How being on a reality show was like running a startup
Eight surprising similarities
It was March 4th, 2013, a Monday. I was at the Launch Festival Hackathon in San Francisco, immersed in wire frame sketches for the app my team and I were building. My phone rang.
Me: “Good morning, this is Greg.”
Krystal: “Hi Greg, this is Krystal from Transcend Productions. I have some great news! You know that show you tried out for, Octane Academy? Well, would you like to be on it?”
Me: (Awestruck) “Of course! Are you kidding?! Absolutely! This is so exciting! When does it shoot?”
Krystal: “Call times start on Sunday evening. Are you open?
Me: “Well, I’m getting married on Saturday, and my Honeymoon starts Tuesday, but I think I can make it work!”
After the wedding weekend in San Diego, my new wife and I drove back to San Francisco, and she dropped me off Sunday night in Palmdale near Willow Springs Raceway. She flew out to Hawaii on Tuesday, as I stayed in the high desert of California to pursue my dream of being a race car driver. Needless to say, I couldn't have picked a better wife, one who would embark on our honeymoon alone for the first two days. I am grateful to the spa which kept her busy.
Twenty drivers were invited to compete against one another by racing cars, with all but the crowned champion to be eliminated through a series of challenges. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find links to view the episodes. I won't spoil how it all turned out, you'll just have to watch for yourself to see! Through my total eight days of shooting, here are the bits I recognized that had some carry over to the startup world. (I’m on my second startup, called Whttl.)
- What the audience sees is just the tip of the iceberg
At a startup, you pour your heart and soul into your product. It takes thousands of hours. You are up until 2 AM making those final little tweaks to make it perfect. The average user will have no clue how much work goes into it. In fact, the best product will appear as if very little went into it. Take this very product, Medium, for example.
On set for the show, there were 50 or more people working at any given time. Between lighting, audio, props, camera, food, logistics, site selection, personnel coordination, permits, gear, etc., there is an astonishing amount of work that viewers never see. Although filming itself took about 4 days per episode, many months of planning was required. It seemed like I was on camera all day everyday, and I was surprised how little of it actually aired. A production assistant told me that for every 100 minutes of footage they shoot, less than 1 minute will make the final cut.
2. Your work is pointless if you don’t have an audience
Networks have the ultimate goal of getting viewers to watch their shows so that they can sell advertisements. Without an audience, the whole production is worthless. The producers didn’t want to go through all this trouble to have it air at 2 AM on some local network. They inked a deal with NBC Sports Network to maximize viewership. They promoted the heck out of it. They encouraged us, the contestants, to promote it through our own networks. They didn’t release it into a vacuum, but rather a receptive and captive awaiting audience.
The same is true with a startup. If I throw the metaphorical party and nobody shows up, it can be very discouraging. Building a great product is only half of the battle. Getting attention and engagement from your target market is the other part. It takes launch planning and promotion. Creative tactics that increase virality, engagement, and growth are they keys to success.
3. Your Final Product Has To Be Flawless
If the TV show were to have a sound bite that didn’t match up with the video, or a frame out of place, or an error in consistency, it would instantly lose credibility. Editors spend hours and hours pouring over footage with a fine tooth comb. If they missed something, it would be an uphill battle to gain back credibility with their audience.
As for startups, there is a degree of requisite professionalism. Have a spelling or grammatical error in your app? People are going to poke holes in the product. Have some marketing copy that isn’t fluid and congruent? You are going to lose leads.
4. You have to stand out
There are a seemingly endless amount of shows on TV, plus other content providers like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, etc. A user has many options, and you have to capture their attention. With a reality show, you need novelty, excitement, and of course, drama! Our producers decided to really spice things up by designing a challenge that got us out of the driver’s seat and into the ring with a world champion kickboxer Kit Cope.
In the startup world, there are hundreds of new products launched a day. (See ProductHunt for proof!) You’ve got to not only stand out from your competitors, but figure out ways to convince a user to spend his or her valuable time with your product. Creativity is crucial, and those that execute on differentiating factors will win. Make your product extraordinarily entertaining and/or valuable and you avoid failure, at least in theory.
5. Things are going to take twice as long as you plan for
Startup advisors constantly remind us to plan for double the time and expense any undertaking is originally forecasted to take. If you think it will cost $500,000 to build, budget for a million bucks. If you think it will take four months, don’t be shocked if it takes eight. Problems arise that can never be accounted for, so you must accept that even a generous estimate is going to be considerably inaccurate.
This was consistent with production, too. Each day, the crew and cast receive a shooting schedule. By morning time, we were already behind the schedule an hour or so, and when we were supposed to finish, aka wrap, at 5 PM, we ended up going late into the evening. This is by no means a measure of incompetency, it is just par for the course in the industry. One of the crew members told me that in his years of working in television, he has seen a shooting day wrap on schedule only one time. He always expects a shoot to go many hours over schedule, and budgets his personal schedule accordingly.
6. It’s all in the details
If the producers just threw us the keys and said “OK, go take the cars out for joyrides and we’ll build a story,” it wouldn’t have been a compelling show to watch. Instead, they had competition timing devices, full race prepped cars, legitimate racing courses, and even branded apparel. The Mustangs we used for drifting were retrofitted with stronger rear brake pads so we could use the hand brake to initiate a drift (look for the sparks coming off the wheels in Episode 5 @ 4:51.) Every last detail was accounted for, and directors and producers meticulously obsessed over the smallest details to create a top notch viewing experience for the audience.
Analogously, a startup’s success or failure can often be found in the minutiae. It can be particularly frustrating to focus on the small picture when so much is needed of you, but it is imperative. In racing, they say that you have to “slow down to speed up”, and that overworking the corners will cause you to overdrive them and scrub off speed. Finesse and careful execution is key. Such is the same with startups. To pick up the pace, focus on executing the small bits perfectly, and then scale up from there.
7. Know when to bring in the experts
The crew was the best in the business at making films. However, they were justifiably not as proficient when it came to orchestrating races and competition. Wisely, they brought in experts. Engineers from Ford were there. Legal counsel was present to ensure contests were fair. Even the four professional racing drivers pitched in to help with course set up and challenge specs.
In a startup, you can become so focused that you forget to look elsewhere for the areas that you don't have total expertise in. This is why mentors, advisors, and cofounders that compliment each other’s skill sets are so important. Tap into your network and resources such as blogs, forums, and online communities to expand your knowledge base a hundred fold.
8. It’s Show Business Baby
In a startup, you have to use your outward appearance to impress investors, users, media, co-founders, employees, partners, and even competitors. No matter what you are facing, you must play the part that all is well. Showing struggle is a sign of weakness. It doesn't matter if the wheels are falling off (pun intended), your duty is to make it look like you are ready to race.
This holds true for a reality show. On the first night of shooting, it was extraordinarily cold, and I hadn't dressed accordingly. On Day 2, I came down with the flu. Meanwhile, I was always in front of a camera or behind the wheel, and couldn't show my competitors or my audience that I wasn't firing on all cylinders. (Yes, another pun.)
When building your startup, brush off the naysayers, persevere through the hardships, put a smile on your face, and get ready to show the world that you are up for the challenge.
Conclusion
Being on Octane Academy was certainly one of the highlights of my life. I use the experience as a tool to remind myself that I can achieve anything I put my mind to. It wasn’t easy, but boy was it fun. Why should a startup be any different? As Richard Branson says, “If business isn’t fun, then why are you doing it?”
Did I omit any other similarities? Share more with me on Twitter. When you have a moment to break away, here are the episodes in full:
If you would like to see another post specifically about being on the show, please say so in a comment below or send me a tweet.
If you found value in this, it would be tremendous if you scrolled down a little further and hit the “Recommend” button.
Greg Muender is the founder of Whttl, described as the “Kayak.com for startups.” Use it to connect to new on demand services that roll out to your ZIP code. Drop Greg a line via greg<at>whttl/dot/com. For further reading, check out the Official Whttl Blog.
