Lessons Learned from My Start-Up Journey

Based on a pain-point described in my previous article, I designed a solution and undertook the start-up journey to build it. The seventh principle in an article called 8 Principles of Changing the World inspired me to write this article on my experience.

A pain-point leads to an idea to solve it. The idea leads to a design on how to do it. The design leads to a product or a solution to address the pain-point. That was my simple-minded approach when I started my journey in the Fall of 2014. Soon, I had to find a way to fund it. I reached out to the local investor community in the Boston area and quickly got the message that they needed to see something more tangible than an idea and slide-ware to be interested in funding me. Fair enough, so I tapped into my savings to fund the necessary start-up costs and went to work in my basement after reading a book called Lean Startup. In six months I designed and built a prototype of the product, which I called Application Defined Storage, or ADS. It was a middleware software product that helped applications that required stored data to be encrypted. I chose this example for my prototype, since it was easy to explain the value proposition and to demo it to potential customers and investors.

I started with a success criteria of what I should achieve in a year. It included having a working prototype, five interested customers, and to land an initial round of funding. At the end of the year, I was only successful in one of the three, a working prototype. Needless to say, I took a corporate job and folded my start-up. So, here's what I learned:

Customer First: Start with at least three customers who have the same pain-point and would be eager to use the product as it gets rolled out. This helps both parties and validates the product. This relationship is very useful to keep the start-up motivated and more so when approaching investors for future funding. I did not do this and it was the main reason why I did not meet my success criteria.

Team: Find team members capable of executing the key aspects of the start-up that you are not proficient at. I was good at technology, but not so good at marketing, selling, and even raising funds. This was the second reason for not being able to find customers. Choose team members who complement your skills.

Validation: While it is comforting to get your product idea validated, it is a double-edged sword. Desh Deshpande in his book Entrepreneurship and Impact mentions that if you are seeking validation, you are not ready. It also increases the risk of Intellectual Property loss, which is a bad way to get the validation you seek. Besides, validation is no guarantee for success as I soon figured out, so it was pointless.

Product: Choose your product carefully. It will be hard to sell the product if it is something that causes supportability concerns in the mind of customers. Customers want one throat to choke in case of an issue. A classic example of one that causes concern is a third-party middleware product, such as the one I developed. On one side it has to interact with application servers, and on the other side it has to interface with storage arrays. If the application vendor or the storage vendor does not endorse your product and you have no support agreement in place with them, the customer will be wary of using your product in production. Many cool middleware product start-ups find it hard to survive, unless they get acquired by one of the vendors they depend on.

In short, my experience taught me that a great idea or a cool product alone is not enough to make a start-up successful. Instead, start with interested customers and build a general enough product with their input that solves their pain-point without causing them supportability concerns. Then, pitch it to investors with the customers backing your product.

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer." - Randy Pausch, The last lecture.

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