Category: General

entrep-reality

Let us all pause for a moment to pity Noah as he sits on a beach somewhere in Aruba… just kidding.  Anyhow, my name is Mike Li, founder of Sixsense, and today’s guest blogger. Like many of my fellow guest bloggers this past week, I will write a bit about how Sixsense got its start and also some of my thoughts on the reality of entrepreneurship (aka entrep-reality).

Sixsense is a mobile application that allows your cell phone to scan the local area around it for people or places that you might be interested in.  You can think of it as your phone giving you a sixth sense, hence the name.  Currently we are developing something new and exciting, and hope to launch it in a few months. So stay tuned!

The idea for Sixsense has been kicking around in my head since the year 2000, but at the time, surrounded by the dot com boom and relatively unintelligent cell phones, it did not get past the pencil and paper stage.  And so it was shelved.  Clearly the place to be was at a hot startup, and so I joined one (a KP and Sequoia company, no less) only to find myself out of a job by early 2002.  Nothing like a good ol pink slip to get the creative juices flowing, and a former colleague and I began to revisit the idea to see if something could come out of it.  We began tinkering around with a phone emulator in late 2002, and with an actual phone (the Nokia 3650 ) in 2003 to see if our idea was even technically possible.  Late 2003 and early 2004 were devoted to fleshing out the idea, talking (unsuccessfully) to potential investors, and recruiting a few key team members.  By middle of 2004 we had incorporated, and by July 2005, we had launched.  (why so long? 1. part-time team  2. complicated product)

Anyway, enough history.  I was reading my friend David’s post a couple days ago and while I agree with many of his points, I thought that I would revisit some of them from a slightly different point of view.  This recent post by Joyce Park is also a good read.  With entrepreneurship, the idea of it is romantic, but once you start peeling away the shiny exterior you see that there are a lot of harsh realities trying to poke through. Ok, on to some tips:

1.  Recruit those you can find and make the best of it.  People like to say that you should only recruit the best people, but unless you have the money to afford them, that isn’t going to happen. This doesn’t apply to finding co-founders though, that is an entirely different set of qualifications.  I am not saying that you should settle, but don’t pass on good people in the hopes of finding that perfect person.

2.  Dont worry as much about the revenue plan as finding that feature that users will love.  You should definitely think about revenue plans, but they are useless unless you actually have users.  And often the revenue model that ends up working is one that came about from observing your users and seeing how they use your product, often in unexpected ways.

3.  Useful product before usable product. It is amazing how much users are willing to put up with if they really like the product.  Dont get me wrong, I think usability is very important, but concentrate first on finding something that is useful.  This might sound obvious, but the hard part is in figuring out what is useful. 

4.  Dont be afraid to take risks.  Ultimately this is what entrepreneurship is all about anyways.  What I mean is that you shouldnt shy away from something just because you think that you might get sued, or a big player might create a product that kills yours.  I’m not advocating that you do something illegal, but I can guarantee that you wont get sued until you become successful. (and if you are REALLY successful, then you get REALLY sued, think Napster)

5.  Take that timeline and double it.  As Joyce said in her post, companies that launch in a short period of time are the rarities, not the norm.  For the rest of us, expect development and marketing to take a lot longer than you thought.  But, dont be disheartened, I think a startup is 80% luck and 20% persistence (yet another 80/20 rule).  People often say that when startups have a successful exit that it’s like they won the lottery.  But I liken it more to striking gold, it took a lot of effort to find that gold, not just buying a lottery ticket.

6.  Right Time, Right Feature.  This one is frustrating because you can’t do anything about it.  A product that failed two years ago may be a big hit today.  On the bright side, don’t worry too much about this, because, well, you can’t really do anything about it.  So just keep digging for that gold.

Alright, this is getting too long.  This is not meant to be a downer, I love entrepreneurship and I encourage you all to follow your dreams. But keep in mind, this is entrep-reality.  Here are some more tips from Paul Graham to read. Remember, if your startup doesn’t work, there is always the next one!

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