The most ubiquitous advice startups get is: get out of the office, talk to people, get your head out of the product and meet potential customers. Coming from a technology background and having spent the recent years working from my home office, this is a tall order.
First, what do you mean, get my head out of the product? As a true techie, I am never happy with what I've got: missing features, imperfect UI, technological debt that's accumulated - all those and more chain me to my desk in a frantic attempt to force the business to market by furious typing.
Second, talking to people, while extremely comfortable and pleasant in most contexts, can be painful and downright terrifying when your purpose is to convince them your product (you know, the imperfect, desperately underdeveloped, needing just one more feature product) is the next big thing they need.
Finally, each such encounter makes me realize just what a monumental task I have in front of me. The more I look, the more competition I see cropping up around me. I hear successful CEO's tell me that their idea in its infancy was downright unfundable (did you know, there was such a thing as an unfundable idea? Ugh..) And VC's explain that the key element in their looking at the business is a strong executive team... Whatever am I going to do about that? All I've got is me, and while I may be the world's finest flower, I have not made my mark. John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners came out and said, "We do not invest in first time founders." Eh?
Two weeks ago I walked out of a "meet the VC's" event put on by LAVA and knew that I was one lost ant, separated from its tribe, making my careful way amidst the long-legged grasshoppers. (Read more about the terrifying experience in my last post.)
The surprising result is, the initial pain of such interactions is subsiding and I am starting to get the sense that, unlike in nature, there is a fairly straightforward path in an ant's evolution to the jumping, leaping and musical grasshopper, such as it is. Yesterday, I visited a Tech Coast Angels Mixer right here in Orange County. I'll digress just for a moment and tell you just how much I love it here in OC. Having moved only a few months back, we were delighted to discover this to be the friendliest and most comfortable place we have ever been!
The event was a delight. Organizers did not just offer the trite rhedoric of the form "we are here to help entrepreneurs" (read: "we are so awesome and important, touch us!") but were friendly, helpful, easy-going and infused the atmosphere with a sense of community and collaboration. My personal thanks to Amir Banifatemi for paying me the best compliment a person in the business of investment could: offering critique on my pitch after giving me a full three minutes of interested undivided attention. Additionally, Jack Tsai, the chairman of the Fast Pitch LA competition , who had remembered ConnectFu for the best possible reason: the name stood out in his memory. (We receive a lot of criticism for our name, and this is comfort!)
Coming out of a series of three events now: LAVA, Caltech/MIT Enterprise forum and now Tech Coast Angels Mixer in OC, my vision is crystallizing. I have a better understanding for which of those "critical features" I need to focus on, what I need to accomplish before taking the company to market and I can see the Old-Green-Grasshopper I aim to be at the end of the tunnel.
It can be intimidating with all the task at hand. Though at least you get the job done.
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