Spero Ventures
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Spero Ventures

What Garage Startups Can Learn From Garage Bands

The uncanny parallels of starting bands and businesses from scratch

(Left) My early startup, my band Phallucy, playing live in the garage where we started: Dave on vocals, me on guitar [not pictured: Abe on drums, John on bass]. (Right) My recent startup, Requested app, in our first dedicated space — an attic above a garage with hand-me-down Ikea tables. L to R: Jon, Carlos, Coco, Henry

You’re not building a product or even a feature; you’re building a team that can build anything.

If you want to do a thing that doesn’t exist yet, you need some delusion to even think you can do that. That craziness, that commitment to something you believe in, fuels your ability to create new things.

It’s easy to fall in love with your product and concept but look at the data to back it up. If users are churning out, revenue is dropping and you’re not growing, the problem is not your users. It’s your product.

Our startup band, Waitr, in New York to ring the opening bell as we went public on Nasdaq.

Most bands, like most startups, don’t make it. But if you stick with it, you can make something that will last forever. You can make a contribution to your genre, your industry, your community, your world.

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