What I Should Have Said
#yesphx Community,
After talking to a few members of the community to get my thoughts out, I want to try again. This time, I hope not to come off as brash.
What fueled the last post wasn’t a feeling that we needed feeders and leaders. It wasn’t fueled by saying you can’t be a leader if you’re an investor, journalist, or any time of community member. It wasn’t fueled by thinking that Galvanize moving here is nothing to celebrate. Sure, thats exactly what it said, but it was fueled by something else. It was fueled by frustration.
That frustration came out in poor form and I apologize about that. I want to elaborate about what I am frustrated about.
From August 2015 to May 2016, I asked for lot’s of things, as any young founder would do. I asked for coffee meetings. I asked for beta testers. I asked Garyvee some questions. In addition, I offered a lot of help. When there was a question asked on #yesphx facebook page, I answered if I could. If someone asked me to fill out a survey, I would. A younger student wanted me on his podcast and I did it in a second.
There came to a point, where although I was getting some help, meeting some amazing people, and getting some support, I feel as if it was a very small percentage of the community. If I sent 150 emails, I maybe got 6 responses (Including the emails of me wanting to help).
With that said, those people who took the time in the Wintertime to meet with a kid with his crazy idea, I am forever grateful. You know who you are.
Well now, I don’t need as much help anymore as I did when I was first starting. In fact, through this entire time, we were building Schmooz and during startup week, during venture madness, during many events, I offered Schmooz for free and there was nothing but a couple of conversations right afterwards that stopped in their tracks. Well now Schmooz is done and contrary to popular belief, it’s actually a very powerful software that some large brands are looking at across the country.
When I was writing the other post, I was thinking, I did it without their help so F them pretty much. I was ticked. Pissed off. We all have the right to be ticked or pissed off but we shouldn’t write in that state of mind. I made the mistake and it came out horribly.
I am sorry. I Am Really Really Sorry.
I really don’t mean what I said. It’s probably toxic to the ecosystem and the way it was phrased was so poor. What I really was trying to say is, “There was little support for me as a founder so how do i know that there’s support for any of the other first time founders”.
Which brings up the question I care about the most,
How Do We Make Sure Our Founders Are Getting Support (First timers and 2nd, 3rd timers)?
In addition,
How Do We Make Sure #yesphx is Growing in Healthy Way?
Those are the questions I am posing. I think we should have a bi-weekly or monthly meeting to talk about these issues and whatever other issues people want to bring up. I think sparking the conversation is good, but that way I did spark is is not right. This is the right way. Look out in the coming weeks for an announcement about a meeting like this.
I want to say again, I am sorry. I am young. I don’t know everything although sometimes (like around 2pm today) I think I do.
Please reach out to me at Mat@Schmooz.io if you want to chat about this further. These are questions that go deep with me so I would love to chat about it with you.
I hope you can forgive me!
Sincerely,
Mat
