lean startup

Why tech startup founders ought to learn to code

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.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: code, coding, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, FamilyTales, hack, hacking, lean startup, startup

What’s Life After Lean Startup Machine

by Ramli Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, lean startup, lean startup machine, lessons learned, mentor, startup, workshop

5 Lessons from My Startup Failures

by Ramli Leave a Comment

Failure hurts. But it’s not over unless you give up.

I’ve waited this long to write about this. I couldn’t write it earlier because the wounds were too fresh. If starting a startup is like giving birth to a child, then the failure of a startup is like losing a child. It’s emotional. It’s painful. But, it’s also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to learn. It’s opportunity to be better. It’s an opportunity to start off fresh.

Let me share with you lessons from my mistakes. Hopefully, it will help you avoid them. But, my lessons are from my own experience. The best lessons are learned from your own past mistakes.

1. Saying you’ve read the Lean Startup doesn’t mean you’ll follow it

Before I even started working on a startups, I was fortunate enough to come across the Lean Startup concepts. I still remember the first time I was exposed to it. I got an email from MaRS Discovery in Toronto about a lean startup workshop. Back then, I didn’t know who Ash Maurya was. But at the end of the session, I bought his book and devoured the concept. I vowed to myself to follow those principles as a guide. But, words are cheap. Doing is not saying. Attend a Lean Startup Weekend or Lean Startup Machine workshop to find out how it should be applied. Check it out if you haven’t already.

2. Coding is your last step. Validate that you have a problem first

One of the best advice I got from the Lean Startup Machine workshop I attended was that coding should be the last step. Validate that you have a problem first by talking to customers. Have you stumbled upon a bleeding-neck problem that people would be willing to depart with their cash? Don’t be one of the wantrapreneuers I meet at networking events where they believe that they’ve found this awesome idea, a killer app, a star product. If only someone would build it for them, then for sure customers would fork over there cash.

3. Don’t become a solution looking for a problem

Don’t lose focus of the problem. That was one of the biggest mistake I made in my previous failed startup, Lesson Sensei. About a few weeks in, we realized that we really don’t have a problem to solve. But, we had this awesome solution. So we started pivoting on possible problems we can solve with our solution. Each week, we tried a new problem to solve. Each time, we found a flaw with our assumption. Then, we started losing steam. Always start with validating a problem before you validate the solution. The other way around just takes up too much time and energy.

4. Losing Momentum

If you are too slow to draw, you may miss your opportune time to launch and lose momentum. Each time we changed our strategy, customer segment, problem hypothesis and customer hypothesis, we lost momentum at Lesson Sensei. At the end of it, the team and I were distressed, demoralized and dejected. Each week, we started to hate coming to our weekly scrum meetings. The reason why we lost momentum was that we didn’t focus our energy, time and resources by prioritizing our action. As I previously mentioned, saying that you’re a leanist doesn’t mean you are a leanist.

5. The Wrong Team Environment

As Jim Collins noted in his book Good To Great, “start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” I initially thought that I had an A+ team that I put together at Lesson Sensei. I had a marketer, an experienced designer and programmer and a strategist. We were all good friends. We knew each other before. We got along well. But, the stress and pressure working in a startup created so much tension in the team. Looking back, I should have been more cognizant of the tension and gave the team a breather once in a while.

Don’t give up

So those are my lessons from my past 3 startup ideas I’ve worked on. I’ve learned a lot more things. I’m not discouraged. As Thomas Edison once said, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” In fact, I’m already working on my 4th venture. This time I’m smarter, better and stronger.

Let me leave you with what Brad Hargreaves, founding partner at General Assembly, said at Harvard’s 18th Cyberposium last week, “All of you need to start companies… and fail. Fail hard. Fail fast. Then learn from your mistakes.” That’s what I’m doing. What are you?

Lessons Learned

Reading Lean Startup is not doing the Lean Startup

Coding should be your last step. Validate that you have a problem first.

Be mindful of your team’s environment. Take a break when you need it.

Don’t lose momentum. Guard your momentum. It can make or break your startup.

Don’t be a solution looking for a problem.

Filed Under: Startup Tagged With: determination, failure, lean startup, lessons, MaRS, resilience, 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 tech startup founders ought to learn to code

1. Low Barrier to Learning

2. Help You Recruit Tech Talent

3. Work With Team of Builders

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

What’s Life After Lean Startup Machine

1) Be Humble

2) Be Happy

3) Be Hungry

Stay Humble, Happy and Hungry

5 Lessons from My Startup Failures

1. Saying you’ve read the Lean Startup doesn’t mean you’ll follow it

2. Coding is your last step. Validate that you have a problem first

3. Don’t become a solution looking for a problem

4. Losing Momentum

5. The Wrong Team Environment

Don’t give up

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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