Hacking at MaRS Commons, FamilyTales current location

In this new Web-centric economy, code is king. Great you can sell. Sweet, you can market. But if you don’t have a product, what do you sell or market? Social media or guerrilla marketing will not help you. Whether you’re in marketing, sales or biz dev, if you want to build a tech startup, learn to code and build something. Here’s why.

1. Low Barrier to Learning

It’s easier than ever to learn code, thanks to services like Codecademy, Udemy or SkillShare. If you have a little bit of money, you can go to hacking schools like Bit Maker Labs or Startup School.

But my absolutely favorite are tutorials or guides that take you from ground zero to building a working app. For me, the best way to learn is to see progress. I learned Ruby on Rails through Michael Hartl’s online (and free!) book that started me off from not knowing what MVC was to building a Twitter-like app in 11 chapters.

2. Help You Recruit Tech Talent

Are you a business person with no coding experience looking for a technical co-founder? Good luck. You’re going to need it. All odds are against you. There are A LOT of ideas out there. But not enough coders to build them.

The secret is that coders are attracted to other coders. It’s true. And when we meet business people who taught themselves how to code, we respect them a lot. It’s like my caucasian friend who learned how to speak Mandarin fluently. When he went to China, locals were so impressed that they bowed down each time to give him deep respect.

Ben Parr, a CNET commentator and former co-editor of Mashable, said it best in this CNET article – “You have to code, not because you need to be good at it, but because technical employees are far more likely to follow a founder with technical experience.”

3. Work With Team of Builders

By “technical experience,” I’m sure Parr doesn’t mean take a weekend course at Ladies Learning Code or one exercise at CodeAcademy. It means actually building something. Why is this important?

First, Parr said it best – “Understanding how difficult a requested feature will be to implement has made me better at prioritizing our company’s time appropriately. The only way to truly know how a feature or a product works is to understand code.” The bane of a programmer’s existence is when business folks over-promise the delivery of a feature in near-impossible timeframe.

Second, Daniel Burka at a talk in Toronto last year told everyone 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!

Learning to code will help you contribute to building the product. You don’t have to be an expert. You can contribute in small but key tasks including finding and fixing bugs, implementing small features, manage the site design, understanding how our product works on a technical level

It can help you even in the future. As Harjeet Taggar, a partner at the incubator/seed venture firm Y Combinator, said, ”I’m surprised at how helpful, even now as an investor, being able to code things is to my job.”

Beatrice, non-technical co-founder at FamilyTales, learning to code

Don’t Learn To Code To “Talk” To Programmers

I hear people talking about taking a weekend course on HTML/CSS so they can “talk” to programmers. Whenever I hear this, I get really offended because I’m a programmer myself. They make it sound like coders are like monkeys you have to learn their “language.” I don’t go around saying that I’m taking courses in medicine or law so I can “talk” to doctors and lawyers.

Stop making excuses. Learn to fucking code. It’s not hard. You just need to be smart, determined and resilient – all the qualities of an entrepreneur.

I’m taking this lesson to heart. I’ve encouraged FamilyTales non-technical co-founder, Beatrice, to learn Ruby on Rails. Let me get back to you in a month. I promise you, she’ll be a hacker by then. You should become one too.

The problem is that people are afraid of ‘no’. It’s negative. It’s uncomfortable. It’s discouraging. We avoid the word “no” as many times as possible. As entrepreneurs, startup founders and type-A leaders, we pride ourselves in being able to convince most people to say ‘yes’ – whether it’s getting into a startup incubator, getting funding from investors or even simply getting a girl or a guy’s phone number at the bar.

The problem with getting ‘yes’ all the time is that you can end up with a false positive. You start drinking your own kool aid. Maybe you’re saying ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ (no, that’s not sexual in any way) all the way to the edge of the cliff to your and your startup’s death.

Nothing highlights this more than in one of my classes at Ivey MBA. Professor Mark Vanderbosch showed the following numbers and asked us to guess what the pattern was – 2, 4, 6. He also instructed us that he can only say “yes” or “no” whether numbers we said fit into the pattern. Of course, being a mathematics grad from University of Waterloo, I guessed “8″, “10″, “12 ” and “14.” Vanderbosch said yes. “This is easy. The pattern is even numbers,” I said. Vanderbosch told me that I was absolutely wrong. Red-faced, I stuck my head under my desk. Then Chris, one of my classmates, said 1.3, 11, 100.3212 and 9.9, all of which Vanderbosch said yes to. Chris went on to guess, -1.1, -30, -31, all of which Vanderbosch said no. The pattern was any positive numbers. I was completely wrong!

The morale of the story is that you haven’t learned anything until you hear a ‘no.’ You might be leading yourself to the wrong path and finding patterns where there really isn’t. That’s the power of the ‘no.’ Don’t stop asking question until you hear a no.

The two most important and influential women in my life, my sister and my mom

The two most important and influential women in my life are my sister and my mom. My mom taught me a lot that’s helped me in my startup life and my entrepreneurial ventures. Here are just three startup lessons I learned from my mom.

1. Be Happy

The startup life is full of uncertainty. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary. I’m $100,000 in debt from my studies and I’m not going to be paid for awhile. I should be hyperventilating and having daily panic attacks. On top of that, I have to juggle managing my team, coding for FamilyTales, doing customer interviews, recruiting other developers, and dealing with legal issues. But still I make time to meet with friends, take improv classes, ride my motorcycle and read a good novel.

It’s a crazy life. But I learned from the best. My mom works a 9-to-5 job, manages and mentors a team in her volunteer position, cleans the house, feed 3 kids and, on top of that, give me advices about my chaotic personal life and business. Through all of this, she remains happy and jovial, which is both encouraging and energizing.

That’s really important for people working in a very early stage startup. You’ll hear a lot of ‘no’ before you hear a ‘yes.’ Stay happy. Stay positive. Stay optimistic.

2. Just Do It

Talk is cheap. But there’s often a temptation for startup teams to debate on and on for hours about mundane things. A few days ago, I was coding at a local Starbucks, and I heard this other startup team argue for 3 hours! They didn’t get any work done. I just wanted to turn around and say “just shut up and get out of the building.”

That’s what my mom taught me. She leads by example. She’s a woman of action. Whenever something needs to get done, she doesn’t try to discuss 1,001 ways to do it and the advantages and disadvantages of each option. She just does it or delegates someone to do it. Whenever I don’t know what to do next, she encourages me to think about the pros and cons of each option and just run with one of the options.

As Daniel Burka,former Digg Creative Director and Milk co-founder, said in an event in Toronto last year, stop arguing and start doing! 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.

3. Ask for help

Startup founders are a fiercely independent breed. We tend to adopt a “me against the world” attitude. The words “I don’t know” usually never comes out of our mouth.This is dangerous. You don’t need to defeat everyone else. What you need is a team of partners in your corner who will work to help you win and vice versa.

My mom raised me in a community, either with family members or the church. Everyone in the community would help each other out. I was taught from a young child that no one is an island. The more there are people helping you, the greater that chances of your success.

This is just as true for parents, in-laws, friends, and teachers as it is for co-founders, employees, VCs, advisers, and mentors. The more people you have cheering you on, the better your chances of success.

Thanks Mom

I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be here if my mom wasn’t around. To all you startup founders and entrepreneurs, thank your mom this weekend! To all you moms, happy mother’s day.

Why aren’t there more women in tech start-ups? Is that why there aren’t a lot of women speakers in technology conference?

A few days ago, Beatrice, one of my co-founders for FamilyTales, told me that out of the 32 speakers last weekend at Infect13 organized by the Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference, there was only was speaker. It was the same for the PwC Technology Conference. So I went on a twitter rampage a few days ago. One of the responses I got was that there wasn’t really enough women speakers in technology. That got me thinking. Why aren’t there more women in tech startups? If you look at the women to men ratio at Velocity Garage startup incubator, it’s embarrassingly low! So I asked Beatrice to write a guest post as to why she chose to not join a big corporate company and join a small startup, FamilyTales:

During one of my many rants about the lack of good female role models, and more specifically, the lack of female keynote speakers in national entrepreneurial conferences (like CUTC, PwC Vision to Reality, and even NBTC) Ramli suggested I blog about it. In fact, he insisted I do a guest post for his blog about it. At first I was really hesitant. Not only is this a controversial topic, I also didn’t want to make enemies with the organizations that, quite frankly, sparked my initial interest in the entrepreneurial space. Moreover, I didn’t feel I was qualified to write about topics like gender equality in the workplace. I have only very recently entered the workforce, and thus far, have not had to endure the prominent struggles that many women before me had. I have never felt the negative effects of the ‘glass ceiling’ and before recently, I never cared. So what exactly is the source of my complaint?!

Well, for one thing, it is extremely hard to find other girls to talk to about my experiences building a startup. My cofounders are great guys who genuinely care about my personal and professional developments. If it’s even possible, they are too generous with all the wisdom they’ve accumulated from past experiences (no complaints here, though). But they’re guys. It would be a lie if I don’t at least acknowledge that biologically, women and men are different. As such, the way we approach life –and business- is different.

From my experiences working with them, I find that men tend to worry less about breaking unwritten social conducts. The end justifies the means. It’s okay to be aggressive to get the desired results, praised, even. Perhaps it’s the way women are portrayed and brought up in society. My whole life, I’ve worried about how others will see me, if others will like me, and how to avoid offending others. And it’s these same fears that have limited me from being too ambitious with my aspirations. These fears are innate and I don’t think I will ever grow out of them, no matter the successes I have in my career.

I strongly believe other girls have these same fears too. Boys are really lucky. They have always had really strong, successful public figures who encourage ambition and risk-taking (two very important traits in advancing your career). But we, girls, rarely hear those messages in a public forum. Oftentimes, the messages we receive are just the opposite. Likability and good looks are applauded, but a determined woman who perseveres through hardships and takes risks in situations of uncertainty- well, that’s just not pretty. How can we, girls, aspire to be so successful? How can we aspire to change the world if we can’t see or celebrate the women before us who have succeeded in their ventures?

I can’t be the only one to notice the disparity between male and female speakers at these conferences. And yet, I have a hunch the organizers are not to blame. In the 21^st century, it is almost unfair to accuse men of holding women back in their careers, when there are so many rights that supports otherwise. No longer can we blame others for making us the minority in leadership roles. We, ourselves, have the ultimate responsibility to turn our dreams into reality. We are equally as smart, as competent, as creative, and as useful, as any other men. So why aren’t we as confident and public as they are about what we can do?

It’s time women stop being insecure, modest, or quiet about their capabilities and successes. It’s time to start proactively seeking out conferences to speak at. As a gender, we have to take on the responsibility to inspire and educate young girls so they, too, can be empowered to change their lives.

On a semi-related note, I would love to get involved with SociaLight 2013. If anyone could connect me with someone who can get me involved, give me a tweet!

Follow Beatrice at @BeatriceLaw

What’s Life After Lean Startup Machine

I typically hate workshops and conferences. When I was volunteering at a youth group organization, everyone was so enthusiastic to go to conferences. It gets every so passionate and excited. The problem is that after a few weeks, this passion waivers off. That’s the problem with most workshops and conferences – there’s no follow-through.

So when my friend told me about Lean Startup Machine (LSM) last year, I was very skeptical. Just looking at their website, they said that Lean Startup Machine is “three-day workshop which teaches entrepreneurs and innovators how to build disruptive products.” To be honest, before I signed up, I really thought it was bullshit. The word “disruptive” has become like a magic word in the tech world. I shut off and roll my eyes when I hear the word “disruptive” in any pitches or talks. But my friend convinced me. Good thing he did because I was absolutely wrong.

At LSM, I learned how to rigorously validate or invalidate assumptions using the Lean Startup Machine. It’s the one tool that helped me and Ali (my co-founder) pivot through ideas and assumptions to end up with FamilyTales. Because of this, we’ve been accepted to awesome incubators in Velocity Garage and MaRS Commons.

The mentors and organizers for LSM Toronto in April 2013

Lean Startup Machine could have just been another workshop where I walk away excited and after a few weeks I lose that passion. What was the difference with this workshop? I don’t think it was the workshop. I think it was how I applied the learnings from the workshop to my startup projects.

Last weekend, I was honored to be asked to be one of the mentors and speakers at LSM. I shared with them 3 attitudes that helped me apply what I learned at last year’s LSM to my new ventures.

1) Be Humble

Carolyn, one of the speakers at this year’s LSM in Toronto, said it best – “there’s no place for ego in startups.” Before LSM, I actually read the Lean Startup book. I thought I knew everything I needed to build a startup. Two startup failures later and after attending LSM, I realized that I don’t know shit.

That’s exactly the kind of attitude you need when you’re working on a startup: the “I-don’t-know-shit” attitude. That’s the beauty of lean startup method, you learn new things you didn’t know.

Let me give you a recent example. Last week, we showed our FamilyTales beta to Brenda, a potential customer. Our assumption was that our early adopters would create storybooks for their parents. Ali and I were shocked when Brenda started a storybook for her daughter. Her reason was that her children are her everyday life. She wanted to use FamilyTales for her children. Mind blown!

Anything you think you know about your problem and your customer, you don’t know shit. When you think you know, that’s when you stop learning.

2) Be Happy

It’s not enough to just get out of the building, you also have to stay positive and optimistic. You will be rejected. You will be kicked out. Last year, we were doing customer interviews at the mall. That’s where we thought our early adopters were. So we talked to about 10 people when the security guard of the mall approached us and threatened to call the police. We got kicked out of the mall! I wear that as a badge of honor. One of my startup mentors once told me that you can’t call yourself an entrepreneur until you get kicked out of somewhere!

The lean startup method is not easy. It’s uncertain. It’s scary. It’s stressful. It pushes you pass your comfort zone. It forces you to talk to strangers and ask them for money. That’s why you need to stay happy and positive. Surround yourself with people who are humble, happy and hungry.

3) Be Hungry

You might be humble and happy, but if you’re not hungry, you’ll get no where. The beauty of the Lean Validation board is it helps you be hungry. When you have stickies up with untested assumptions, you start getting this itch to get out of the building and testing your hypothesis.

I treat the Lean Validation Board like a game. How can I move all my sticky notes from the assumption box to the validated or invalidated box as fast as possible? That’s how I see it. It makes it fun.

Stay Humble, Happy and Hungry

The Lean Startup method is not the midas touch that will turn all your new ventures to gold. It’s a habit, a way of life. As you apply it in our new ventures or your current ones, you start growing your startup muscles. What are you waiting for? Get out of the building and TTYFC! But remember to stay humble, happy and hungry.

Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.

- Will Smith

“I’m just being realistic.” I hear this a lot. And I absolutely hate it. I will not tolerate it in my team and the people who work with me. I tell people all the time to stop being realistic!

Being realistic comes with a sense of security and comfort. You use language like “I will try” or “I’ll do my best.“ In some sense, you’re hedging yourself from embarrassment, disappointment and failure.

But that’s the beauty of life. You learn from failure. You get stronger and smarter when you do things that are impossible, things that aren’t “realistic.”

Yes, there will be disappointments. But if you think about it, it’s how you cope with disappoint and failure that will determine your success. The difference between imposible and possible lies in your determination. And one of the things that greatly affects your determination is your language

The power of words

Words are powerful. People don’t realize it. Especially for entrepreneurs and startup founders, the words you use can become a weapon or a roadblock.

Psychologist and retired FBI Special Agent Jack Schafer wrote in a Psychology Today blog that word qualifiers such as “We’ll see”; “I’ll try”; or “I’ll do my best” serve as escape hatchs for noncompliance. If you don’t complete a task on time, you can say “I did my best to finish the job on time, but I couldn’t do it” without the fear of social rejection or cognitive dissonance because you did not make a firm, verbal commitment.

On the other hand, when you say words like “I will do this” or “this will happen” out loud, you unconciously and conciously start taking the necessary steps to get you there. You start repeating in your head, “I can do this!” That’s when you start believing in yourself and your team. You appear more confident. Not only that, as you say it out loud, you become accountable to your friends, family, mentors, co-founders and employees.

That’s why you should stop using words like “I will try” or “I wish” and start using words like “I will do this.” You will amaze yourself at what you can do.

The balance of impossible and realistic

But, don’t take this too far. For example, I would never say “I will be a 7-foot basketball player.” That will never happen! Even if I went through the gruelling operation to break my legs and extend my legs with pins like this air hostess in UK, it would take me years to be like Mike.

You have to balance impossible with realistic. Don’t be realistic. But, also don’t aim for something so impossible. That’s the importance of having mentors and friends who really know you inside and out. They know your skills, weaknesses and potential. They know what you can and can’t do.

It’s important to have several mentors. Don’t just have one. For me this has been John Pollock at BizInc, Mike Kirkup at Velocity Garage, Stewart Thornhill at Ivey and Howie Chan at Tech Alliance. They’ll all say different things. One mentor will tell you that you’re stupid. Another will tell you to go for it. In the end, you have to make the decision if your goal is the right balance of realistic and impossible.

Velocity Garage

I’m not realistic. I realized that entrepreneurs have to be dreamers who can execute. So when a few months ago I told Ali, my co-founder, “I’ll get us in the Velocity Garage! I’ll do whatever it takes,” he thought I was crazy. If you’re into startups and you don’t know Velocity Garage, you’re really missing out. With startups like VidYard, Thalmic Labs, Buffer Box and PlanBoard, even Paul Graham, the yoda-esque founder of Silicon’s Valley Y-Combinator, told Fast Company magazine that “there’s something going on in Waterloo because the applications we get from Waterloo students are better than those we get from students of any other university.” Even The New York Times wrote a piece about the amazing talent at Waterloo.

That was a few months ago. Fast forward to today. I’m excited to say that FamilyTales has been accepted to the Velocity Garage. It really hasn’t sunk in yet. We just heard the news a few days ago. It hasn’t been easy coding, hacking, doing customer development while completing my MBA. But there was one thing I kept repeating in my head, “I will get us in to Velocity.”

As author, radio DJ and motivation speaker Les Brown once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” The next thing I’m telling my team is “I will get us into Y-Combinator or Tech Stars.“ I’m definitely shooting for the moon. You should to.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.

The mug shot of me and Beatrice for the Seed Your Startup pitch competition

A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop about how to hire rockstars for your startup at Communitech. During the class, we had a discussion about the tradeoffs between hiring or building rockstar employees for your startup. I think too many startups are way too focused on just recruiting rockstar employees. You need a little bit of both – hiring and building rockstars. There’s obviously tradeoffs between time and money.

If you’re looking to hire rockstar employees, you’re competing with other more established companies like Blackberry, Google or Microsoft. You most likely have to shell out the big money or huge equity offering IF you could lure them away from Google or Microsoft. Good luck with that.

If you don’t have a lot of money, you could find a promising student or startup enthusiast, and help them grow their startup skills. You don’t have to pay as much or give up as much equity. The only problem is that it might take longer.

Ali, my co-founder, and I debated for many hours whether we should hire a rockstar employee or just build one. We ended up doing the latter. I recruited Beatrice from Startup Weekend (follow her on twitter). She’s a 4th year BMOS Consumer Behaviour student at Western University. I’ve been working with her to help her grow her online and social media marketing skills.

If you think about it, as startup founders, you’re growing personally yourself. The best part of working in a startup is that the personal growth is limitless! I’m learning something new everyday, much faster if I was working at a 9-to-5 job. That’s why I think it’s riskier to work at a 9-to-5 job than start your own company. I love learning from my previous startup failures and experiences. And I absolutely love it when people around me, the people I work so close with, are growing with me. Startup life doesn’t have to be lonely when you’re taking the startup journey with a group of awesome people.

That’s why I decided to build a rockstar employee out of Beatrice. I have some experience coaching at my church and other volunteer positions. Let me share my tips for you on how to build rockstar employees.

1) Decide on your non-negotiable values & personalities

Beatrice and I at the Seed Your Startup pitch competition

Before you recruit and develop a rockstar employee you need to discuss with your current founders what are non-negotiables. For Ali and I, we wanted to make sure that our recruit was fully bought-in to the long term vision of FamilyTales.

But, even deeper to this, I have core values I look for when I recruit co-founders to my team. These are absolutely non-negotiables. I call them the 3 H’s. Regardless of skills and experience, what I want are people who are happy, humble and hungry. Happy because working in a startup is stressful and having negative people will make it even more poisonous. Humble because I need to be able to coach and develop the recruit. Finally, the person need to be hungry to learn and grow. Without these three, I will not even consider you.

2) Become transparent to your recruit

Once you’ve found a happy, humble and hungry recruit, you need to become as transparent as possible. Teach him or her everything you know whether it’s about social media, online marketing or programming. Share to them your business plans, lean canvas, business model. Become as transparent as possible. If you’ve found the right recruit, they’ll become like a sponge and will start to live, breathe and think your vision and startup.

3) Introduce them to people who know more than you

Once you’ve showed the recruit everything you know, it’s time you push them further and accelerate their learning. You do this by introducing them to resources like books and websites. Then, introduce them to your contacts who know more than you. This is where the “hungry” part of the recruit comes in. This is the make it or break it for a recruit. They need to pursue growing on their own at their accelerated pace. This is when the grasshopper becomes the sensei, and the recruit becomes a rockstar employee.

That’s exactly what I did to Beatrice. I showed her how I used HootSuite and other tools to manage and grow my own personal brand persona. Then I introduced her to John Pollock at BizInc, who knows all the awesome online marketers working for him.

Building rockstar employees is a rewarding experience

Patience is key here. But if you found a recruit who’s happy, humble and hungry, then you wouldn’t have to wait for long. Within a month, I’m proud to say that Beatrice knows more than me about social media and online marketing. That’s what I want because I’m busy with other things. Beatrice, my rockstar recruit, got this.

Beatrice sent me this tweet last week. This is one of the reason why I chose to develop talent. It’s seeing the recruit become the rockstar. Startup founders should not just be building a business, but also people. Startup life is a journey that’s filled with ups and downs. I’d rather take the journey with people I just absolutely love.

Startup guys hate MBAs. I get no love and even get some uncalled looks of disgust when I go to Waterloo and they find out I’m an Ivey MBA. Yes, I have my MBA. I actually just received my Ivey diploma and ring yesterday. And I’m quite damn proud of it.

This debate has been beaten around the bush so many times – do your MBA or go start your startup. Last week, Vivek Wadhwa, a technology entrepreneur and an academic at Duke University, actually wrote a Wall Street Journal articled titled Why I Don’t Advise Startups to Hire MBAs. It actually caused such a shitstorm debate on Twitterverse that even Dave McClure of 500Startups got into the fray.

Part of this hate is from the misconception that MBAs can’t execute. Little do they know that there are numerous startups started by MBAs including Mark Pincus (Harvard MBA) of Zynga, Mark Suster (Booth MBA) and Scott Belsky (Harvard MBA) of Behance. Adam Besvinick in his blog post listed out other startups you may know that were started by MBAs: Warby Parker, BirchBox, Streak, RelayRides, Rent The Runway, BabbaCo, Kiwi Crate, RallyPoint, Handybook, Snapette, LearnVest, thredUP, Take The Interview, BaubleBar, StyleMusee, Zumper, Quincy, Locu, FashionStake (acquired by Fab), EverTrue, Shoptiques, Tough Mudder, Trendyol, Baby.com.br, Peek, SilverLining Systems.

You can beat this dead horse many more times. I really think it’s a personal choice concerning your own personal growth. I respect both those who started companies without having completed their undergrad and those who started companies after their MBAs. It really comes down to what’s best for you.

For me, it was the right choice that complemented my strong programming and technical skills and startup experience. Here’s what this startup founder got out of my Ivey MBA.

1. Complement My Technical Skills

Yes, I’m a hacker at heart. I love building shit. I get excited when I’m building something new that people actually use. The MBA has helped me transition from being a programmer to a leader that can lead a startup team. Part of that is complementing my technical skills with skills in marketing, finance, accounting, law and management.

A lot of people tell me, “well can’t you just a read a book about that stuff.” Sure you can. But I find that shit boring. I almost failed my undergrad accounting classes. I will never read any books about accounting, finance, law or even people management. The MBA helped curate the things I needed to learn to be a leader. Some people don’t need that. Some people do. I’m one of those that do. I’m actually borderline A.D.D.. I need a more structured approach to learning stuff I don’t like. Now I can comfortably build financial models and read scary financial statements.

2. Make New Friends

Making new friends quickly is such an important skill for startup founders. It’s a good way to meet new potential business partners, investors and even early evangelists for your product. This was a skill I didn’t have a year ago.

I’m actually a shy introvert. But if you met me now, you wouldn’t think so. Being surrounded by such smart Type A’s transformed my personality in a year. I heard it once said that you are the average of the five people you’re closest too. My closest friends at the Ivey program are smart, loud, friendly and just awesome group of people. I became like a sponge as I soaked up their skills and personalities.

3. Become More Assertive

Being assertive is also an important skill of a startup founder. You have to passionately and assertively communicate your startup’s pitch day in and day out to your friends, family, strangers, other entrepreneurs and investors. People have fear-receptors. Any hint of fear or doubt in your pitch and you’re dead.

I used to be a rambling, mumbling fool. The case-based structure of the Ivey MBA program helped very much. You can’t bullshit your way in certain classes. Professors like Tony Frost and Ariff Kachra will call your bullshit out. I learned to think quickly, defend myself assertively and communicate my thoughts passionately without missing a beat.

Less Talk. More Action.

For me, the Ivey MBA was the right choice. The before and after snapshot of my personality, attitude and skills is so remarkably different. But, everyone is different. For some, this comes naturally. For a shy, introvert hacker like myself, it doesn’t. I don’t think anyone should shit on someone else’s life choices. I think this whole debate is stupid. In the end, let people’s action speak for themselves. Everyone should just go out there and build your startup. Less talk. More action.

Moving is messy. Here’s the mess I made while moving out last week.

Last week was the last week of my one-year MBA journey at Richard Ivey School of Business. You know what that means – it’s time to move again. I don’t like moving. I consider myself a borderline hoarder. I keep a lot of things because I think it might be useful in the future. But, this raises a problem when moving. I have so much stuff that it makes it really hard for me to pack my things in a few small boxes.

After much hesitation, I finally decided to start two piles – one were things I’ll keep and the other were things I’ll throw away. My goal was to fit everything in three boxes. 20 hours, 15 minutes, 31 seconds and a lot of sweat and tears after, I finally was able to throw away the things I didn’t think I needed. If only I hadn’t hoarded so much stuff, I wouldn’t have had such a hard time moving.

Personal & Professional Baggages

As I was packing my stuff and throwing away things I didn’t need, I realized I had done the same thing at a personal and professional level. I quit my job. I did my MBA. I had to leave behind some of my friends, while I made new ones. Now, $100,000 in debt after, I’m embracing entrepreneurship and startups all the way. I’m moving to Waterloo, Ontario to work on my startup FamilyTales. There were a lot of personal, relationship and emotional baggages that I had to throw away to get to where I am right now. And I know I still have a long way to go.

The Walking Dead

Getting rid of baggages is a painful process. It’s almost violent. But it’s necessary. Zombies walk among us; no, not the kind from The Walking Dead, but, people who are dead inside. They’ve been eaten from the inside out by status quo. Life has become a motion. They are no longer pursuing to be great, but just good enough. This is what happen when you become too comfortable or complacent. That’s when you know it’s time to pack your stuff and move on.

Always Be Moving Forward

This is why you always have to be moving forward. Sometimes that means cutting off relationships, quitting your job or even firing your best friend. When you get comfortable with your job, your relationship and your location, you start hoarding physical, emotional and professional baggages. Those baggages become excuses. Then those excuses become roadblocks to your dreams, whether it’s to build startups or work at Google. My rule of thumb is that if you’ve stopped learning and growing, it’s time to move on.

Help Of Trusted Advisors

The only caveat to cutting off baggages is that you surround yourself and listen to advisors, friends and family that you absolutely trust. I was talking to a friend the other day. She told me that she used to paint a lot. But, a few years ago, she thought she was over that phase in her life. So she threw away all her paintings. Looking back, she regrets it. Trusted advisors, friends and family give you another point of view so that you don’t prematurely throw away your baggages. Much like a personal trainer at a gym, they also kick your ass when you need to move forward faster, quicker and leaner.

Walt Disney

Let me leave you with what Walt Disney, a man who had to let go of emotional baggages including fear of bankruptcy, betrayal and failure:

Around here, we don’t look backwards for very long.
We keep moving forward opening new doors and doing new things
Because we’re curious
And curiosity keeps leadings us to new paths.

- Walt Disney

I hope you are now convinced that you shouldn’t run away from social media, but instead embrace it as an opportunity. Let me share with now how you can build your own personal brand.

1) Know who your target audience are and where they are

The first step to building a personal brand is to know who and where your target audience are. Be as specific as possible when describing your target audience. This will help you choose your medium and your message so that your personal brand can cut through the noise and reach your target audience.

For example, if your target audience are other startup founder, developer or someone in creative, then your audience will be mostly on Twitter and the blogosphere. Or if you’re trying to target business executives or consultants, then your audience will be mostly on LinkedIn. For me, since I wanted to build my credibility and personal brand around the startup and entrepreneurship culture, I chose Twitter and blogging as my main medium to reach my audience.

2) Pick the right Profile Picture

The first thing most people look at is your profile picture.

Once you’ve decided who your audience is and figured out where they are, the next step is to open your Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr or WordPress account. However, the most forgotten but really important aspect of your personal brand is the profile picture you use. Studies have shown that the first thing that most people look at is your profile picture. And when people view your profile picture, within a few seconds, they’ve made the decision to continue paying attention to you or not.

Some would argue that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I think that’s bullshit. People do judge a book by its cover. There is so much you can know about a person based solely on how they look, how they dress, what their profession is, where they come from. With this in mind, you have to be very deliberate about the profile picture you use. Make sure the cover of your book reflects who you are.

So, how do you pick the right profile picture? First, you need to ask yourself what kind of words you want to associate with your personal brand. For example, if you want to associate words like professional, thinker, smart to your own personal brand, then make sure to pick a profile picture that reflects this (not the picture of you half-naked). For me I wanted to associate words like approachable, friendly but intense and driven. I chose this picture as my profile picture for all my social media profiles.

3) Deliver valuable content

Once you have your Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn account opened and you’ve chosen your profile picture, you now need to deliver valuable content to your target audience.

How do you know what content is valuable for your target audience? Take a look at what people in that space are tweeting, blogging or talking about. For example in entrepreneurship, I took a look at the blogs of really well-known startup bloggers like Ash Maurya, Mark MacLeod, Steve Blank, Andrew Chen and Mark Suster to figure out what kind of subjects other entrepreneurs, startup founders and VC/Angel investors are talking about. Then I used tools like Paper.li and Triberr to aggregate blogs and help me gather valuable posts and articles that I can share on my Twitter account.

I then used HootSuite to schedule my tweets so that I consistently deliver valuable content to my twitter followers. You can also use HootSuite to schedule your shares to LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Google+. Using this method, I’ve actually more than doubled my twitter followers in less than a year.

Use HootSuite to Schedule Your Tweets

Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media

What are you waiting for? Build your personal brand. Clearly identify to yourself what you stand for. Never forget to be authentic and consistent with your effort. Over time, the time and energy you spent to build your personal brand will lead to opportunities and opened doors.