The Blog of Matt Gornick

experiments in building businesses, lifestyle design, and social hedging

Working at a startup (and notes from WashU talk)

This week I had the opportunity to speak with some great students at Washington University in St. Louis.  As apart of "Alternative Career Week", they brought in Aaron Papermaster (Moxie) and I to talk about starting your own company while in college and working for a startup once you graduate.

I've noticed that I keep referencing the same books, videos, and people so I decided to make a page to have all of this information in one place.  

This information can be found at:

Notes and Presentation from Rework College

Thanks to everyone who attended my Rework College talk this afternoon.  We had a great turnout and an amazing Q&A session.

Here is a copy of my presentation: http://prezi.com/awr5_k5rf1rn/
Here is the book I reference, Rework: http://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745


Here are some notes and links from the event:

- Its not about creating tons of 16 hours days, but finding ways to optimizing the time you have.
- find a balance to do everything you want while fulfilling your academic obligations
- if CEO's that manage billions of dollars can spend 1.5 hours a day doing yoga, than I can squeeze a few more hours out of my day

Tips, Tricks, and Social Hedges
1. Classes - Ask to get classes you want substituted for required courses.  Ask to work on your own project.  Ask to form your own group.  The worst the professor can say is "No" and you're no worse off.
2. Calendar - Record every event and when that day comes up decide what is the most important thing is.  Study group vs. rock climbing?  You'll know what is most important on that day, not planning a week in advance.
3. Make a list of things to accomplish for today.  Do them.  Its simple but extremely hard to follow.  
4. Speed Reading - I wish I learned about this in high school.  Learn it or at least get started.  Read faster and remember more.  Roshan Choxi recommended this book

5. Between time - if you're driving, walking between classes, etc. load up an iPod with Audiobooks, Podcasts, etc. 
Public Domain Audiobooks - http://librivox.org/
Audiobooks - Audible.com

Pick classes where you can work on a side project you will do anyway.  
I took a Database course at UIUC because I was interested in it and I could work on a project I always wanted to do.

Do More with Less
Stop worrying about "What if".  
What if 1 million users signup?  
What if someone offers you $10 million for your company?  
What if someone copies your product?  
Many of these things cannot be predicted and when they happen you have the best information at that time. 
Stop worrying and start building

Legal/IP/Accounting - find someone to worry about that for you
Slow down your burnrate - buy for $1 and sell for $2
Build the core of your product.  
Focus on less features and instead build a better product.  
Many features are fluff and filler for a lack of a great and usable product.

No "just idea" guys.  Need people who can produce a product or sales or something tangible to the business.  Everyone must be a producer.

(download)

Guerilla Startup Series: “Rework College” by Matt Gornick, CEO of OrangeQC

From the Illini Entrepreneurship Network:

Guerilla Startup Series: “Rework College” by Matt Gornick, CEO of OrangeQC
We’re launching our new Guerilla Startup Series with the CEO of the Cozad winning company OrangeQC. The Guerilla Startup Series is all about bootstrapped startups and the most useful skills you need to start one. Matt will go over his Rework/37signals influenced work style and how he balances running a startup company with his academic career.

Only the first 25 to sign up will be admitted, please RSVP to attend here

3 Tips to Win a New Venture/Business Plan Competition

Recently, the OrangeQC team entered the Cozad New Venture Competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I was very, very skeptical considering the negative connotation with startups in these competitions (see Techcrunch article).  We eventually decided to compete since we were 1. already a new venture, 2. already generating revenue, 3. were looking to expand and we weighted the expected return to be in our favor (didn't have to give up equity, not time consuming, networked with some great people, etc).

Here are some 3 tips that I feel helped OrangeQC win the competition:
1. Have a customer/user: So this might seem a bit backwards to talk with potential customers before you have a product.  In reality, if you aren't talking to your potential customers on Day 0, then you have a very high chance of completely building the wrong thing that no one will pay for.  Since OrangeQC was already a business focused on generating revenue, we were talking with potential customers before we even built the product.  This ensures that 1. someone will actually pay for your product/service and 2. that you build it (almost) correct the first time.  All too often, plans have the profitability as a big unknown.  If you are talking with someone before you build your product you are lightyears ahead of everyone and more importantly have a better chance of building a business.

2. Have a product/prototype:  Having something that can be shown in a presentation is critical.  In our semi-finals round, we barely talked about our product that we built which makes the judges think we had just an idea.  If you have a product, show a video demonstration, bring it in, or make it live so judges can see that you actually have more than just an idea.  Many of the people competing have just an idea, several people have professional looking mockups, and very, very few people have actual products.  If you don't have a product, start building it immediately.  

3. Ensure your team can actually build the business: I've noticed that many of the teams were built with great co-founders.  Be sure that everyone can contribute to building the venture and that you or a co-founder is not just 'the idea guy' (see 37signals post).  If you're in Computer Science, be sure you can sell your product and talk to customers.  If you're in Business, be sure you can build a product and not 'just be the boss'.  Ideas are a dime a dozen in these competitions and the judges are in charge of making the most bang for the buck.  They want to 'fund' companies that have a high chance of being successful and 99% of that comes from the team.

Overall, the competition was a lot of fun and would recommend it to any (already existing) student startup that wants an unbiased opinion on their business, wants to network with great student entrepreneurs and judges, or wants to use some of the winnings to build a better business.  Now get back to talking with customers.

Disclaimer: This was a Midwest competition and not a Silicon Valley competition.  Just as the location chances, I'm sure the game changes for these competitions.  Luckily, if you follow these steps you could lose the competition and still have a successful business!