UofI TEC Entrepreneurship Forum Audience Questions
Last week, I was invited to be a part of an entrepreneurship forum at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. During the actual panel session, we used my product, Poll Everywhere, to allow the audience of students to submit questions to the panel during our talk. This is a great use of Poll Everywhere and it worked really well in this instance.
The panel consumed all of the available time so we didn't quite get to as many of the audience questions as we hoped so I thought I might try to answer a few good ones that didn't get answered. Here we go:
Where do you go for inspiration? Where do you get ideas from?
On one level, ideas seem to come at me, randomly being around the city or driving or visiting with friends or out at a bar. Other ideas also come from reading new and interesting books that I've found or were recommended to me to read. Different environments and experiences also seem to give me new insights and ideas such as traveling through many different countries as I have or visiting new places (museums, national landmarks, small neighborhoods, and on and on). I also like challenging friends on different issues or problems to see if we can construct an answer to a tough problem. I suppose it has been said before but inspiration can come virtually from anywhere.
Team or idea? Which is important? Paul Graham said, you cannot change a team, but you can change an idea anytime.
Well, both are important. I disagree that you can't change a team but it is definitely harder to change a team than it is to change an idea. On the other hand, it's also easier (most of the time) to see whether you have a good team in place than if you have a good idea or not. A good team will eventually be able to figure out what it needs to do or how to transform the wrong idea into something new (and perhaps entirely different). When starting a business with partners or hiring outside employees or contractors for the first time, you absolutely have to think about who those people are with a critical eye.
Do you have someone like a mentor to review your business plan before launching your business?
Certainly advisers to the company and me personally are valuable for feedback on what you're trying to accomplish and how you are going to accomplish it. A business plan is not necessarily a prerequisite to starting a business but having at least something written down about what you are going to attempt to do, how you'll be doing it, who you're doing it for, etc., helps when trying to have meaningful conversations with advisers to get feedback in the first place. Also, remember that just because an adviser or mentor says something is good or bad also doesn't mean that you should or shouldn't do it.
Does team matter? What is the best size for a team?
Team absolutely matters as I said above. Team definitely comes before idea (usually). The best size for a team is not a known number but when starting from scratch, having at least 1 other person involved, either as a co-founder or hired help is probably best. Starting a business from scratch and doing everything yourself with no help is almost impossible (you need other people to help and be a part of what you're doing to succeed).
I've always heard "Starting a business is no time for on the job training." How much experience did you guys start with?
Starting a business is very much on-the-job training, at least in the sense that you will be learning what works and what doesn't in how to build a business around an idea, how customers are really using your products/services, and how the specifics of the business model function. Maybe that saying refers more to if you are building, say, software and have absolutely zero programming experience on your team. That lack of skill is probably going to prevent you from building anything significantly useful. Starting with more experience can definitely be a plus but as was said in the panel, some ignorance about certain things can also be beneficial! I definitely wouldn't look at "how much" experience you have as a barometer to whether you should start a business. There are too many examples of young people with very little experience launching a new business and getting somewhere with it. Would additional experience have helped them? Yea, maybe, but so what and why wait?
What separates you all from unsuccessful entrepreneurs? Luck? Sweat? Brains?
My success is only a small amount so far with my business so I can't claim some major public success as of yet. What separates me from others (I think) is my persistence and focus. Giving up and giving in too quickly or too easily is what kills people's momentum and any significant chances of success. Persistence and focus and maintaining those two things requires an ability to filter out emotions such as fear, trepidation, and feedback from the random person on the street who might say "no" to buying your product/service. Also, not that this is a big differentiator, it helps to simply start getting to work and getting shit done! Don't mull around all week or month *thinking*, start doing it, and do it now.
Does not matter much. I started part-time and it worked reasonably well. In fact, having a nice paycheck and moonlighting on the side can be a really great combination for later success, including the ability to balance the two workloads appropriately and not get steamrolled by too much, too fast. With less time to focus on your product/service, it forces you to spend time on the absolute essentials of what is important about what problem you're solving for other people. Get the simplest product/service in place for people to start using and consuming it.
Do you think I should start a company while in school?
Definitely. You're surrounded (hopefully) with a plethora of other smart and bright people who might later want to be a part of what you're doing. It goes back to moonlighting while working a full-time job in that you will be forced to balance the important things against what your responsibilities are while still in school. Starting a company, even if it fails while in school, will also be of value if you decide to later get a job with a regular employer. That's a huge differentiator over other candidates. Come in with a story about what you did, why it didn't work, and the valuable lessons you learned from it.
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