The tale of good, bad and somewhat ugly

"I'm a road runner baby, Can't stay in one place too long
I'm a road runner, You might look at me. And I'll be gone" -
Roadrunner - Jr Walker and The All Stars

Some people think that success in StartUp World is doing big deals, getting lots of investor introductions or closing large investment rounds. Well of course it can be but there is so much more and if these examples are the only benchmark you are measuring yourself against you are missing out. Progress and moving forward are huge success markers in this world as is just staying alive. In a world where 20% of start-up companies fail in their first year there is a lot to be said of just keeping things going.

I've had a really busy and productive three weeks. It's been a real joy. Honestly. You may think that from that statement everything is going my way and it's all positive but that's not how startup life works. Joy in StartUp World isn't just happiness, light, sales and money. Joy is also found in learning, progress through struggle, identifying gaps and hard won achievements. As a bootstrapped business I am measuring success through just keeping moving forward and staying alive at present and this is where the title of today's post comes into play.

The Good

I have managed to get the MVP of Foundry Fuel to a place where it's functional and I can start running trials and getting user feedback. That's a major step for me. Let's get this in perspective. I am one person, developing an idea into a business, learning new technologies, making connections and relationships, building/coding a platform by myself, while working two jobs (transitioning between the two mainly), trying to find time to be a decent husband and father, challenging my own self doubt and managing everything else life throws at me as well without collapsing into a screaming ball of torment.

Is it perfect? No.

Does it need more work? Yes.

Am I proud of myself. Damn right!

I was asked, quite seriously last week, the classic questions. "Why did you make this so hard for yourself? Why didn't you build this slowly in the background when you could? Why set up the business now when you had no rush?". Well the answers are simple really. If I hadn't taken the opportunities as they arose, if I had not gone with my gut, if I had not jumped into this, it would have been a side project that never got done, that never got the attention it needed and would never have got off the ground due to the doubts I had in myself. I had to do it. It had to be done.

That's the calling of every founder right?

One year ago I never thought I would do this again. I never thought I could stomach the startup life or hussle. But here I am. And you know what? I am happy. Genuinely, this is making me happy.

The Bad

So technical MVPs may be one thing but there is still a lot for me to learn. One thing I need to get better at is selling. Selling my products, ideas and myself. At present I have been talking to a few people about consultancy work here and there. These people know I am good at what I do and where I have existing relationships this is quite simple as a process.

Where it gets hard is in the selling to people who know me only by reputation. I suffer from the British/Irish disease of being overly humble and I get into cycles of almost apologising for being good and providing skills. I spoke with one established founder who needs support with some technical ideas. I like them, love the ideas, I have the skills to help them and they could really benefit from my support. In all honesty though, when it came to me selling me, I was almost apologising for saying how good I was and how much value I would bring against the cost. Bloody awful!

When in New York recently at the Digital Irish event one of the big bits of advice was to shake this off and being positive, passionate and energised by what you can do. Don't apologise for being great and don't think being humble is a good trait outside of the UK/Ireland because it's not. It's great advice but it's easier said than done. US founders have this sorted. They are doing Show and Tells at school from an early age. They live in a more encouraging environment where they are supported more in growth. Not being from that world is very challenging.

It reminds me of an old Eddie Izzard piece where he is reminiscing about seeing the careers advisor at school.

Career Advisor : "What do you want to do kid? Tell me, tell me your dreams."

Young Izzard : " I want to be a space astronaut, go into outer space, discover things that have never been discovered"

Career Advisor : "Look you're British so scale it down a bit."

Young Izzard : Rolls eyes, sighs - "Alright I want to work in a shoe shop, discover shoes that have never been discovered, right at the back of the shop, at the left"

Career Advisor : "Look, you're British, so scale it down a bit alright?"

Obviously I can't do it justice but you get the idea. The point is this though, I need to get better at selling the whole package now that I am the CEO as well as the CTO. It's against my nature, it's making me cringe but it's something I am working hard at getting better at because I need to if I want to survive.

The somewhat ugly

Ok based on that last section let's give this a go.

I love coding, I love infrastructure, I love databases and I am great at it. I really am.

I also love front end coding and designing web interfaces. I'm not so good at this design stuff though. I'm not saying Foundry Fuel looks like it's been finger painted by an over excited Cocker Spaniel running through and Dulux factory but it definitely looks like it's been done by a developer.

Now I have seen worse. The first version of Selazar looked like it had been build in a Microsoft Visual Basic interface from 1995. It was "functional", or so we kept being told, but looked like it was championing bland, boring and the over-use of whitespace as a burgeoning art movement. Foundry Fuel is not that bad but I definitely think I have an issue with consistency and use of color at times.

If you do use Foundry Fuel when it gets released very soon, and I really hope you do, please be kind.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Till next time. And remember "We've got this!".