Every entrepreneur worries about giving away too much information about his hot idea until it is no longer an idea but a fait accompli. Here are just some of the one-liners (forget the 30-second pitch) I've heard recently about some ventures: "It's in networking, but hardware'; 'It's networking software'; 'It's a networking appliance'; 'It's social networking'; 'It's distributing networked content'. Impressive. These are clearly the result of much deliberation. Notice that there's enough information to know if the startup is about hardware/sofware or both, and they're all in some way involved with networking (which is only a mammoth market with myriad niches). But that's it. There's no hint of what it is the startup will actually do. Hey, I've even run across people who're starting consulting practices who clam up about the details (consult with high-tech manufacturers - now that narrows the field).
I understand the reluctance to say too much too soon to too many - I'm not crazy about broadcasting my own idea either (no, it is not in networking - or is it?). But how do you maintain a conversation without sounding like a delusional dweeb with a penchant for conspiracy theories? For example, how do you answer a specific followup like "what kind of content do you work with"? Do you sound vague and weak and in serious need of a shot of business savvy by saying "all kinds", or uptight and suspicious with "can't talk about it yet"?
In my opinion, the majority of people do not need to know much - maybe just that you're involved in a certain space, field, industry. So what if your one-liner is a conversation dampener - you can always segue to a story about your chihuahua if you have one. Your cousin's wedding or your high school reunion are not events where you should be pouring out your entrepreneurial dreams anyway. And avoid events like entrepreneurs' forums (especially if they're awash with VCs) unless you're ready to bare all - folks in these places are very good at dragging details out of you.
There are some people who you'd want to talk to in some depth though. Maybe you want their advice, or you're hoping to hire them, or maybe they could be a customer. There are some that you could do an NDA with (potential hires for example), but as one colleague asked, how do you enforce the NDA? I'm sure it can be done, and people have done it, but I'm hoping the NDA is evidence of seriousness, something that'll make the signer a little more cautious. But there are many folks I've talked to without an NDA - these tend to be super-experienced, business heavy weights who I treat as trustworthy because they've proven to be so. But even then, I don't give them all the details. As for customer prospects, they're most unlikely to sign an NDA, especially at an early stage. They're tricky to work with since if you think of them as a prospect most likely the potential competition will too, and few of them would be secretive about your ideas unless your rep's like Tony Soprano's. Best tactic with prospects is to let them do the talking and cover way more ground than you intend to focus on - it'll give you good background info and make them a little fuzzy about the specifics.
Reticence. Caution. Discretion. All dull-sounding traits, but that's what you'll have to practice for a while until your startup is solid. But some day, oh frabjous day!, when you've got actual customers, you'll be ready to flood the world with information (and/or marketing-speak) and limit your paranoia to intellectual property protection. And then you can retire those chihuahua-story diversionary tactics.
Channeling the inner entrepreneur who views life as a startup. Musings about people, their spirit, the startup ethos and the entrepreneurial attitude, with an emphasis on education and social ventures. The 'how-to'? Not so much. But definitely the why, the what and the whatever.
Moonlighting.
In the very early stages, when all you have is an idea, it clearly makes sense to keep your current job. After all, you need to vet the idea to make sure it is viable (does the world really need a on-demand joke explainer?). So, you continue to work, spend a month or so researching, maybe even draw up some numbers and it's all looking good. What next?
If you're already at the enviable stage of not having to work for a living, there's a blog on yacht-buying that you should be reading. But if you're like most others, you've got to make money to cover pesky essentials like food and clothing and car insurance, and of course, gas, and you can't just up and quit. You need an exit-and-launch strategy.
I've seen a couple of entrepreneurs who'd set a goal of how much they'd have stashed in the bank before they quit, and they stuck it out in their jobs until they got there. Their discipline is very commendable - it would be wrenching to be spending long hours working on something else when your startup is so tantalizingly close.
There's the approach of continuing to draw the paycheck until you've lined up alternate funds, i.e. investors. Sounds great in theory, but there are many requirements to be met before investors commit funds, unless you're a proven entrepreneur with past successes. For example, it really helps to have a customers lined up - which is challenging to achieve without funding or product (but not impossible). It could take a long while before the startup is ready for funding. And of course, in all these cases you have to worry about intellectual property rights for anything you may develop while in someone else's employ.
Plan C, or the hedging-your-bets approach is to keep working until the startup reaches some milestons leading to revenue or funding, but maybe in a reduced capacity. This way you have more time to spend on your dream, but there's some spare change in your pockets too ,as well as light at the end of the tunnel. Consulting seems to be an attractive choice for providing some income while moonlighting on building a startup. It has a lot going for it - flexibility, no long-term commitments, decent compensation. But the downside is that there's no guarantees, and what you thought was a cushy three-month gig may turn out to be a three-day budget vaporization and you may have to spend your 'free' time seeking new engagements instead of nurturing your startup.
Lacking other financial cushions, working on another job while laying the foundation for your startup is a sensible approach, but it does have its costs. It takes time and distracts you from your idea. And there could be the very real danger of slipping into a 'comfort zone coma' - you're making money, so you slow down. You have to work hard to keep the fire in the belly burning (lay off the antacids!) so you can devote yourself to your dream sooner instead of later. If you don't, it may never be anything but a dream.
If you're already at the enviable stage of not having to work for a living, there's a blog on yacht-buying that you should be reading. But if you're like most others, you've got to make money to cover pesky essentials like food and clothing and car insurance, and of course, gas, and you can't just up and quit. You need an exit-and-launch strategy.
I've seen a couple of entrepreneurs who'd set a goal of how much they'd have stashed in the bank before they quit, and they stuck it out in their jobs until they got there. Their discipline is very commendable - it would be wrenching to be spending long hours working on something else when your startup is so tantalizingly close.
There's the approach of continuing to draw the paycheck until you've lined up alternate funds, i.e. investors. Sounds great in theory, but there are many requirements to be met before investors commit funds, unless you're a proven entrepreneur with past successes. For example, it really helps to have a customers lined up - which is challenging to achieve without funding or product (but not impossible). It could take a long while before the startup is ready for funding. And of course, in all these cases you have to worry about intellectual property rights for anything you may develop while in someone else's employ.
Plan C, or the hedging-your-bets approach is to keep working until the startup reaches some milestons leading to revenue or funding, but maybe in a reduced capacity. This way you have more time to spend on your dream, but there's some spare change in your pockets too ,as well as light at the end of the tunnel. Consulting seems to be an attractive choice for providing some income while moonlighting on building a startup. It has a lot going for it - flexibility, no long-term commitments, decent compensation. But the downside is that there's no guarantees, and what you thought was a cushy three-month gig may turn out to be a three-day budget vaporization and you may have to spend your 'free' time seeking new engagements instead of nurturing your startup.
Lacking other financial cushions, working on another job while laying the foundation for your startup is a sensible approach, but it does have its costs. It takes time and distracts you from your idea. And there could be the very real danger of slipping into a 'comfort zone coma' - you're making money, so you slow down. You have to work hard to keep the fire in the belly burning (lay off the antacids!) so you can devote yourself to your dream sooner instead of later. If you don't, it may never be anything but a dream.
Trolling for teams.
I recently read a couple of items on startup teams and stock ownership (People and Ownership was one of them). I understand all the angst about equity percentages (after all, it makes it easier to justify working 100 hour weeks with a shoestring budget), but before I can worry about the ownership, I have to find the people, and, to change the song just a tad, it's hard out there for startups.
So, in the ideal startup, the founder will have one or two awesomely qualified buddies with complementary skills, they'd all have worked together before (in perfect harmony of course), and they'd happily work out ownership, roles (somehow only one of them would even think of being the CEO) and bootstrap their new venture with no worries. Every entrepreneur's dream.
In the not-so-perfect world, the founder's best buddies can't dream of bootstrapping as they need fat corporate paychecks (and oooh! health care benefits!) to cushion their family, or they'd really, really love the idea but have just taken a great job in a funded company with great options and can they get back to you next year, or they've upped and moved to another country to experience the globalization first hand.
It's not a matter of being able to attract people to your idea - it's a matter of finding them.
Its partly due to the economy of course. Things are better than they were in 2003. Some of it may be the skill level you're looking for. Early stage teams need those who bring in more savvy than the grads fresh out of school, and there are fewer of the savvy types available.
Conventional wisdom has it that one should only hire through referrals. I see the point. It's better to have a friend of a friend of a friend than a total stranger - the credo of all social networks. Onto emailing, calling, buying lunches and lattes, spreading the word as much as possible.
Email blasts to social/professional clubs? Craigslist? Alumni lists? Hmmm...Blogs and MySpace? Not your usual fishing ponds. Why not blast it to the whole wide world? After all connecting the dots through friends and acquaintances is a slow process, though fun (good excuse to catch up with your networks), and the net is not as wide. I guess if you don't mind sifting through loads of straight-to-trash responses to find the one worth a reply, it could be an option.
What I've learned (and am re-experiencing) is that you need patience, a stick-with-it-ness. Entrepreneurs would rather be building the company than searching for people, but as the very valid cliche goes, people are the company. The formula is nothing exotic, just patience, along with the hard work of searching. You have to put in the effort of contant networking even if it's a drag. (It's a little more bearable if you can also put in some work on your business too - you feel better if you're making progress somewhere, and add some polish to your venture.)
For every ten people who connect with, you may find one prospect, and if you keep it up, sooner or later you'll find the one you're looking for. As this is the same advice given to job seekers, there's a chance the one you're seeking is seeking you too. And keep talking to those old buddies you've worked with before, maybe one of them will decide that those other stock options are not worth as much as yours - now you can prep for the ownership percentage talk.
So, in the ideal startup, the founder will have one or two awesomely qualified buddies with complementary skills, they'd all have worked together before (in perfect harmony of course), and they'd happily work out ownership, roles (somehow only one of them would even think of being the CEO) and bootstrap their new venture with no worries. Every entrepreneur's dream.
In the not-so-perfect world, the founder's best buddies can't dream of bootstrapping as they need fat corporate paychecks (and oooh! health care benefits!) to cushion their family, or they'd really, really love the idea but have just taken a great job in a funded company with great options and can they get back to you next year, or they've upped and moved to another country to experience the globalization first hand.
It's not a matter of being able to attract people to your idea - it's a matter of finding them.
Its partly due to the economy of course. Things are better than they were in 2003. Some of it may be the skill level you're looking for. Early stage teams need those who bring in more savvy than the grads fresh out of school, and there are fewer of the savvy types available.
Conventional wisdom has it that one should only hire through referrals. I see the point. It's better to have a friend of a friend of a friend than a total stranger - the credo of all social networks. Onto emailing, calling, buying lunches and lattes, spreading the word as much as possible.
Email blasts to social/professional clubs? Craigslist? Alumni lists? Hmmm...Blogs and MySpace? Not your usual fishing ponds. Why not blast it to the whole wide world? After all connecting the dots through friends and acquaintances is a slow process, though fun (good excuse to catch up with your networks), and the net is not as wide. I guess if you don't mind sifting through loads of straight-to-trash responses to find the one worth a reply, it could be an option.
What I've learned (and am re-experiencing) is that you need patience, a stick-with-it-ness. Entrepreneurs would rather be building the company than searching for people, but as the very valid cliche goes, people are the company. The formula is nothing exotic, just patience, along with the hard work of searching. You have to put in the effort of contant networking even if it's a drag. (It's a little more bearable if you can also put in some work on your business too - you feel better if you're making progress somewhere, and add some polish to your venture.)
For every ten people who connect with, you may find one prospect, and if you keep it up, sooner or later you'll find the one you're looking for. As this is the same advice given to job seekers, there's a chance the one you're seeking is seeking you too. And keep talking to those old buddies you've worked with before, maybe one of them will decide that those other stock options are not worth as much as yours - now you can prep for the ownership percentage talk.
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