Cameesa - The Blog

I initially started to write this post in praise of Founders at Work as a sort of book review outlining the important points from the book. However, in the middle of writing I realized a lot these ideas I’ve accumulated from experience and a myriad of other books. So instead I’ve outlined my ideas in regards to Entrepreneurship while citing some examples from the book as I feel it is an excellent resource. I can probably write a book around this topic. However, I need to make it into a blog post and keep succinct and informative as possible. I probably failed on making this post brief.

Founders at Work is a book by Jessica Livingston, a founding partner at Y Combinator, outlining the early days of various successful tech start-ups through a series of interviews with their founders. The book covers around 30 start-ups some notable names include: Adobe, Apple, Blogger, PayPal, Hotmail, 37Signals, del.icio.us, Yahoo!, Flickr and the list goes on.

1. Be passionate about your chosen endeavour

This is by far the most important thing that I’ve learned not only through “Founder’s at Work” but in all my studies and endeavours. This book has re-enforced my belief in the importance of this factor. If you lack passion your idea or start-up will not get very far. Part of this passion derives from solving a problem or developing a product you have intimate knowledge of. Examples include 37Signals and the development of Basecamp and Joshua Schachter’s creation of del.icio.us.

David Heinemeier Hanson described how 37Signals created Basecamp in order to solve a lot of organizational problems surrounding client work. 37Signals knew the problem intimately. They knew they needed an easy to use, lightweight web-based tool that would allow them to effectively communicate with clients and manage projects. They also knew exactly what they wanted in this tool. Due to this focus in tackling problem the tool itself is not only useful to 37Signals but to other small business that faced similar issues in managing projects and communicating with clients.

Similarly, Joshua Schachter started del.icio.us to manage his 20,000 bookmarks in a centralized location through the use of tags. By solving his own problem he managed to solve this problem for everyone else. I knew I found it painful to have bookmarks in multiple places (at work, at home, etc.) until I found del.icio.us.

It is easy to be passionate about solution you know a lot about and are interested in. Plus you will be putting a lot of energy into making the happen. If you are lukewarm about the idea then there is no point in wasting your energy on it.

2. The initial idea is not paramount

The comment I usually hear from most trying to build a business around a particular idea is the strength of the idea. I do believe that the idea must have some basis in solving a problem for a particular market segment. If you follow guideline number one then you should be on the right track. Some examples from Founders at Work that illustrate this concept are PayPal and Flickr.

PayPal started off as a company that produced cryptography software for palm pilots, then moved to payment transactions between handhelds before finally focusing on secure payments online.

Flickr’s start is well noted in many books and blogs. It started as an online lightweight video game called “Game Neverending” with a social networking focus. Photo sharing was a feature of the game. Caterina Fake and her team saw the potential of the photo-sharing feature and spun it out into Flickr.

The idea doesn’t have to be perfect. It can evolve and change. However it is important to get out there and build something around your idea in order to test its viability. It also important to build a team of individuals willing to execute the idea which leads me to point number three.

3. The importance of an excellent team

I strongly believe that an A team with a B idea will beat an A idea with B team. The reason: The A team is an intelligent unit that can evolve the idea and find ways to adapt to keep moving forward.

Joe Kraus, an Excite co-founder had an interesting remark in regards to his five-person team of Stanford graduates:

“We decided to start a company together before we had any idea of what we were going to work on. But we were so committed to the idea of starting something together we knew were going to figure it out.”

Although this is an extreme example many start-ups could not have survived without strong committed teams. The examples are too numerous to mention.

I’m grateful that we have a solid team here at Cameesa: Andy, Qasar, Justin and Kamil. The team is the major reason we are able to accomplish so much. This leads me to my next point…

4. You can’t do everything by yourself

It is extremely important to realize your strengths and weaknesses. It is better to magnify your strengths then to try to improve your weaknesses. The chances are you will not be able to bring your weaknesses to a level where they’d be valuable. The other downside is that you’ll sacrifice magnifying your strengths. Plus improving your strengths is less stressful than improving on your weaknesses.

The solution is to find team members that compliment your skill set or outsource or hire the skill set.

5. Execution is crucial

I don’t have to write much on this point. If you don’t go out and do something nothing will happen. Everyone has ideas. I have about three or four notebooks full of them. Many other people probably do as well.

A notable example from Founders at Work is the interview with James Hong, the founder of Hot or Not. The reason I cite this example because it’s a relatively simple idea that many claim to have had. Which in all fairness they may have rightfully had but James did something about it. For those who don’t know (I’m sure most people do) Hot or Not is a web site that let’s you rate the attractiveness of a person based on a scale of 1 to 10.

6. Persistence

Starting a successful company is not an easy task, there is a lot of learning involved and things don’t always go as planned. There will always be obstacles and challenges and “persistence” is what keeps the momentum moving forward. Many successful entrepreneurs and CEOs cite this as the number one reason for their success from Michael Dell to Ron Gruner.

7. The willingness to take risks

Risk aversion is not conducive to starting a company or growing a business. Tough decisions will have to be made in order for your idea and company to become a success. There will be a point in time where you may have to invest your life savings, leave your day job, etc. No risk, No reward.

8. Embrace constraints

I will illustrate this point with a link to a chapter from the 37Signals book “Getting Real” as they do an excellent job of elaborating on this point: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch03_Embrace_Constraints.php

If you haven’t read Getting Real and your business involves building stuff for the web I highly recommend you read the book. The above link is related more to building software, however most start-ups are faced with a wide array of constraints and will always need to focus and be creative in the way they solve problems.

9. Outline goals for your business

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

This applies in life as it does in entrepreneurship, your career or anything else for that matter. You need to setup goals to work towards not only to keep you motivated but also to keep progressing. It is extremely hard to work towards something if you do not have clearly outlined goals.