How my startup team almost killed each other
Photo by LastExit
My moral was down. I couldn’t even look at my girlfriend straight in the face because she had been paying for groceries for the past two weeks. We spent a total of 1.5 months in LA, only to move back to the OC because of my inability to generate revenue. I looked at my team, and even though I knew they felt they same level of frustration that I did and shared the same burdon of a startup company, I couldn’t help but feel resent towards them: the CEO who can’t get us funding; problems with developers; marketing team members that drop out when we need them most. Was this the dream team that I had assembled? Are we destined to DIE like so many startup companies before us?
In the past few weeks, I have truly learned about the tough life of an entrepreneur. Even if you are willing to work for no pay, there comes a time when you NEED money just to survive. It is during these times that your team is truly put to the test:
- Economy is down so investors are no longer looking to fund
- FD Career is incomplete because of our lack of a designer
- Companies are slow at adopting a new way of interviewing and recruiting people
- Cash flow gets smaller and smaller as the weeks go by
- A client is taking up all of our resources and we’re losing money on the deal
I had a conversation with Yu-kai, Stephen, and Jason today - not a single one of us had anything less than a smile on our faces! How did we manage the sudden turn around in less than a week? Did we start doing something differently or are we just bi-polar people?
The truth is, this is just the life of an entrepreneur. It will be full of ups and downs, and you better make sure you got the stomach for it before you quit your job to fulfill your E-life dreams. This is what I have learned this past month and how you too can survive and startup struggles:
1. Put the TEAM before anything else
A successful entrepreneur is able to put the team before any personal gain. This means pulling all nighters to finish projects, volunteering to do the grunt work of tasks that are just so mundane that it could rot your brain, and sacrificing time with your family and friends in order to will your company to survive. Your company needs to be #1. A good example of this is when I asked Yu-kai Chou to help me with a client project task that was super grunt work. Yu-kai always responed with “I am here to help.” Man I love that guy.
2. You must adapt to your environments
FD Career was the project that we launched 2 months ago. We spent an enormous amount of time and energy in order to launch the product before school started. FD Career greatly depended on funding to get it off of the ground, but in these rough economic times, funding was no where in sight. So what do we do? Do we put more time and energy into the project that we spent so much time to create, or do we change directions due to our new environment and figure out a new plan of action?
After days and days of discussion and debates, we decided to put FD Career on hold and focus on a new project called Viralogy. I greatly admire Stephen Johnson for being able to put his emotions and attachment aside and start working on a new project. Imagine, working solo on a project for 3 months straight, only to put it on a shelf so that you can work on something that will hopefully be better. This is the kind of team that you will need to assemble in order to have a successful company!
3. Put your best people on the best opportunities
We saw an opportunity for a project that gives bloggers the platform to better promote themselves. Instead of keeping our best developers on FD Career in order to try and make it better, we put our best developer on the new project because it has the best chance to succeed. I feel that a lot of companies use their best people to take charge of a struggling part of a company - this is a huge mistake. You need to put your best people on your best opportunities so that they can run with it and make it something great.
Yu-kai Chou has also sacrificed by taking charge of client development projects, which I personally did not enjoy managing. This has freed up my time to do what I’m best at: Future Delivery TV and Living the Startup Life. Instead of putting me on a project that I can be good at, Yu-kai has put me on a project that I can be great at and enjoy doing it!
The entrepreneurial life is tough. I feel lucky and extremely happy to be a part of my team. Even if we fail, I would glady start another company with each member of my team.
Are you MAN (or WOMAN) enough to be an entrepreneur?
Man do I feel you on that one. We have switched our business plan so many times in the last year that sometimes I don’t know what’s going on in the company that I run.
How right you are about the team. We recently had to do some rearranging to get the best people in place who weren’t scared to miss a Friday night or get up at 6am on Sunday.
I think one of the keys is getting everyone to believe in the culture of WHAT and WHY you are doing what you are doing. Are you really making a product that people need or will use religiously? Are you offering a service that will improve the lives of others or are you just another firm with doing the same ol same.
Sometimes it is hard to change the status quo, but dammit that’s why we got into doing what both of us are doing right now and that is living the startup life! Have a good weekend my man!
Hey Greg, I’m glad that you and I understand each other. It always feels good to see other people who are going through the same things and succeeding.
Keep it up bro!
- Jun
Jun -
Keep your head up - you’ve got the right mentality. This post sounds exactly like something I’d write a few years ago. While not everything I did worked out as I hoped it would, the “failed” projects led me on a path to my current partners. The knowledge from the “failures” has helped me succeed. Even if your team doesn’t hit a home run with FD you’ll learn a ton and likely meet the people that will help you succeed in your next venture.
Adam
Hey Adam, thanks for your vote of confidence. I am very confident that the project my team and I are debuting in 3 weeks will hit big! (Isn’t every entrepreneur confident about his or her product)
Hope everything is going spectacular on your side!
- Jun
Hey Jun,
Great post. As you once told our team: It is important to have the right team that will stick by your side and support one another. I’m glad we have a great team.
Look forward to reading more.
Joseph