After four months of intense work and introspection, my co-founder, Bill Lee and I graduated from the Founder Institute.
It was quite an accomplishment, we learned a lot about execution, we pushed each other, we fought and we saw the light of reprieve at graduation. Then we took a breath and got back to work.
That doesn't sound very glamorous, and the life of a startup founder rarely is in the beginning.
Yes, getting up at noon to start work in pajamas SOUNDS AMAZING because who can turn down zero commute with gas prices climbing? Do you ever ask yourself why entrepreneurs sometimes get a late start? More often than not, team members stay up until 4 or 5 a.m. with developers in another country, while the other is responding to email or writing blog posts because the work day never really ends and once you're in the flow, time flies. If you want to know more, you can read about what a typical day in a startup looks like from my perspective.
Joining a startup incubator was a conscious decision to become a real company. With that decision came consequences just like real life. I committed to move to Seattle for four months and as a team accelerate our progress and learn what it would take to succeed.
Here's a candid look at what happened the last two weeks before graduation.
Since we completed the product development class, Bill was totally focused on creating the iPhone app. When I wasn't working on our pitch deck or financials, I was commenting on mommy blogs, tweeting and writing mom-focused blog posts.
Ironically, I was a thousand miles away from my kids. In between intense feelings of loneliness and homesickness, I also came down with the flu, and I was trying to hold it together to complete the program.
The Difference Requirements Can Make
During this time, we as a team neglected to turn in our weekly company building projects for the Founder Institute. The founder agreement we signed at the beginning of the program stated we had to "Complete weekly session projects and assignments on time."
Adeo Ressi, founder of the Founder Institute and The Funded showed us a slide in our first class of the declining graduation success rate based on the number of missing assignments. Not encouraging numbers, yet as you progress through various milestones it's easy to forget those stats when you're trying to balance your day job, starting a company, and for the ambitious, a social life. Note to entrepreneurs: it's wise to read and double-check legal agreements before signing so you understand what is expected of you and the other party.
The Challenge
Since we were behind on our assignments, I was waiting for the consequence. We weren't alone; it seemed a majority of our semester was in the same boat and hanging on by fingernails. The founders who were falling behind (had weak assignments or missing projects) received a stern email from Adeo before spring break.
The first challenge to stay in the program was to engage with three advisors and have legal documents drawn up by our lawyers to compensate the advisor for her role. The second challenge was to hire an intern to offload some of the work or outsource some of the development. Lastly, we needed to get all company building assignments completed and updated if they were considered weak.
This email created a mini-uprising among the founders and ruffled a lot of feathers. Many phone calls and email messages flew around to understand what we needed to do. We had about a week and a half to complete these challenges or we were going to be booted from the program. During our working group meeting that Saturday, we vented to each other and expressed feelings of anger, frustration, and resignation. I was mostly quiet because I had decided when I packed my bags for Seattle that I would do whatever it took to graduate with my co-founder and launch our company.
Most of us have come a long way in the few short months from refining our ideas, becoming self-aware, growing into leadership roles and gaining confidence in our collective abilities. After venting, most founders decided to step up and meet the challenge. The extra work to stay in the program was a bit disruptive since our facilitator, Dave Parker had given us an assignment to work on our pitch decks for graduation during the break.
Facing Challenges Head On
The benefit of this fire drill was being able to manage multiple deadlines and priorities as a team. Personally, I was extremely impressed by how my co-founder stepped up. We already had informal advisors and we talked about approaching our facilitator to be an advisor to us even after the program ended, Adeo's email moved our deadlines up by several weeks. Our teamwork evolved and grew during that time. We literally worked night and day on each of our priorities and shielded the other from the noise of the little things so we could stay focused. A lot of our 0.1 version of the iPhone app was developed during this intense two-week period.
Lessons Learned from the Quick Fire Challenge
Your peers will be there for you. What impressed me about my peers was their generosity in helping no matter how busy they were. This collaboration helped us grow closer in the days before graduation. If you are an entrepreneur and not in an incubator, create a network of peers by finding entrepreneur meetups in your area.
Fire drills are part of startup life, deal with it or conquer it.
How your team reacts and deals with what appears to be a catastrophe will decide your future success.
Everyday you'll have to do something you've never done before. Learn how to do it or ask someone smarter than you how it's done.
Step up and handle your business. The Founder Institute's strict adherence to deadlines and consequences for failing to meet expectations mimics some of what might happen in real life. The main difference is the consequences given out in the incubator helps prepare the founder to run their company and are meant to help even if it doesn't feel that way at first. You can't make excuses when you're running your own startup. Even when you're sick, deadlines won't move for you like they might in a big corporation, you need to do the work or delegate.
Lastly, there are many different startup incubators; I can speak only for my experience. I've learned so much from the mentors, my peers, our facilitator, and my co-founder. All the hard work from the last four months was like startup boot camp to prepare us to run our businesses and I would gladly go through it again. It's not for the faint of heart, neither is starting your own business. You have to go in there with balls or grow some in the process.
Have you gone through a startup incubator? If so, which one and what was your biggest takeaway?
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Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/4677944626/
