur is really sexy… for those who have never done it. The reality is that it’s hard work, high pressure and exhausting emotionally & physically. It’s easy to lose your way. One moment you’re feeling like you’re on cloud nine; the next moment, everything is on fire, even your hard-earned cash. Every day you go home and face self doubt but you’ve got to come back in the morning strong. Your other co-founders, the team you’ve put together, are all looking at you for signs of weakness and self-doubt. You’ve got to accept customer losses as learning experiences and see how you can improve next time. You’ve got to hear all the doubters of your product, and there are A LOT of doubters out there. It’s far from sexy. It’s tough as hell.

Still want to be an entrepreneur? If you’re answer is yes, then you have to be willing to take punches everyday, fall down and then get up for round 2, 3, 4, whatever it takes. As Mark Suster (an entrepreneur turned VC) puts it, “resilience is one of the tell tale signs of an entrepreneur.”

Conclusion

The building of a startup and successful exit or IPO is equivalent to the mental and physical toughness of winning the gold medal at the snowboard superpipe at the Winter X games. It’s not easy. You have to be willing to be embarrassed and take pain, a lot of pain! You just have to stick to what you believe in. As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: embarrassment, pain, perseverance, resilience, success

3 reasons why entrepreneurship is like a poker game

by Ramli 1 Comment

Entrepreneurship is like a game of poker

Poker is a popular game played by many in living rooms and, more recently, in world competitions. It’s popularity stems from the fact that it is easy to learn, extremely social, provides the opportunity for profit and takes a lifetime of commitment to master. And wow, with the practice and skill you can win a lot money; the top 5 players overall winnings range from $11,000,000 to $16,000,000. Yes, that’s 6 zeroes!

I tried playing poker once with a bunch of guys. I lost big time. My friends hustled $100 out of me. I might not be good at poker. But, I did find that there are many lessons entrepreneurs can learn from poker. Let me share 3 of those lessons.

1. Take calculated risks

If you don’t understand poker, you probably think that your chances of winning at poker is the same as winning the jackpot in a lottery. But, in fact, poker played well is not a gamble, but a game of skill and knowledge. Although there’s a significant element of luck, those who consistently win at poker use their skill, knowledge and experience to take calculated risks.

Take this example: Daredevil Robbie Knievel is about to jump a motorcycle over a row of buses. Most people would say that he would be lucky to make it out alive. To them, it’s a pure gamble, a roll of dice. But, what people don’t know is that Robbie Knievel considered the wind, speed and distance. He knows his motorcycle inside and out. To him, it’s not a gamble, but a calculated risk.

The same can be said about entrepreneurship. To those who don’t have the knowledge and the skill, entrepreneurship is definitely a gamble. But to those who have been applying the lean startup methodology to their startup, it’s not a gamble, but more of a calculated risk. Lean startup methodology is about trying to minimize your risks in a startup by continually validating, learning and pivoting. It provides a framework for entrepreneurs to take calculated risks when building a startup.

2. Be patient and disciplined

Since the best poker players take calculated risks, they bet seldom and only when the odds are in their favour. That’s why the best poker players only play 5 to 10 percent of the hands that they’re dealt. Patience in poker is one of the most important traits that separates successful players from the ones who go home empty handed.

Patience is also an important trait for entrepreneurs. People who win at business bet seldom and only when the odds are in their favour. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, told Fast Company magazine that businesses and startups go through 3 phases: vision, patience and execution. It’s really exciting to be in the “vision” and the “execution” phase. But the difference between a wantrapreneur and a true entrepreneur is patience.

Your startup might go through 5, 10 or even 20 pivots (if you’ve never heard of pivoting for startups, check out Ash Maurya’s explanation) before you get your business model right. Twitter wasn’t always the micro-blogging tool; it used to be a marketplace for podcasts. Groupon wasn’t always the behemoth of daily deals; it used to be a tool to connect charitable social causes with donors. Don’t expect an overnight success with your startup. Expect 2 to 5 years of hard work before you make it big. So, be patient and disciplined with your startup.

3. Know when to fold

One of the biggest mistakes that amateur or novice poker players make is not folding a hand even though they know that they’re beat. Determining whether you want to play a hand or fold a hand can be an extremely difficult decision when playing poker. It is one of the most important decisions that you will have to make at the table. It can be the difference between a net win or a net loss at the end of the game. Watch the professional poker players on TV. They’re masters at folding hands and picking a winning hand; they fold over 90% to 95% of the hands!

The same thing is true with startups. Maybe your competitor has now squeezed you out of your niche market. Or maybe your market size is shrinking. Know when it’s time to pivot your business model or fold your startup.

I created this teaser video for my first startup, Pressitant, before Edmund and I shelved the product. Yes, that

Edmund and I had to face a similar decision with our first startup, Pressistant. We found a competitor whose product wasn’t as good. So we aimed at releasing a product that was bigger and better than our competitor, manageWP. So, Edmund and I started to interview our target customers to validate our product. We created a launch page www.pressistant.com. I even created a teaser video by myself! Then, right when we were about to start coding our product, our competitor came out with a bigger and better version of his product. Edmund and I talked about it. We neither had the money, the resources, the credibility and the time to compete. We didn’t have a lot of money invested into the startup yet. So we decided to fold our startup.

It was a tough decision. But if we didn’t make that decision, then we wouldn’t have gotten a chance to work on our next startup Lesson Sensei, with two other amazing guys, Kurt and Mark!

Conclusion

The three lessons entrepreneurs can learn from poker are take calculated risks, be patient & disciplined and know when to fold. By applying the teachings of the poker table to the boardroom table, entrepreneurs can position their businesses for success for years to come!

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Please enter your comments below.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: calculated risk, disciplined, entreprenership, lean startup, patience, startup

Lessons learned from SproutUp networking event: Preparation is key

by Ramli Leave a Comment

SproutUp January meet up

I recently attended a SproutUp networking event for entrepreneurs and investors. When it comes to this kind of events, I’m a virgin. It was my first time. Like many first times, it was overwhelming; there were over 500 entrepreneurs and investors in the event.

And also like many first times, it wasn’t good. I don’t blame the amazing Sprouter team who organized the event. I blame mostly myself. Looking back, I should have prepared a lot more before the event. But what shocked me the most was that most people I met in the networking event weren’t that prepared either.

The key to getting the most of these kinds of events is preparation. Lauren Perkins wrote in an article in Globe and Mail that you have to treat a networking event like a first date. Like any first dates, you have to prepare yourself in the following 3 Ps:

1. Plan

One of the biggest mistake that I did going into the SproutUp event was that I didn’t have any goals. Even when you go on our first date with someone, you have some kind of goal. Maybe it’s to have a second date. Or for others, it’s to get the guy or girl in bed.

In the same way, you should come to the networking event with at least one goal. Maybe it’s to meet at least 25 other entrepreneurs. Or for some of you, it’s to meet that one specific investor.

Kurt (on the left), one of my business partner, and me (right) at the SproutUp January event

But it’s not enough just to have a goal. you need to have a plan. You have to do your homework to find out who you might want to meet. You have to plan what you’re going to say and how you’re going to introduce yourself.

One thing you have to really plan for in a first date is how you’re going to look, which brings up the next “P” you have to prepare for.

2. Presentation

When you go on a date, you want to look your best. It only takes a few seconds for you to make a first impression. When you come to a date looking and smelling like a hobo, your chances of getting a kiss at the end of the night are slim.

The same is true for networking events, you want to look your best. But “the best” doesn’t necessarily mean wearing a suit or a dress. It depends on the situation. It also depends on how you want to be perceived. It sounds like common knowledge. But there were a few people in the SproutUp event who look like they just got out of bed. How are potential business partners and investors suppose to take you seriously if you’re wearing flip-flops, ripped jeans and a Hawaiian shirt? Dress the part.

But, in a date or networking event, you can’t just have ‘beauty’, you also need to have the ‘brains.’ You have to know how to pitch yourself and your startup.

3. Pitch

The most often asked question in a first date, interview or networking event is, “tell me about yourself.” It’s such an open-ended question that most people tend to rant on and on for hours about themselves. That’s when your date passes out from boredom and asks to “go to the washroom” and never come back.

SproutUp name tag

That’s exactly what happened to a few people I talked to in the SproutUp January event. I asked one guy what his startup up is about. He started talking about connecting people with business. Then he rambled on that he was doing this and that, and building this and that. About half way through I realized that this guy had no idea what he was doing. Or maybe he did know what he was doing. But, as Albert Einstein once said, “any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

Regardless of how amazing your startup is, if you can’t describe what your startup does in a few sentences, then you have a big problem. If you’re following the lean startup methodology for your startup, you can start with your unique value proposition (Ash Maurya explains it here very well). It should be short, sweet and memorable.

Conclusion

If I had to rate my performance in the SproutUp January event, I’d give myself a fail for not preparing enough. Preparation is the key to success. But it’s not the end of the world. For the next SproutUp event in February 22, I’m going to make sure to prepare my plan, presentation and pitch.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: lessons learned, networking, pitch, plan, preparation, sprouter, sproutup

Ideas don’t make you an entrepreneur. Building it does.

Gather a team of builders

Focus on building

Conclusion

Entrepreneurs embrace embarrassment and pain – lessons from snowboarding

Embrace the embarrassment

Embrace the pain

Conclusion

3 reasons why entrepreneurship is like a poker game

1. Take calculated risks

2. Be patient and disciplined

3. Know when to fold

Conclusion

Lessons learned from SproutUp networking event: Preparation is key

1. Plan

2. Presentation

3. Pitch

Conclusion

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