„SWEET & SOUR“ #3:
BRAVEYOURSELF
HOW TO START YOUR BUSINESS & AND HOW TO NOT START YOUR BUSINESS
Starting your own business can be the best and worst thing happening to you. Potentially even at the same time. „Sweet & Sour“ is a series about Wayra start-ups. Learn from other’s mistakes. Benefit from their experience.
Meet: Max, founder of Braveyourself, a public speaking training software for virtual reality. It helps people to overcome their public speaking anxiety and reach their personal goals.
Do you know the feeling of standing on a stage in front of an audience and having to give a speech? This excitement and tension? Braveyourself is a solution that empowers you to perform on a stage. It helps you to cope with any situation by simulating an audience and special conversations, presentations, talks, conferences and meetings in a virtual reality.
Max, why did you start your own business and what has been your biggest challenge so far?
Regarding the Myers-Briggs-Type indicator from16 personalities test result I am a ENFP-T, the campaigner type. Which means I hate hierarchies, I have problems with bosses, with commands or rigid company structures. Since I was little I wanted to create computer games and instead of creating powerpoint presentations in school I designed and programmed 3D animations and interactive 3D mini games that visually showed the content.
Then I realized that speeches are done by speakers. Instead of fancy presentations in the background we focus on the speaker itself and make him perform outstanding. That was the moment where Braveyourself was born!
The biggest challenge was to accept that there are parts in business that I am neither interested in nor good at. There are other people to do those things such as business and non technical issues, organizational structures, market analyses, etc. I am a tech guy 100% and nothing else! One example: I lost about tenths of thousands of Euros because I thought I know business better than what economists are told in university. I created plenty of features without knowing what my customer wants. So that was a big challenge for me to accept that I need to partner up.
What’s your personal advice for starting a business?
The first thing you should do is to go to an accelerator. Here’s where you find the right questions that you should ask yourself.
If you want to found a start up then just don’t quit your job — do it right next to your normal profession and also just do it. Don’t hesitate!
Find a good business partner, one who matches perfectly to yourself. A complementing person who makes certain things better and different than yourself.
What’s the most annoying advice you get over and over again?
„You should be more structured, you are too chaotic“. That’s what I cannot hear anymore. Because it needs creative chaos to create something new. Of course it makes sense that there is a part in your company that structures things like project management, finances, accounting, etc. That´s why you need that partner I was talking about in the last question …
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Obviously Max is searching for a full blood business person / CEO for his start up business. So Max can focus on the tech part and you would be responsible for the business part. Sounds like an interesting challenge for you?
Get in touch with Max and find more about Braveyourself or about Max on Linkedin.
