FleetWit at the Resilience Awards!
Last month, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Jason Saltzman, Founder and CEO of Alley.
That’s because FleetWit just got nominated for a 2017 Resilience Award, to celebrate the trials and tribulations of building a startup business in NYC.
Learning About Resilience
Being nominated for this award is a great opportunity for us to celebrate our hard work at FleetWit building the world’s first smart trivia platform. Beyond that though, it’s also an opportunity to take stock of the hurdles we’ve had to cross to build a viable business.
In sharing my story I discovered something new about resilience too. Here are three things I learned from speaking to fellow founders Jason and Joe Regal, CEO of Zola Books:
- I’m not alone;
- I should be proud of the effort we’ve put into building FleetWit;
- While there’s no such thing as the “right” way to build a tech startup, one guarantee is you never know quite how challenging it’ll be until you’ve tried.
Building a Startup? Resilience is Mission-Critical
So why is resilience so important? Why is his company celebrating that quality? It’s all about challenging misconceptions, especially those around launching a tech company.
Why is that so important?
First up, popular movies like The Social Network give people a false narrative of what true startup life is like. You only hear about successful startups (Facebook, SnapChat, Instagram etc.). A lot of people are motivated to set up business based on a glamorous, and often false, premise of what life will be like.
On the flip-side, it’s rare to hear about the 90% that fail. That’s a reality many founders don’t prepare themselves or their teams for. I think it’s healthier to be equipped with the truth. It takes a huge amount of time and energy to raise funding, let alone grow a business from scratch.
Resilience is what gets you over those hurdles.
Resilience Can Be Shared
The biggest lesson for me meeting Jason and Joe was learning I’m not alone.
My struggles as a CEO and founder are not uncommon. It’s not unusual to sometimes feel like an island, but you’ll still need to teach your team how to swim.
To do that, building a community of fellow entrepreneurs can be a great way to get advice, support or prepare yourself for the challenges ahead. Thankfully, NYC is a great place to do that.
In short, it taught me that there’s a community out there struggling with the same sets of issues, even if the mountains they have to climb are shaped a little differently.
What Resilience Means To Me?
Ultimately, resilience is about more than just facing a challenge. It’s about using that challenge to learn something new about yourself to overcome it.
For me as an entrepreneur, turning my ideas into tangible businesses that help others is worth a little introspection.
As we continue to scale FleetWit and redefine what it means to do “smart trivia,” I’m going to take those words of inspiration and the support of the community along for the ride.
In the words of John Dewey, “A problem well-defined is a problem half solved.”
This year we’ll be working hard to define our approach to bringing more smart trivia fun to America and beyond. I’ll be sharing more of my insights as we progress along that journey in the coming year. Stay tuned!
Also don’t forget to:
- Watch out for my interview on Alley soon!
- Keep your fingers crossed for FleetWit!
David Metz is Founder and CEO of FleetWit, the world’s first smart trivia platform.
Follow David on his journey to bring trivia fun to the masses!
