The Real Story Behind Launching a Tech Company from our CEO + CTO
What to expect when starting your business with no prior experience and more
What are some of the expectations you had going into starting your own company? Did any of those hold true or how were they broken if not?
Bryan:
Two things, the time it would take and market fit. We were really early to mobile, and unfortunately, many companies were not bought into the tech yet. We almost went out of business selling in our region before taking a chance in a different market. Everyone harps on the idea of (product-market fit), and even though I listened and read the books extolling its virtues, I did not really understand it until we found it. I was pretty naive thinking if you build it, they will come. Time, we are surrounded by success porn; zero to 2 million ARR and overnight successes. Building new things takes time. Sometimes, you get lucky and find it fast, and others it can take years.
Brett:
Knew it was going to be a lot of work and still underestimated how much work it is. Broadly, originally I thought I knew how business worked, but in actually doing I have had to un-learn a lot of assumptions.
Is the QuarkWorks we have today what you originally envisioned?
Bryan:
In some ways, yes. We started the company out of a love of building, and we have stayed true to that. At the start consulting was a way to learn from great companies and bootstrap ourselves to the point where we could build our own product. This year we are fully committing to our own thing, but I wish we had gotten to this point sooner.
Brett:
We’re still doing similar things, but the tech has evolved a lot in the years.
Why create a company instead of working for one? What would you tell other entrepreneurs?
Bryan:
I love learning, and when you start a company, there is an endless set of problems to solve and things to learn. There is a fantastic joy to be had in creating something from nothing with a team. By the numbers, it makes no sense to start a company. It is hard, and the odds of success are stacked against you. Statistically, you would be much better off finding a steady job you enjoy and stashing cash into a Vanguard fund. You have to be doing it for the love of doing it.
Brett:
I think it’s a certain mindset. Don’t do it for money or fame but only because you simply cannot imagine yourself working for somebody else.
How did you find investors?
Bryan:
Quark is mostly boot-strapped; this translates to we all worked for negative pay for a few years. Finding investors is very similar to sales; it is all about networking and relationships. The best way to find an investor is to build relationships with individuals who share how you see the future. An investor is far more than a check; they are a lense that can help you focus your ideas. But finding these people when you first start is hard. Today investment is more accessible, due to all the relationships we have built over the years.
Brett:
Self-funded for many years now.
How did you pitch your company so people would be interested?
Bryan:
Like Edison, we found 1000 ways how not to pitch our company before we found the right direction. In the beginning, Brett and I would do meeting after meeting, and each time we got a bit further and a little bit better. But it was still like finding water in a desert. Two years in, we were making almost no money, and it was a grind every day. With four thousand left in the bank, Brett and I rolled the dice and flew out to SF for two weeks during WWDC. We networked and pitched like crazy and came back with three new partners. Today people work with us because we are technologists that can solve almost any problem and have a proven track record that helps de-risk projects.
Brett:
Lots and lots (and lots!) of pitch decks.
Hardest time starting this company you remember?
Bryan:
Two, come to mind. The first I mentioned above, where we spent our last dollar finding partners in SF. The second was pretty recent. Many of our clients were in the event space, and COVID severely impacted their businesses. April was a terrible month; I remember every day I got a call from a partner with bad news about needing to downsize. By March we had lost 70% of our revenue. Every company around us was laying off and/or reducing salaries across the board. We dug in and explored all options to get revenue back. You name it; we tried it. We bridged the gap with a stimulus loan, and thanks to the enormous effort of the team, we landed enough new work to get things back to normal.
Brett:
Finding people in Missouri willing to pay for apps.
How did you find something to make your company stand out?
Bryan:
We found it by pitching, leaning into the things that resonated with people, and refining what did not.
Brett:
Worked on a few well-known apps, after that word of mouth.
How did you find your first employees who weren’t close friends?
Bryan:
One source was from the circuit theory lab I would teach. At the end of the semester, I would ask if people were interested in working on apps during the summer. After the initial seed, we relied on referrals from others to grow organically. Jacob and Brandon get all the credit for building out our hiring pipeline as it is today.
Brett:
Raiding the local high schools for summer interns.
How did you find your clients?
Bryan:
Lots of cold emails and going to networking events. For the addsheet, we just walked into their office and asked if we could talk to the owners. With Roots N Blues, I was at Tellers and sitting next to the owner and naturally had a conversation about apps. A few weeks later, he called me and asked if we could build them an app. Our first app, Reprotech, we met the owner when he moved into an office close to ours. Brent, the CEO of Reprotech, took a risk on us, we owe him a lot. Get comfortable with rejection, put yourself out there, and have real conversations with people.
Brett:
Pitching in SF in person.
How did you balance personal life and work-life?
Bryan:
At the start, there was no balance. Coffee -> work -> eat -> coffee -> workout -> work -> sleep. This becomes your life and it is on a loop. I found balance when I met my lovely wife, who hits me on the head with a baseball bat if I slip too far into the above cycle.
Brett:
It’s tricky for sure. At this point in time, I literally have a ticket tracking system for my personal life I use to keep things organized. This is overkill, but it works for me!
What is one big factor that you think can make or break a startup?
Bryan:
The team.
Brett:
Product-market fit.
Is some of it luck?
Bryan:
Yes! But it is more complicated than that; luck is created. At any given time/place, there are many opportunities for luck. We just don’t see them. You can create luck by investing in yourself in ways that will give you a higher probability of observing the luck when it comes and being able to take action on that luck. John Doerr gets the credit for this observation.
Brett:
You can build a product and then the market magically appears, so to speak. I’ve seen more than a few startups that got lucky and then retroactively tried to pretend they knew they were on the right path all along. On the flip side, a large part of being lucky is being prepared, and that is something you can control.
How does preexisting privilege play a role in starting a company?
Bryan:
I think luck plays into this. I can trace three chance encounters early in life that if they had not happened, I would still be working construction swinging a hammer for minimum wage and still very much in debt.
Brett:
Knowing how people and businesses speak and interact with each other does wonders for getting past the gatekeepers, but it’s not something that is easy to pick up… (Answer continued with next question).
How can somebody who has readily available privilege use that for the better when starting a business?
Bryan:
You have to pay it forward. Take a chance on someone and give people that want it an opportunity.
Brett:
I personally have mentored many people to try and give them just enough polish to get into the system, after which their destiny is in their hands. I think this process is valuable to me as well, in that I am forced to look at things through somebody else’s eyes.
What drove you to move to San Francisco with a business in Columbia? Is that a choice you think all startups should consider?
Bryan:
We came out to San Francisco because that is where the demand is. At one point, we were spending three weeks at a time in a hostel in SF working with our clients. One week back in Columbia, then back to SF. Being close to your customers is an advantage in the beginning.
Brett:
Missouri isn’t a large enough market to support what we do, so we’ve had to explore other markets from early on. For other people, it depends on what you want to do and why.
What are the ideal first steps someone should take in starting a business?
Bryan:
Try and get customers to sign up or pay for what you are building before you build it. It is so tempting to create first, then try and sell, especially for engineers. Sell Sell Sell first! That way, you know there is cash flow at the end of the building journey.
Brett:
You can incorporate later, hire people later, and do lots of paperwork down the road. But what you can’t do later is figure out what your product and market are. So, get six months to a year’s worth of runway, one way or another, and start trying to sell from day 1 (or before).
Do you think you need passion for your product when starting a business?
Bryan:
There’s the idea out there that you just need a good idea and some money. But what about really caring about the product? How important is that?
Building a company is hard. If you do not have a passion for what you are building, it is going to make getting through the hard times much harder. If you have an area that you have passion for and maybe an idea, the rest will work itself out.
Brett:
I think you need to have passion for what you do, but I don’t necessarily think you have to love what you’re building from day 1. Some of my best ideas have been things I frankly hated at the start but grew on me over time.
Best advice for staying frugal? Any big expenses you had that you regret today? Anything you wish you had invested in sooner?
Bryan:
Watch your dollars! Running out of cash is the reason startups fold. One of the reasons we have been able to ride out the hard times is because we hoard cash. I do wish we had invested in a new office sooner.
Brett:
Keeping spending below outlays is the key to success no matter where you are. Most of the expenses I regret weren’t so much in terms of dollars but rather time and energy. I believe you should always be putting a portion of your day into exploring new knowledge and eventually it will pay off.
How did you navigate starting a business with co-founders? Did you all agree on everything or how did the process of compromise play out?
Bryan:
It was pretty organic and very unstructured at first. We eventually made our way to the pattern of making decisions as a group through debate and discord. This works because we all have a shared vision for the company and its future.
Brett:
We definitely don’t agree on everything! Knowing when to provide candid feedback and when to bite your tongue is probably the most important skill to learn, but it’s a trial and error sort of process.
Up until recently, QuarkWorks didn’t rely on marketing to bring in their clients, what was the process of getting clients like without marketing on social media?
Bryan:
Networking! Lots of networking and coffee meetings.
Brett:
Almost all of our sales come from word-of-mouth, which takes a lot of time and effort. With social media, we’ve been working on presenting more of the human side of what we do, which helps make it easier for people to decide to work with us. This has also made recruiting significantly easier.
What was the original pitch you gave to everyone?
Bryan:
Become the best at building mobile software. Learn from the best and brightest startups in the valley. Channel all the experience and knowledge into making our own product.
Brett:
Look at us! Give us money! Sadly, this didn’t work as well as we expected.
Does QuarkWorks have stock options? Why did you choose to opt-out of this if no?
Bryan:
As a consultancy, we operate more like a law firm. We distribute profits based on company performance with the end of year bonuses. Since there is added risk when we get to the point of launching an internal product, stock options will be on the table.
Brett:
We have an options pool for senior leadership roles.
What are obstacles you find you are still overcoming?
Bryan:
Sales is always an obstacle. The very nature of what we do is highly customized and unique to every client. Another one is the company/team structure. What works well for a company of 15 does not work for a company of 30. As we grow, we actively need to keep tuning our organization.
Brett:
The nature of tech is you need to reinvent yourself every few years. The process itself is easy, but it gets trickier with time.
How does a company that has aged out of the startup phase figure out their next steps? What is QuarkWorks doing at the moment?
Bryan:
The goal has always been to get the company to the point where we have enough scale that we can start building a product within the company.
Brett:
We’ve been building an internal app based around stuff we’ve been working on the past few years. Stay tuned!
What are some of the tools that benefitted you most? Apps, websites, organizations, classes, etc.
Bryan:
Atrium, when they were still around. YC Startup School. Google docs!
Brett:
I like reading hacker news and various related startup ecosystem buzz. Going to a lot of random meetups and meeting a ton of people in SF drastically improved my people skills. Still working on making sure I’m exercising and eating properly.
Any general advice for a budding startup?
Bryan:
Sell Sell Sell. Try to get your first customers before you build anything. Pitch decks and landing pages are cheap idea validation.
Brett:
Build something that people want. It’s that easy! ;-)
