So tonight I went to @porlando's farewell speech. It's been good. Honestly said, Hong Kong's fledging start-up scene needs a lot more people like him. So it's kind of sad to see him go.
Yet, I have a strong feeling that a lot of the advice he gave doesn't apply to us at @phonejoy nor most of the people I know of. Most founders I know put a lot of a lot blood and sweat into their startup and I don't see how it's them doing not enough or them not setting themselves deadlines to accomplish what they dream of. In my experience the execution such as poor functionality, monetization, marketing/sales, fund raising & cash flow is what fails most of us.
Especially in Hong Kong with a strong lack of funding opportunities I cannot see a founder slacking off the beach, if that's the case then something has certainly gone wrong.
Personally, I put in a lot of work hours every day, but it's not something I am proud of. It's more a consequence of me just not knowing enough and being good enough at what I do, though probably every founder will feel that way.
So I educate myself, I read & study a lot ... AND I like to go to startup events. Something Paul strongly advised against at. It's true one shouldn't go to an event for the sake of happy hour. I've been down the road of going to one for the sake of going. In fact, I think it's always good to have an agenda in one's mindset when talking to fellow entrepreneurs, business men, investors, journalists, and whatever else may come across your path. BUT, at the same time a lot of events and relationships and how they may unfold cannot be anticipated upfront. What may seem like bar talk at one point may become a fruitful relationship in one way or another later on. And boy, I am glad that I went out there and made plenty of connections during the last six months. Because, it has saved me a lot of mistakes I surely would have committed if nobody had shared their experience with me before. So yes, I think it's good to go out there and mingle with strangers as well as friends regularly. Though obviously your whole team should refrain from doing so, otherwise your project development would really take a deep hit.
Truth be said, in the beginning I haven't mingled a lot, because we didn't have a prototype to show for, so I had decided to fully focus on our product, because I thought we had nothing to show for. For the same reason I didn't blog, because I thought my time might be better spent elsewhere since I had little accomplishment to show for.
But all that doesn't matter, because unfortunately most of us do not give a sh*t of who you are and what you do. And that's the one lesson I took away from Paul Orlando's talk today. One shouldn't be too concerned about the tech scene and what they may say or blog about them. One shouldn't be too concerned about somebody attempting to "steal" one's idea (seriously! I get this a lot in Hong Kong!). Hell, I don't even think many people will read this blog post to the end. Surely few people believe that what we do is really sexy (it is indeed "geeky sexy" at best). Really! We are just a bunch of geeks working on a smartphone application and a game controller for phones. Most of my relatives and friends do not grasp the sheer complexity behind a startup that involves electrical & mechanical engineering as well as the coding and design behind a microcontroller firmware and Android & iOS applications. They probably think we are all idiots for not having finished the development of our product yet. But again ---- all that doesn't matter.
In the end what matters, is that we can believe in what we do is genuinely solving a problem. Meanwhile, it is great to have a number of believers and early adopters that back your startup and actually do give a sh*t! Yes, that gives us hope and it does make us feel a little "sexy". But I guess there is nothing with that, right?
