L.A.B. Unleashed

I have been here two weeks, and it feels pretty pathetic that this is the my first blog entry from the West Coast.  I apologize!  Even 14 days feels like a whirlwind trip … seriously.  Spending the first 1.5 weeks in Palo Alto and the end of the trip in San Francisco has been a nice way to break things up, yet the fast pace of my schedule has left me with wishing I could spend more time in both places.

The REV program at fbFund is in full effect.  The other companies are cranking away, boasting things like getting 3,000 users over one weekend, and closing substantial investment deals.  All very exciting, and the energy there is contagious.  I fit in well (I think anyway), because I tend to feed off this type of energy.  Get me plugged in and I am ready to roll. 

The sessions at fbFund were very high quality and extremely valuable.  Topics like metric driven SEO and how to improve user experience in your product by @hnshah, had a lot of substance and specific action items we could take away and apply to our own products.  In some sessions, we even got to submit our companies to be used as examples for analysis and recommendations.  There is nothing better than good free advice – even if they are ripping apart your product in a room full of fiesty entrepreneurs.  Fun stuff, and I might be exaggerating just a tad!

There was a great session on how to put together a founding team.  What to look for and how to recognize "red flags" early in the process.  One recommendation I thought was interesting was to ask early team members what their most challenging experience in life has been so far.  The thinking is, if someone has had everything handed to them, and hasn’t had to work for anything, they might not be ready to be part of a scrappy founding team.  Interesting.

Also great talk by Josh Kopelmen, on how an express train compares to the VC world.  Some companies may want to purchase that local ticket, with a lot of planned stops along the way, while others may decide that the VC route and express ticket is the right path for them.  I liked the analogy.

Networking opportunities flourished, and as I head back tonight, I’ve already got more meetings set up for the next time I am out here.  The fbFund REV program runs through the month of August, so I rented a cheap studio apartment 2 blocks from the office in Palo Alto.  This will allow me to bounce back and forth as much as possible and save some money in the process.  I am a bootstrapping entrepreneur after all!

I have learned a ton over the last 12 months.  Some key points that come to mind are things I didn’t realize were very important in the beginning, but as time went on, I found that doing the following can make a huge difference to an early stage idea and company.  Or at least it did for me:

1. Put together a Board of Advisors – 4 to 5 smart experienced people you can go to and trust with sensitive questions and information.
2. Networking is key.  Enjoy meeting as many people as possible, creating relationships, and staying connected.  You just never know where those paths will lead.
3. Listen to as many perspectives as possible and then make your own decision.  This was actually pretty surprising to me.  Everyone is going to give you different advice, you can’t take it all, nor should you.  Most of the time, different people’s advice is outright conflicting, leaving you wondering how perspectives can range so broadly on what might seem like a standard topic.

So that’s my advice for now.  Take it or leave it.  Or get another person’s advice and then make your own decision.   Do you have other tips to share?  I’d love to hear them!

Scott Kirsner’s article in the Boston Sunday Globe has prompted me to get back to the blog today.  He did a fantastic write up on the RunMyErrand story, covering all the ins and outs, including the genesis of the idea, and my decision to leave IBM to pursue it.  I can’t believe it has been just over a year since I left.  I still remember what a gut wrenching decision it was to leave, but in the end I knew this was the right path for me to pursue. 

I asked whether Busque had ever second-guessed her decision to leave IBM, especially as the economy continued to get worse through the end of 2008. “I did think around September, ‘Oh God, was this the right time?’ ’’ she acknowledged. “But one of the most fun parts of this past year has been networking and talking to people and getting their perspectives and input.’’

It’s a lot different, she says, from her old, somewhat solitary job of writing and debugging software code: “This is my idea, and I want to do this.’’