entreprenership

Why startup founders need to hear NO

“The best kind of feedback you can get is when you hear a definitive no.” That’s what Mike Kirkup, the director of Velocity Garage and one of the mentors for FamilyTales, told me, Ali and Beatrice. We were talking about pricing. We finally got someone to pay us $100 for subscription for our startup FamilyTales. Kirkup was telling us that we should have kept raising the price to see at what point the person would say no to.

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.

Filed Under: Ivey MBA, Leadership, Startup Tagged With: advice, entreprenership, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, failure, no, resilience, startup, startup founders, success, tips

3 Startup Lessons I learned From My Mom

by Ramli Leave a Comment

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.

ThanksMom

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: business, entreprenership, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, humble, lessons learned, mom, patience, startup, startup life

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

by Ramli 3 Comments

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

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

Why startup founders need to hear NO

3 Startup Lessons I learned From My Mom

1. Be Happy

2. Just Do It

3. Ask for help

Thanks Mom

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

Gather a team of builders

Focus on building

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

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