Ef Berlin: I’m losing my edge
Its been 6 weeks since my journey at Entrepreneur First began, and just over 2 months since I’ve been living in Berlin. I’m loving my time so far, but its definitely not been an easy ride. The form process is tough.
Since my last post I’ve had 4 ‘break-ups’, have had around 53 customer calls (leaving my phone bill in tatters) for 4 different business ideas and have reached the commercial limit for searches on LinkedIn (a great day, it has to be said). So, I’ve taken a break from the whirlwind to reflect on what I’ve learnt so far, alongside rekindling my love for LCD Soundsystem…
Learning the hard way
To recap, breaking up with your co-founder is celebrated at Ef. Its still a strange feeling, but over time it has made more and more sense. Form accelerates the creation of strong teams through a process of teaming-up and breaking-up. Through this process you start to realise what makes a strong team and when it makes sense to break up. And, its pretty public too:
I’ve learnt loads from each team I’ve been in, and made some great friends along the way. Every team I’ve been in has broken-up due to different factors, all of which propel you forward with new knowledge of what you are looking for. The break-ups have accelerated as I’ve progressed in the process, from my first co-founder of 9 days to my last co-founder of just 2. You learn very quickly if its going to work or not. I’m going to run through each of these teams and what I’ve learnt in each case.
Cf 1: I’m losing my edge
Its not as easy as just breaking up especially if you’ve been working together for 9 days. Me and Juan worked incredibly well together and ended up working on some great ideas which we were both enthusiastic about — from millennial pension provision, notary services, health software, micro-tasks — we had some top ideas. But, as we started working on our favourite idea realised that neither of us were utilising our ‘edge’.
Edge is very important at Ef and becomes the holy-grail of why you should start a company in a specific sector or area of technology. What is ‘edge’ I hear you cry? Well, in this case its not hanging out in Peckham or Neukölln with a Matcha Latte, its loosely defined into 3 types:
- Tech Edge: You believe that you can build something that other founders cant.
- Domain Edge: You know something about the space that few other founders do.
- Product Edge: You know something about peoples behaviours that few others do.
In this case we were approaching areas that didn’t exploit any of our ‘edges’. We were two generalists trying to enter highly regulated markets with what we thought were contrarian ideas. On reflection this is because neither of us had really thought about what our ‘edge’ was. So, whilst battling with the sunk-cost fallacy, we broke up.
Cf 2: Utilising our edge
‘But I’m losing my edge to better-looking people,
With better ideas and more talent,
And they’re actually really, really nice,’
After my first break-up imposter syndrome was in overdrive and I was questioning what I could offer other co-founders. After speaking to many in the cohort, lots of people experience this during the process. It resulted in a mind-map which I took with me to every potential co-founder meeting — subtly called ‘WTF is my edge’…
I spent the next couple of days thinking about what I was looking for, which was someone with a deep technical or domain edge to complement my self-diagnosed ‘Product Edge’.
My second co-founder was one of the most intelligent people I had worked with, having unparalleled experience in the IOT (Internet of Things) space. Again, we worked well together and started working on an idea that we believed utilised both of our edges in the Silver Economy.
This resulted in many phone calls with the elderly and their adult children — which was a great learning experience — especially having only conducted user interviews with millennials in the past. A big thank you to anyone who put me in contact with their elderly relatives — it was a blast! I owe many people a 🍺 from this…
However, after realising that the problem we were solving may be reactive opposed to proactive, alongside my increasing reluctance to enter the IOT space, we decided to break up. Other ideas we had wouldn’t have used our edges effectively. I was back in the singles market.
Cf 3: Ideas are cheap, motivation isn’t
I quickly joined forces with my third co-founder. I was getting the swing of things by now.
Ideation has been one of the most exciting, yet at times exhausting, elements of the process. I now have a spreadsheet of over 250 start-up ideas from the mundane and non-contrary to building a bank for the moon. However, this just proves that ideas are cheap. You have to have a reason to build it. We quickly came up with a non-contrary idea and started conducting customer research.
But things didn’t feel right. Unlike previously, momentum in customer research was slow. Ultimately we realised this was down to a dwindling motivation to build a company in the space and decided to break up. Whilst we had succeeded in coming up with a truly contrarian idea, we weren’t in it for the long-haul.
Cf 4: The ‘Pub Test’
Now, I don’t think this is scientific framework for anyone to use, and I’m not going to win any awards for this one, but I think the ‘Pub Test’ is an important factor when co-founding a company which is likely to define your life for many years.
With my fourth co-founder everything was going really well — on paper we had everything we needed to build a customer-facing FinTech business. It would sell well to investors and it would exploit both of our edges. We explored some really interesting ideas in the space and settled on our main idea to start developing. However, I soon realised that I couldn’t sell the idea to others — I didn’t believe in it. Even with a beer in hand, I wasn’t enthusiastic to sell it to my peers, let alone customers or VC’s — something thats pretty important if you’re the CEO.
It failed my newly trademarked ‘Pub Test’. So, with a heavy heart, we broke up.
Cf 5: Right to win.
I took the weekend off to clear my head. My best friend visited me and we explored the city. I didn’t look at my laptop once. I came in fresh ready for week 5. I had some great conversations with potential founders and used all that I have learnt through the process to team up with my fifth co-founder.
I think we’ve got a couple of non-contrary ideas that utilise both of our edges equally - touch wood. This team has been defined by our ‘right to win’. Why are you the best team to build this company? I think we may have cracked this.
Lets see what comes from this. As with anything at Ef things move at such a pace that anything can happen…
The countdown is on.
Ef is a pressure cooker which pushes you to make bold decisions early on. I’ve learnt to embrace this and go with the flow opposed to fighting against it. So as we approach the last 2 weeks of ‘team building’ the countdown has begun to find a team, a killer idea, get traction & secure investment.
No-one said it would be easy, right?
