What I love about startups #1
This is going to be a series of blogs about what I love about building a startup. There are several blog articles out there that talk about the pros and cons of founding a startup, but many of them lack context and are typically a list of bullet points that are hard to relate to in a human way. Startups are not typically founded by people who logically go down a bulleted item list of pros and cons, and then take the leap. Rather, its usually involves passion, motivation and a deep desire to build something big. And it’s also a lot of little things that happen along the way that constantly remind me that I’d rather not be doing anything else.
Mahmoud and I started TriggerMail about half an year ago. We are currently in TechStars NYC, which has been great in so many ways; but the best thing about TechStars is the mentor network it gives you access to. Startups are a long term game, and I believe that one of the most important things you need to do as a founder is to build lifelong relationships with veterans who know more than you do. Some of my mentors teach me two or three key things in every meeting that have a tangible effect on how I think about a market, how I go and execute a sale, or how to hire that engineer who is being courted by Google and Spotify at the same time.
What I love about the startup community is that there are some people you meet, who are just completely selfless in terms of helping you out. Dane Atkinson is a great example of such a mentor for us. On the surface Dane is highly energetic, full of confidence and just starting your day off with a meeting with him makes the day seem brighter. But deep down he’s a person that fundamentally cares so much about us and the company we are building. Dane is a founder of a startup himself, which makes it all the more amazing that he is willing to give us so much of his time and we’ve only known him for less than two months now. Just to give you an example, I got into work and by 9AM on a Monday morning, there was a note from him saying “how’s the day going?”. That evolved into a 21 message email thread where I got a ton of advice on everything from hiring a designer to how to pitch our vision to a certain investor. That’s just one example, but there are countless others.
I’ve worked in the corporate world for most of my six year long career. While I’ve encountered several great people, I don’t think I encountered anyone who is just selfless about offering their help, advice and time without expecting absolutely nothing in return. On the contrary, I have several people who have offered us time, money, introductions and many other things over and over again in the startup community. And the cycle perpetuates itself over generations of startups, where once first-time founders end up becoming the amazing mentors down the road.
So this post is dedicated to all those selfless mentors out there. When startups eventually end up becoming large successful businesses, almost all the glory is attributed to the founders. But lets not forget that there are many people like Dane, who just believe in you when you are no more than a founder with a dream and a half-baked product. They are the ones who were there for your before the rest of the world believed in you.
