What's your advice for first-time founders?

[mosman...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone would mind sharing their thoughts and advice about the best starting point (e.g. incubator program) for a first-time founder. I have a tech start-up in concept phase. It has global potential, strong differentiators and, most importantly, it fills a market gap. Startmate looked like a good option but it requires tech-savvy groups of two to four people, generally. 

Does anyone have some wisdom / constructive advice to share?

Thanks!

Elly

[Dave Kuhn]

Hey Elly,

Having been through Startmate and 500 Startups there are good reasons behind their selection requirements.

Let's take accepting teams over individuals for example. Being a solo founder, whilst not impossible, is extremely demanding mentally and emotionally. Few are cut out for going it alone, as such teams are a safer bet. Not only do they support each other but if one falls, the others can continue.

Secondly I've yet to come across an incubator or investor that will back a concept or a business plan. They are going to want to see something tangible like an MVP, sales/pre-sales and a team that can execute. Without these you're going to have a tough time convincing anyone that you are worthwhile investing in. Think about it from your own position. Would you give someone a huge wad of your own cash and hours of help and advice based on a flashy presentation? I hope not. They'll be looking for at least some evidence that you're not a snake oil salesperson.

I hope that this doesn't come across as harsh, though it's better to learn these things before you start pounding the pavement. At least you'll have time to do something about it.

Dave

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[Dave Kuhn]

Sorry, thinking over my reply it doesn't come across as very constructive.

My advice would be to get an MVP out there, test with real customers, try to convince them to pay with some money and learn when they say no. If you lack the skills find people who can help. Freelancer and ODesk are great for this.

In the mean time start building your network of potential co-founders. Get to know them and discover who compliments you and trial working with those you rate and are keen.

Dave

[Nigel Sheridan-Smith]

Hi Elly,

There is a wealth of information online and available at low-cost... make sure you have picked up copies of Lean Startup by Eric Ries and any of the books by Steve Blank, such as the Startup Owners Manual, etc. That goes without saying...

At this early stage, Dave is right. Incubators will be interested when you have a product and some early-stage {customers | users} and possibly some early revenue. If you are paying them, they will be less concerned about the phase, but if they are offering you cash and assistance in exchange for equity then they will want to ensure that you (and your team) will hit the next milestone - e.g. the 'next big fish' investor, whether that is more angels, seed funding, or something bigger. In general terms, if they are investing $20k they are looking for a $200k upscaled investment.

Whatever you concept is, you should focus on a few key areas: 

• Find potential users who have a 'need', not just a 'want' - and get feedback from them to help validate the business model. Would they use it? How often? Would they pay for it? How much? Don't just rely on friends and family who will give you all 'yes' answers.
• Document the business model, using at the minimum, the 'Business Model Canvas' - search google for PDFs and Wikipedia 
• Work towards weekly or bi-weekly validation steps and hold yourself to these goals - how can you confirm you are on the right path? That you are building something that matters? That you are going about it the right way?
• Sales and Marketing - probably 50% (or more) of the execution is here. What channels apply to your business to reach your potential customers?

If it is a tech product you should attempt to draw up some mockups (pencil and paper if necessary) about how you want your product to work and what it should look like. You would take this to your developers (if required) and should test them visually with some potential customers in your target market. Walk the customers through key scenarios (can you achieve X if I start at screen Y) and see if they can tell you how they would do it. There are good free tools such as Pencil for this too, although some freemium / paid tools are dedicated to your chosen platform (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc etc).

Using the lean startup methodology, you should be able to set hypotheses regularly and get a good idea of whether your idea will translate into a viable business, hopefully without spending too much money upfront. Keep testing the users with each iteration to see if you have hit the mark.

I'm a Melbourne based Ruby on Rails (and more) freelancer, but if you want a chat, you can reach me on the mobile number below. 

Best regards, 

Nigel

 

Dr Nigel Sheridan-Smith PhD / Principal
Green Shores Digital 

 

M: +61 403 930 963
E: ni...@greenshoresdigital.com
W: http://www.greenshoresdigital.com

 

[Craig Davis]

Elly,

In addition to the other good replies, my adivice is *work on your startup*.

Get a part time desk at a good co-working space (eg Fishburners in Sydney, Entry 29 in Canberra) and start meeting more entrepreneurs - this will help your journey more than you expect!

Apply to quality accelerators like startmate and if you don't get in you'll still learn something from the process.

Come along to pitching competitions, hackathons, etc, and learn from participating and watching others.

Apply for grant funding (if you have the good fortune to be in Canberra the best option for you would be Innovation Connect).

Go for it!

Craig

griffinaccelerator.com.au

[mosman...@gmail.com]

Hi Dave

Thanks very much for your thoughts. Both emails were constructive. I like people who talk straight, so I found your thoughts helpful. You've highlighted a number of challenges I need to overcome before I approach an incubator. I've seen only a couple that invite concept-phase founders but, as you say, what would you choose as an investment--a solo founder or an hung-ho team. 

I'm about to write back to Nigel and ask him the same question. How do you protect your idea when you are testing market demand and fishing for a co-founder? I've chatted to LawPath about Non Disclosure Agreements but if I want to test demand via a Facebook page, for example, how do I protect my idea from potential competitors, etc? My idea involves a website, an app and a range of merchandise. 

Thanks Dave!

Elly

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[Hugh Stephens]

Hi Elly,

Some great advice on this thread. I would hazard a guess that Silicon Beach has more "technical" people than "business" people, but it's definitely worth noting that these days most startup founders will have elements of both: a 'business' person with some limited code skills and knowledge helps a LOT in them understanding what is and isn't possible for a roadmap, and who knows, maybe in the early days they'll help to cut code or fix bugs!

It is definitely true that unless you have a solid background (multiple previous 6-figure exits), you're not really going to pull any funding until you have some kind of "product", ideally with validation (even just intent-to-convert from landing pages etc will at least give you something, but as Nigel mentioned, people paying is the ultimate sign). oDesk and Freelancer are indeed good options on how to do this, but you need to do these kinds of outsourcing projects with extreme care...unfortunately as a non-technical person it becomes hard to know what his BS and what isn't, and I've seen (as have others here probably) a $2k project become $20k with no reasonable explanation as a result. That's not to say that it's not a great way to produce a simple MVP, just that some basic technical understanding goes quite a way.

Finally, as Dave mentioned, the reality is that ideas are (almost) worthless. Anyone has hundreds of ideas, some of which may become viable businesses, many of which won't. And it's hard to pick sometimes what is 'good' and what is 'bad' – that's why Lean Startup type principles exist (books mentioned here all great, would also recommend the Business Model Generation book that the Canvas is named after...their followup Value Proposition is also worthwhile), and they work very well. What seems to me like a great idea, with a clear market need and a big gap has become a situation where people 'want' or 'nice to have' rather than 'need', and it's hard to build a business on top of that. Some I discovered early, others I went through a whole process of an MVP build only to discover the market I thought needed what I thought they did, actually needed something else, or was happy with their index-card type existing processes.

"Finding a tech cofounder" is a tricky proposition. You need to find someone who believes in the same cause as you (startups want to change something, and the cofounding team needs to believe in the change), who obviously has technical abilities but most importantly, who gets along with you. The "Ramen" stage is very hard to go through when you don't have someone else with you (trust me as a sole founder of many things, it's bloody hard), and it's even sometimes hard to celebrate victories when you don't have anyone to celebrate with. I'm sure that from your perspective there is a big sense of urgency (what if someone else has the same idea and executes it while I'm looking?!), but getting it right is the key to something that lasts. As is being able to let go of the idea – sometimes ideas are actually bad, and you discover this, and then you pivot, and you need to be okay with that!

If you have the time, I would also recommend doing some basic online programming training. You can do one of the paid courses, or do one of the 'video series' type things, but pick a language and do it. Ruby / Ruby on Rails is popular as is NodeJS, but more 'classic' languages like Python can be a lot easier to learn if you're new to programming altogether, and almost every developer will be able to abstract something into Python because most have at least a moderate level of knowledge in it.

I'm sure there are people here who might sit down for a coffee with you (I'm assuming you are in Sydney, I'm also in Melbourne) and chat, but check out your local Meetups etc as well, go to conferences/hackathons and whatever you can find. Fishburners and the similar would also be good places, or you can approach some of the people (nicely) who frequently post here.

Cheers

Hugh

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[mosman...@gmail.com]

Hi Nigel

You're very kind to offer to chat. A chat would be great!

I'm very new to this scene. Thankfully, I have a business development and marketing background, but there is so much I don't know about the journey from business concept to business realisation. 

In all of my Googling, I've consistently read that founders should not worry about their ideas being stolen, because there is a much higher risk that no one will care about the business product or service. On the other hand, if your idea addresses a market gap and competes with fully established and lucrative online businesses, I'm guessing I need to err on the side of caution. 

I think testing market demand should be one of my next steps. I've seen plenty of media coverage regarding the market gap and the need for this service. I would like start to test demand and collect some stats via a Facebook page, for example. I've developed Facebook groups in the past and they quickly gained traction because they were about causes like child bullying and tail-gating. People shared their stories and their passion for driving change. 

How can I test the demand for my online business, without revealing the nuts and bolts, though? I also feel I need a tech-savvy partner/co-founder, but how can I find one without revealing too much? These are the challenges on my mind, at this early stage.

Hmmm...I think I'll take you up on that chat, Nigel. :)

Thank you! 

Elly

P.S. The information you have given me is excellent! Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

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[mosman...@gmail.com]

Thanks Craig! I'm in Sydney so I'll check them out. I was reading about Fishburners only last week. 

The competitions sound great. I'm also thinking about studying some short courses like Mobile UX, iOS programming (high-level) and web development. I'm a creative though, so tech stuff is not my forte. The industry gurus seem to press the point that everyone needs coding knowledge at a high level, at least, even if they are just the visionary. 

Do you agree? How would you prioritise those courses? Coding first?

Elly

P.S. I have to dash now but I'll log back on tonight.

[Dave Kuhn]

Hey Elly,

Protecting your idea is something you hear a lot from first time founders. The truth is that your fears are likely unfounded. Putting it bluntly: no one cares about your idea and nobody has any idea just how valuable your idea is, including you. Nobody is going to suddenly quit their job or product to jump on your unproven idea.

You're going to need to get over this fear in order to put wheels in motion. It's simply not practical nor possible in many cases to ask potential customers, investors, advisors and suppliers to sign an NDA. Some will flat out refuse, others will bog you down with needless requests to modify the NDA and make you wait for higher ups to approve before discussions can proceed. By far the biggest problem you face is lack of time (e.g. you run out of money before you can convince customers to buy and investors to invest, or someone else brings something to market that solves the problem before you do).

Get out there and sell, prove your idea is valuable. Once proven then worry about protecting that value. 

Dave

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[Geoff McQueen | AffinityLive]

Perfectly said Dave. Some more words on the topic if you're skeptical Elly: http://cdixon.org/2010/03/14/developing-new-startup-ideas/.

Any time someone says they won't tell me about their idea because they're being protective/secretive that is the end of the conversation and my willingness to help. You'll find the same is true for anyone who can add value - but don't feel too bad; as Dave said, this is a common thing to hear from folks when they're just starting to get their feet wet.

Geoff

Geoff McQueen
Founder & CEO
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Office: +1 800.425.7315
Cell: +1 650.450.4384

Skype: geoffmcqueen

[mosman...@gmail.com]

Excellent! Thanks Geoff and Dave. I appreciate your frank answers. It is great to have a sounding board. After watching topical youtube videos, I suspected that the NDA would not be well received and I highly doubt it provides robust protection, regardless. For example, how would you know if an accelerator panel member told his/her wife/husband, who went on to tell a best friend, who went on to develop the business (if they could be bothered, as you say)?

Okay. Good! Thanks. I'm grateful for all of the advice in this forum. Everyone is clearly quite passionate about their work and the industry. 

Elly

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[mosman...@gmail.com]

Hi Hugh

Again, some great food for thought. Thanks.

I will call you out on one point, though. The only idea that is worthless (or almost worthless) is the unexplored idea. Everything starts with an idea. 

Elly

[Geoff Langdale]

Speaking from experience here: You can do a lot of 'exploration' on ideas but an idea is validated when you can get either money or a big bunch of users and fast growth, or both. Up to that point it's just an idea and everyone has a big bunch of them floating around. We got secretive about our ideas in the past when our ideas were implemented into a system that meant 6-7 figure annual revenue - when you've proved something in the market it's worth keeping further secrets...

Most people are far more in love with their undeveloped ideas than yours and the chance they'll rip you off is negligible - that "best friend of the panel's wife/husband" already has 9 fond startup daydreams already. No matter how good they area, chances are they like most of those 9 more than yours.

The others are right about trying to make other people sign your NDA. It's not worth it.

Aside from that, I'm not sure what to tell you - posts seeking technical co-founders were so common here it became somewhat of a running joke. Startmate is great but does require a pre-existing team. The learning curve for becoming "enough of a tech person yourself" is steep (if rewarding - by all means, give it a shot). I think the world of outsourcing development or 'work for hire' or the Blue Chilli model is at best unproven. If you need to prioritize anything it would probably be in the UX area - get facile enough to the point you can build at least a non-working prototype of your idea (or a really detailed series of storyboards) so you *can* tell the story of how things should work exactly to a tech person. The gap between "someone should do something to solve X" and "here's the flow of how you would sign up for my service that accomplishes X without being driven out of your mind" is huge.

The best (alternate) advice I've seen on this might come as a disappointment to you: http://blog.downie.com.au/your-first-startup-should-be-someone-elses

Geoff.

[Mike Gardiner]

Elly some of the most valuable advice will be things you dont want to hear and at these early stages you dont need to be inspired and patted on the back you need people telling you how it is.

Cheers,Mike.

On 19/03/2015 9:58 AM, "StartUp Mosman" <mosman...@gmail.com> wrote:

Honestly, Geoff, there's a lot of negativity in your posts. You're comments are discouraging and uninspiring...a drain. Yawn.

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[Patrick Collins]

Well, we all need a little bit of patting on the back too right? Founding is pretty hard.

www.high-five-a-founder-today.com/submit/

On that note: huge props to Geoff McQueen for grinding out the last five years and really stepping it up in the last year. 30 employees, new funding and rocket ship growth. Nicely done Geoff. 

Patrick.

[simran]

Good point Mike, although if i may, i'll give a slightly different perspective (not referring to *any* of the earlier posts or with reference to any person - my comment is solely a response to your statement):

Encouragement is perhaps equally valuable if not more. Hearing an opinion from anyone (and it is just an opinion albeit, sometimes based in more experience) can be really valuable, it's always worth considering and then discarding if need be... but if it comes from a really negative place (egotistical, know-it-all, you have no idea, i'm the king of the world types) then it's not even considered - and the person giving it has wasted his time and the other person's time. 

It's *always* worth trying to understand the context the question is coming from, and then responding in a way that can be understood. 

If after all, we *only cared* about "hard facts as we see them" (according to our experience) - then each schoolteacher would be yelling at every school kid all day... and i for one don't think that would produce good results :) 

On a separate note, i think we can learn a HUGE amount from dog trainers... you'll be amazed at how totally *positive* driven training is... it's got there as positivity bought forth much better results... i think we can learn a lot from that. 

Having said that, absolutely, one needs to give their opinion, factually, unmasked and as they see it, but it *is possible* to do it without yelling / screaming as that usually never gets the point across... :) 

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:29 AM, Mike Gardiner <m...@limerocket.com> wrote:

Elly some of the most valuable advice will be things you dont want to hear and at these early stages you dont need to be inspired and patted on the back you need people telling you how it is.

Cheers,Mike.

[Geoff McQueen | AffinityLive]

Right, good to clarify that discouraging and uninspiring advice from someone with a lot of experience in this sort of thing isn't welcome. In that case, my advice at the top should have been:

• Quit your job. Now. Carpe Fucking Diem. If you get to the end of this email without jumping up and shouting "I'm out of here to pursue my startup dreams" you're just not cut out for it as you'll have proven your lack of energy, passion and risk taking isn't up to being an entrepreneur.
• Move to the Bay Area. Now. This is where it is at and starting a company anywhere else is a waste of your life. Visualize the success you deserve, truly deserve, and then go out and snatch it. There's money falling from the sky here - small companies that do nothing (Yo) raise millions and pin boards for homemakers to daydream with are worth over 10 billion dollars. The only real step to achieving your dreams is to get over to San Francisco and you're made. The investors will be impressed by your willingness to move across the world where you have no networks, no connections, no credibility, no product, no customers and no traction and were still brave enough to do it!! Crazy brave! That's what they're looking for - crazy brave thunder lizards!!!! Why shouldn't it be you?
• Dream big and don't let anyone tell you you're wrong. You've thought about your idea a lot longer than them, so what would they know? We all know contrarians changed the world so going against the tide is a sure sign you're onto something big. The secret to success is to just keep going, no matter what, and you'll get there in the end - so taking outside advice and opinions on board is really just a sign for the weak who want an excuse to give up.
• Keep your idea secret and don't tell anyone - it is too valuable! There are so many vultures out there with almost limitless technical talent resources and commercial experience and connections die for, but they're just unable to think of their own good ideas - and if you're not careful they'll steal yours. They hang out at the Grove and the Creamery just trying to overhead incredible original ideas and then steal them - the only way to make sure they can't is to never tell anyone anything.

Seriously though, you've come onto a list and asked for help and advice and experienced people have offered to help. They could have said "another non-technical wantrepreneur trying with an idea for a tech business who thinks their idea is awesome and wants to know the secret in getting from underpants to profit; yet another deluded fool and wasting their life on something that will never get anywhere". But they didn't. And now I'm genuinely concerned for the next guy or girl who posts to this list and asks for help and having experienced operators like Geoff Langdale just ignore their request for advice because it isn't what someone wants to hear, because while they probably won't read your post and disrespectful response to someone answering a request for advice, the people who can help on this list will all remember it and the community will be the worse for it.

Good luck.

Geoff 

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[StartUp Mosman]

Hi Geoff M

My comment was for Geoff Langdale. I apologise if you thought my comment was direct at you. It wasn't at all. I appreciate all the feedback on here. I do think Geoff L's feedback was coming from an insecure place, hence the barrage of negativity and "can't do" attitude. Some people just aren't mentor material.

I agree with Simran's well articulated response: "but if it comes from a really negative place (egotistical, know-it-all, you have no idea, i'm the king of the world types) then it's not even considered - and the person giving it has wasted his time and the other person's time." Well said, Simran.

Certainly, Geoff M, I valued your advice. I'm okay with frank and constructive advice. It's the destructive advice that has no place here.

Cheers 

Lilly

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[StartUp Mosman]

And on a lighter note, I've just signed off with my dog Lilly's name. Calling back the dog and writing emails at the same time...Not the best combo. :D

Thanks everyone for your input here. I have lots of things to think about and I thank you all for your time.

Cheers

Elly

[Geoff Langdale]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-escalated-quickly

Huh. I thought I was being constructive, or at least informative. Let me unpack my comments a bit:

1. I certainly am not prejudging your idea as "bad". Just saying that practically everyone is in love with their own ideas to the point that not only do people not want to steal your idea, it's unlikely you'll be able to *make* them steal your idea if you wanted to.

2. I'm not being snarky about the whole idea of "seeking a tech cofounder" - just pointing out that it is *very* hard to find uncommitted tech folks willing to work on someone else's idea as a tech cofounder. Not saying you're a running joke, just that the undersupply of tech cofounders and constant requests for same became a running joke here a few years back. I think a lot of the "teach yourself to code" momentum came about as a way of addressing that.

3. Invoking Alan Downie's advice about this ("work for someone else's startup for a while") is in not meant to be dismissive (i.e. "your idea sucks, go work for someone else"). The process of working for someone else's startup gives you a chance to see a lot more about how the whole thing works, meet people, iterate on your idea in the off-hours, etc.

4. If you are going to learn some tech skills, UX and the ability to tell a detailed story about what it is that you want is key. I think 'coding skills' are very hard to develop but the ability to construct a detailed storyboard that lays out what will actually happen in a UI interaction what precisely what needs to be done is a very good bridge to those coding skills. The gap between a hand-wave prototype and realizing "Oh crap, it's going to take someone 19 separate annoying steps to do something simple with my app" lies in this area. I think this is eminently solvable by training and was encouraging you to focus on that more than trying to teach yourself to program from scratch.

I don't know for sure that I'm insecure; I have a few years in the trenches, an exit, a first name which doesn't vary from post to post and a last name.

Geoff.

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[StartUp Mosman]

You just had to get that last dig in, didn't you Geoff L?! LOL. Okay. 

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[Ash Angell]

I'd like to say that while wholeheartedly agree very much with what Geoff M has said, I take issue with his last point:

"Keep your idea secret and don't tell anyone - it is too valuable!"

I don't agree with this. For a few reasons:

1. You never know where you will find a 'shit-hot' or  'superstar' developer for your start-up. Anyone can code, but we all know people who are 'special'. And you all know EXACTLY what I mean. If you keep the idea to yourself you definitely diminish the likelihood of finding like minded people who wanna leave their day job and follow "the" dream with you.
2. You should have such a good idea of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for your start up AND already be executing on it that no one could possibly catch you. If some one hears your idea for the first time AND they still manage to beat you to market, then you didn't follow Geoff's 1st and 2nd rules. If you had the idea first, and deliver it second, then you worked too slow, or didn't identify your minimum viable product properly.
3. And last of all, "Idea's are like assholes, everyone has one" - 99% of the people you meet will be so self-obsessed (rightly so) of their own start up, that no one cares about your idea (let alone try to steal it). In fact the biggest obstacle you will need to overcome is apathy - more so if your start up challenges the status quo or shifts a paradigm.

Others may disagree, but thats how I see it anyways.

Good luck.  You'll need it. ;)

Ash Angell

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[Ryan Wardell]

Seems like everyone else on SB has weighed in with their 2c so I might as well offer my own.

Elly, firstly - there are some very smart, very experienced people on here who have given you honest advice for free. Because they want to help you. Please don't get snarky - it's ok to disagree, and as a founder, you're going to hear the word "no" a lot. Geoff Langdale has better stuff to do than to "get digs in", and he's anything but "insecure" The only reason he's written anything is because he genuinely is trying to give you some useful advice.

Picking fights on SB will get you nowhere. Insulting well-regarded members of the startup community will get you nowhere.

Secondly, as a fellow non-technical biz dev/marketing type, here are some suggestions that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

1 - Before you get a technical cofounder, get a technical MENTOR. i.e. someone who has been the CTO of a successful startup before. Technical mentors can help you understand the tech that drives your business. They can help you outsource the MVP development on odesk/elance. And, when you have an MVP and some traction, they can help introduce you to the right technical cofounder. Having someone who is well regarded by developers say "You should meet Elly, I really think his(her?) startup is going places and I think you're a perfect fit for each other" is SO much more effective than showing up at a startup weekend and saying "So I've got this idea for an app..."

2 - SB will probably disagree with me here, but for non-technical founders I think this is important: Treat coding as a last resort. As in, exhaust every possible way to get users/customers/revenue and provide value before you have a single line of code written. Most first time founders think the first step is to build a product. You'd be very surprised just how far you can go by hacking together stuff with wufoo/google forms, leadpages, eventbrite and email etc. None of that requires coding. Read more: http://hustleconstories.com/ You regard yourself as a creative? Good. Launching a tech startup without any code requires plenty of creativity.

3 - Marketing is important. Contrary to what you read on TechCrunch, most startups don't get acquired for their tech or for their engineering talent - they get acquired for their customer database, because the acquirer can make more money out of that database than the startup can. A lot of people suggest that you should validate your product. I think you should also validate your marketing channels. Again, YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE A PRODUCT TO DO THIS. You might have the best product in the world, but if you can't get it in front of potential customers, it doesn't matter. Besides, understanding the numbers that drive your business - the cost of acquiring a customer, the lifetime value of a customer - is crucial if you ever plan on raising money. Or, you know, being profitable...

4 - Go and network with other entrepreneurs. And developers and designers and marketers and hustlers. And journalists. And investors. And potential customers. Make lots of friends BEFORE you launch. Your success relies on your ability to connect with all of these people, and waiting until after you launch is a mistake. Also, there's a concept called "stacking your bench". Identify people you want to hire BEFORE you have a position available/money available to hire them. Hiring the right people is so crucial for a startup, and every week that goes by with a crucial position unfilled (or worse, filled by someone incompetent) hurts you a lot.

5 - This idea protection stuff is bullshit. Less than 1% of the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE has the ability and the cojones to turn an idea into a successful business. They're called entrepreneurs - and guess what, they all have a hundred ideas of their own that they think are better than yours. In fact, you might find you'll get more help from Silicon Beach if you point blank tell us (a) what the problem you think you're solving is, (b) what your solution is, (c) why your solution is 10x better than anything else out there, (d) how you plan to monetise it, (e) how you plan to acquire customers, and how much that will cost.

Incedentally, if you can answer those questions well, you'll find it much easier to get yourself a tech cofounder, customers, investors, press attention, and future employees.

Most likely you'll get your idea torn to shreds. That's ok. Don't get defensive. Accept the criticism, pivot and make your idea bulletproof.

6 - Lastly - this stuff is HARD. Really hard. Probably the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life. And you're probably going to fail. Most entrepreneurs do, certainly most first-time entrepreneurs.

If you're still brave enough to try knowing that you face something like a 95% failure rate...because you just can't NOT do it...you might just have what it takes after all.

Cheers,

Ryan

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[Pushpinder Bagga]

Hey Elly,

You are a rockstar mate, you've got some traction already ;)

Good luck!

[Geoff McQueen | AffinityLive]

Ash, to be crystal clear, all of my bullet points were taking the piss - they're fucked up advice that I wouldn't give to a real entrepreneur. But they're prefect for Elly's need for encouragement and positivity from someone who's mentor material.

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[Geoff McQueen | AffinityLive]

I think he bit you're missing in that reply Elly was the thank you for Geoff's time & advice and apology for being a dick. LOL? Yawn.

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[robby...@gmail.com]

Geoff McQueen,

Just a friendly word of advice, mate. You are your brand and a brand can be destroyed in moments. You are headed for a very hard fall if you keep representing yourself in this way, and promoting your 'mentor' position with startmate. Nikki Scevak may take issue with how your are attacking Elly in this public forum.

What's the definition of a mentor? Someone who is undermining, discouraging and verging on abusive? 

Your specialty is one thing. Everyone has a specialty, but not everyone has an inflated ego and abusive tone with people who show interest in their specialty. What's ironic is that you don't even know what Elly's planning. 

I say, go for it, Elly. You'll learn a lot along the journey and no one can say you won't make it even the first time around. Go for it!

In any case, this thread certainly makes for some interesting publicity down the track.

Robby.

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[Ash Angell]

Ryan, point 6 of your comments really resonated with me. Its difficult to explain to people who haven't already been fed through the grinder to understand just how difficult the road is. Anyone who think that its going to be easy, isn't ready.  Its hard to publicly admit this in a predominantly Australian forum (becasue Aussies, generally, don't have a good attitude towards failure) - but my start up nearly destroyed me.

I had great support, good mentors, good angel investors, positive attitudes, a rockstar team - and when the big US fund-raising push on the last of the money we had was crushed the weekend of the Lehman Brothers collapse and subsequent GFC that forced us to pull the pin - I was left with nothing more than a shell of my pre-startup self.

Great idea (still is), great people, great vision - ultimately *very* bad timing and *Very* bad structure. Giving it everything I had, left me as a husk; drained of purpose, dignity, energy, positivity and psychologically triggered a deep and lasting depression.

No question it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It's taken me a few years to mourn the loss, and regain the strength and optimism to consider getting back on the horse. But if you have the stomach for it, can also be one of the most productive and positive experience of one's life (even if it ultimately fails). Despite what happened to me (now that I've recovered), I don't regret it at all. The personal cost was extreme, but inverse proportionally so were the positive lessons I learned. That being said, I don't know if just anyone has the fortitude to endure it.

Ash

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[Ben Davey]

Believe me, any advice you can get from an industry veteran who has navigated their way successfully through the school of hard knocks (there aren’t many), should be taken on-board, whether discouraging or not, when deciding to make the plunge into your first startup. Forwardness and honesty should be embraced and learned-from… Not frowned upon.

 

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[megan roberts]

I believe Geoff's post was all tongue in cheek.

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[Ashley Angell]

...but...but...most of his points were right on the money! Lol.

Sorry for missing the ";)" Geoff M - but I actually thought it was seriously good advice - except for the last one obviously.

Ash

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[Geoff McQueen | AffinityLive]

Robby,

You're quite right to point out that my last email was out of line and inappropriate, specifically describing Elly's conduct as "being a dick" - Elly, I'm sorry for posting that, and to the rest of the SBA community, I'm also sorry for setting a bad example; there's no excuse for it and I was very clearly being a dick. Sorry once again. 

One thing I do need to challenge in your post was the reference to Startmate - I didn't mention Startmate at all in any post in this thread, and while it is something I'm involved with, it isn't an organization that I represent or speak on behalf of and to infer that (and bring it up) when you're (quite reasonably) calling me out for being a dick is wrong and inaccurate.

Geoff

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[Elias Bizannes]

As Geoff McQueens housemate (no we haven't spoken about this) in San Francisco and the guy that created this mailing list for the purpose that this thread has become, here are my three cents

- Geoff's an arse hole. Don't encourage him. 

- I've lived with Geoff for three years and think he's going to be one of the better entrepreneur success stories to come out of Australia as I've seen the journey up close up. So he's worth listening to. 

- I agree with most of what's been said in this thread. (Just not the tone.)

What I would recommend to a new entrepreneur:

- learn to code, at least enough to build a prototype. Not to be a developer but to be a better entrepreneur. Go to onemonth.com and do the courses. HTML, Rails, Swift. JavaScript if they have it. You can punch out one course in one day if you do it back to back. It's embarrassing to say you are building a tech startup and you not knowing...tech 

- don't be afraid to share your idea: no one cares and they have their own vested interests. A startup without traction is fiction. Are you really worried someone is going to write a fiction book based on the book idea you shared with them?

- read the internet. Techmeme and product hunt to stay on top of things. Fred Wilson and Mark Suster for great VC blogs. Venture hackers for a primer on everything and Angel List for real time market insight on valuations, salaries and startups. Quora for random business knowledge and stack overflow for random technical questions. 

What makes someone a good entrepreneur is that they don't give up. What makes some a successful entrepreneur is their ambition and Intelligence. Everyone on this mailing list, including several in this thread that I know personally, wants people to succeed because it grows our industry with worker pride or revenue to fund it. 

Let's just remember what it was all like when we all first started out because things that are obvious to us where not once upon a time...

Sent from Outlook

_____________________________
From: Ashley Angell <ange...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] What's your advice for first-time founders?
To: <silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com>

[robby...@gmail.com]

Geoff McQueen,

Firstly, what conduct from Elly seems to be bothering you? She has not been abusive, like you. She has respectfully shared an opinion that quite clearly you did not like. Perhaps it is you who is having a hard time hearing things that you don't want to hear. Do you always go on a tirade and carry on like a badly behaved child? Your behaviour is appalling. You call yourself a mentor?

Secondly, YOU promote yourself as a mentor for Startmate. It doesn't really matter that you haven't mentioned it in this particular conversation. Take a lesson from a branding expert and think harder. Think about all the places where your name is mentioned on the internet. I see you also promote yourself as a trouble maker. Indeed.

Geoff, big trees catch a lot of wind and eventually they topple over. Don't bring down Startmate as you fall.

Robby

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[Jeromy Evans]

> On 20 Mar 2015, at 3:43 pm, robby...@gmail.com wrote:
> …snip..

> Geoff, big trees catch a lot of wind and eventually they topple over. Don't bring down Startmate as you fall.
>

Wow, that’s an awful remark Robby.

[Geoff Langdale]

I think we can all agree to disagree about various things. Arguably some would find Elly's response to me a little on the gratuitous side, but, hey, I've heard worse. I think it's a stretch to say she has "respectfully shared an opinion" but I'm sure she figured that she's giving me the all the respect I deserve... certainly no-one needed to get offended on my behalf (I can dish it out and take it).

I am still genuinely baffled as to what was so negative about my original post - I thought it was generally a mix of realism and even a spot of encouragement (e.g. suggesting a focus on UI and story-boarding over straight programming). I certainly don't understand why it was necessary to respond in the way she did rather than, say, ignore my useless advice that clearly stems only from insecurity and negativity, etc. Repeating Alan Downie's advice that "Your First Startup Should Be Someone Else's" also doesn't seem like a clear reason to break out the chainsaw either, unless someone is suffering from an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

I can't help but notice the fact that the most aggressive contributions (apparently Geoff M's apology is Not Enough in some unspecified way) on this thread are, once again, coming from Yet Another person with:

a) no introduction (it used to be traditional here to introduce oneself),
b) no post history beyond this thread,
c) and no last name.

It's unfortunate that this thread has gone so far down the rabbit hole. I think there are some interesting points about the role of ideas, how to get started, etc. buried amidst the tantrums, misunderstood satire, unconvincing attempts to play disinterested Philosopher-King, general confusion, etc. I think the throwaway line that "ideas don't matter" is a fascinating and flawed start to a conversation that could do with a great deal of nuance. I'm also interested in the deadlock that seems to result when you have 50 would-be entrepreneurs and 200 ideas between them, mathematically resulting in a lot of 0.25 person companies - I've seen this play out among friends, colleagues and acquaintances (anyone who is curious can ask me about my "Idea Suicide Club" concept). However, I don't think this thread is now the place to discuss any of that...

Geoff.

...

[Matto Rochford]

I think both of the Geoffs in this thread offered valuable advice in a reasonable tone.

There's a line in Gladiator: "Some people just don't know when they've been conquered." 

In this case, some people just don't know when they've been helped.