The 2 biggest lessons I learned from my first startup

Von Protonet Team. Veröffentlicht 8. April 2014.

Vor einem Jahr beendete ich die Kickstarter-Kampagne meines Projekt „MacDock“. Auf meinem privaten Blog habe ich meine Erfahrungen, die ich während der Gründungsphase und Kickstarter-Kampagne gesammelt habe, zusammengefasst. Danach war mir klar, dass ich Teil von etwas Großem sein will, was mich zu Protonet gebracht hat. Aber das ist eine andere Geschichte…

………………………….

Today is the anniversary of the cancellation of my MacDock’s Kickstarter campaign. Managing this campaign was an extremely stressful, emotionally taxing and energy depleting experience. It was a very tough but eye-opening time. I learned where my limits were, what friends I could count on, what I could do better and what I had done plainly wrong.

The MacDock was my baby, by the time I cancelled the Kickstarter campaign I had been working on my startup for more than one and a half years. In the desperation to keep my company alive I started looking for “co-founders” in Silicon Valley, where I met many people who helped me realize the fact I was in a wild-goose-chase. It took me some time to finally kill the project and start looking for something else, something awesome. But that’s a different story.

Below is an excerpt of the message that I wrote as the last update on my Kickstarter campaign. It took me a month to finish writing it and I have to thank Jaeger Tang for helping me set the tone for the message and introducing me to the essentials of writing.

Excerpt of The MacDock Adventure is Over on September 26th 2013:

What a journey it’s been! And looking back I wish I could have shared more of my week to week challenges as the campaign progressed. It all started almost two years ago when I was finishing my masters degree that I had the idea of creating a beautiful product which addresses a day-to-day problem which hadn’t been solved. One year later, I launched the MacDock Kickstarter campaign which was one of the most exciting days in my life. I felt like I was coming into a test for which I was perfectly prepared for. As a naive eager young entrepreneur with boundless faith and optimism; little did I know about all the challenges that were looming. As I recently heard from an experienced entrepreneur: “If we really knew what we have to do in advance we’d never start a company in the first place.”

To keep it short: there were many challenges and I learned many lessons. I’d like to share 2 lessons that I’d tell my 2 year ago self with you: backers, supporters and young entrepreneurs.

Lesson 1: The importance of a Team

A challenge as big as the MacDock is impossible to tackle by yourself. Sorry Tim Ferris, but outsourcing isn’t applicable everywhere. At least it’s not applicable for a one-man startup expecting to outsource the technical design of a consumer electronics product. I had been working on the MacDock by myself and worked with contractors for all the activities I couldn’t tackle such as technical design, website, Kickstarter video, etc. I worked on all the other activities such as sourcing the parts, patents, getting quotes, preparing the Kickstarter campaign, social media, PR, etc. It was lots of work and when I finally got to launch the Kickstarter campaign I hit the wall and realized that working by yourself isn’t the best way to tackle a challenge this big. As a fact, any investor, hardware accelerator or experienced entrepreneur would say that the 3 most important factors for a startup are: Team, Product and Market. Team being the most important aspect of the formula. I sort of knew this before but I assumed that I could rely on contractors acting as proactively as a “teammate” would. Little did I know about the practical effects of the principal-agent problem, thanks business school. By realizing that contractors can’t be considered team members got me to recognize that I needed a full-time teammate to work on the post-Kickstarter stages of the MacDock.

Lesson 2: Always be Networking

Never underestimate the value of NETWORKING. At the time of the campaign I was working by myself from home in Hamburg, Germany and didn’t involve myself in an environment where I could start looking for a co-founder. After some back and forth trying to find a co-founder in Europe, I decided to move across the world to the mecca of tech entrepreneurship: Silicon Valley. Now, as I write this I’ve been in San Francisco for 2 months having at least 2 meetings or meetup events a day. And I can’t tell how much I’ve learned and the great people I’ve met. In Silicon Valley I had many conversations with entrepreneurs who’ve been there and done that. These conversations helped me understand what I could have done better and gave me a completely new air of energy and perspective. Which got me to accept that it doesn’t seem to be the right time for me to devote all my energy to continue with a project with so much risk involved. I can now officially say I won’t be pursuing the MacDock any longer. It has been a painful decision to take, but it is necessary in order to open new exciting opportunities.

This was my first experience in doing my own thing and I learned more than I could have ever imagined.

Follow me on Twitter.