3 Observations For Other First-Time Founders

So you’re going to leave your safe, cushy job and start a company. Nice!

Well, considering we’ve spent a few months starting Wisepatch, I’m clearly highly qualified to give you amazing advice about starting your specific company. Here goes…

I’m kidding, of course. And by the way, you should probably be weary of anyone who gives you definitive, “you must follow this” advice about your particular startup, especially in the first days. When I played a ton of poker, people would often ask me things like, “should I play a hand like J9 suited?” For anyone who has played much poker, there is only one right answer to that question: ‘It depends.’ For the most important areas of your company (product, technology, monetization), it’s probably the same way. Probably.

That being said, what might be helpful are a few observations that I’ve combed from several months of being a first-time founder. A quick look at three things you will probably experience:

  1. You Will Talk About Your Idea All The Time: Have you ever met a random person at a party and been asked what you do? If you work at a big company like LinkedIn, you just say, “I work at LinkedIn.” Maybe there’ll be some chit-chat about someone you know in common, but in four+ years I never once had someone follow up with, “Tell me in excruciating detail exactly what your startup is… Oh yeah? How is that different than Quora or Yahoo Answers?” Now I have that conversation every day. Know that you will be asked about your company or product every single day, by everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean last week the postal worker I bought stamps from asked, “How’re you going to get distribution?” A homeless guy outside suggested I integrate with Facebook (Though that advice we really did follow. Hey, he seemed pretty smart?). If you don’t have a pithy, short way to describe your company now, you will soon.
  2. Everyone Will Be A Doubter: When Chris Dixon says that being a founder means starting with, “no one who believes in you (except perhaps your closest friends and family),” he is absolutely right. Not too many people will be openly dismissive about your idea or product, but you will feel the skepticism seeping out of their pores. And look, they’re probably right. The odds certainly say so. But hey, the only alternative to continuing to think and work hard is to agree with them and demonstrate that you have no conviction for your own idea. And that’s pretty lame. Don’t do that.
  3. Everything Will Look Like Competition: If you’re working on a product in a large market, the first few months will feel like a press barrage of companies that sound exactly like your product. This will be exacerbated by the fact that everyone who you’ve talked to about your idea will forward you every TechCrunch article remotely similar to your idea. Oh, and of course Andreessen Horowitz / Greylock / SV Angel / Benchmark / YC / Sequoia / Your Mom invested in their Series Seed / A. The first few times, you may panic about that TechCrunch / Venturebeat / PandoDaily post. After a while, you’ll realize that the world is large, markets are huge, hunger is on your side, and you should just get back to working on product.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.
From Jeff Bezos. My favorite quote about building products/businesses.

Source: techdirt.com

Thoughts on Jeremy Lin

Like a lot of people in my generation, Michael Jordan drew me in to basketball. Watching MJ marked the first time in my life that I was truly inspired by the obvious brilliance of an individual at his chosen craft. That experience triggered my love for basketball. It drove me to practice hard at the game and try out for my junior high school team. It compelled me to get better and make my high school squad. And it motivated me to spend years coaching basketball, trying to teach kids to play the game correctly.

But ultimately for me, as a Taiwanese-American kid living a few miles from Stanford, the lesson from Michael Jordan was always that (1) a human being could select a craft based on sufficient talent and (2) become the best in the world at it given unreal dedication. It was never, ultimately, about basketball.

That’s at some level because Mike just wasn’t like me (physically, culturally, etc.), but also because I never saw anyone like me playing with him. Sure Rex Walters was a Japanese-American NBA player from that era who grew up in San Jose, but I didn’t even know that until years later. And, as Walters said himself, “I consider myself Japanese-American. I just don’t look it.” At some level, it wasn’t really until Yao Ming was playing in the NBA that I actually believed people of Asian descent were even allowed in The League. And while Yao may have broken some kind of barrier, that was always explained by his absurd height, paired with freakish coordination for his size. In other words, he wasn’t *really* like me.

I think that’s why so many Asian-Americans are so taken by Jeremy Lin’s sudden emergence on the NBA scene. I mean, he’s like me! We grew up a few miles away from each other, living in supportive and strict Asian households. We’re both close to six-feet tall and look physically like, well… Asians. We both did well in local public schools and dreamed of attending Stanford down the street. We both loved and immersed ourselves in basketball. We even played in the same high school league, just a few years apart. Many Asian-Americans share at least some portion of those same similarities. At some level, I think they’re then thinking, “Dude is just like me and he’s breaking down Steve Blake, drilling corner threes against the fucking Lakers? What world are we living in where a guy ‘like me’ is actually doing that? See, that could be me!”

Of course that embarrassingly undersells Mr. Lin’s talent and dedication. We really aren’t very alike at all. He’s a 6’2” man who can dunk easily, read a ball-screen effectively, play 45 of 48 minutes in a game against the best athletes in the world, and drill corner NBA-distance threes against the fucking Lakers. All of that is incredibly special. It’s all the result of talents that I wasn’t born with or hard work that I didn’t commit. It would be a shame to demean all of that by saying that he’s “just like us”.

That being said, I hope my future Asian-American children will not just observe from watching the NBA that they can work hard at a craft and become the best in the world at it, but also that that craft could be basketball, no matter how unlikely. And if the best way for that to happen is a 6’2” Asian Jeremy Lin being on TV slinging the ball to Carmelo Anthony at an electric MSG, then so be it.

Ordering my #17 Knicks jersey right now.

p.s. If anyone wants to go halfsies on starting a new series of basketball camps in Cupertino capitalizing on the impending rush of Tiger Moms thinking their children are the next Jeremy Lins, let me know.

Three Things I Learned At LinkedIn

Last Friday was my last day at LinkedIn. After almost four and a half years at the company, I decided to embark on a different type of experience, fraught with risk, uncertainty, and instability. Smart choice? We’ll see.

Working at LinkedIn was a truly important experience for me. As I wrote to coworkers on my last day:

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity that I have been given here - it is the best job I’ve ever had. I ate free food, moved desks many times, and was gifted the chance to help build a fresh product and business that truly matters. Along the way I made great friends, experienced some of the best moments of my life (even got married!), worked in a fantastic team, and learned every day. It has truly been a privilege to work with all of you at this great company.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that LinkedIn was the first time in my relatively short professional career that I led something that mattered in a meaningful way. For that, I am grateful.

There are tangible, tactical things that one learns in every role. My time at LinkedIn was no exception. I learned important and actionable skills at each role that are not diminished just because they can be found in a book.

But as a product person and product leader, most of the learning is intangible and tacit. I’ve heard friends called it an “apprenticeship.” The most important things that I learned while at LinkedIn? Three simple ones:

  1. Influence Wins: You can tell people what to do against their will or you can productively influence people to arrive at the same truth. The former is called ‘being a dick’ and doesn’t help over time. The latter is called David Hahn‘ing someone.
  2. Sense of Urgency: Jeff once asked me in a meeting whether I felt I had demonstrated the proper sense of urgency in a particular effort. I had never been asked that before and it definitely made an impression on me, because I realized later that I had not. I now ask myself that question just about every day.
  3. Relationships Matter: One of the most productive Product people I know (link) also happens to be the most well-liked professional I’ve ever met. It took a few months for me to recognize those were not only related, but one caused the other.

Thank you to LinkedIn, for a great 4+ years. 

What happens when the Kindle Fire costs $0?

My coworkers often laugh at me because of the number of Amazon.com boxes I receive. I buy everything from books to toilet paper to golfballs from the site. It’s possible that I’m the company’s single best customer. 

So it might surprise you to hear that I haven’t purchased a Kindle Fire yet. Why? The answer’s pretty simple: I know it’s going to get better. And cheaper. And it will head in both of those directions quickly. So why not wait for the next one?

If you’ve purchased one of the other non-iPad tablet devices on the market, you may be the only one who has. They are each (in some order) thicker, heavier, slower, duller, or just generally crappier than their iPad competitor. Having a down-market product is fine in and of itself, but the companies then seem to exacerbate the problem by having prices that seem to imply a lack of simple logic (case in point). Remember, the iPad starts at $499.

But clearly the Kindle Fire will be different, because Jeff Bezos and company have no interest in charging a premium price for a product that they essentially expect to be a virtual USPS mailbox for their growing inventory of digital goods. Amazon worries about the long-term only and, as the NY Times noted, they actually mean it.

So while the question, “What happens when the Kindle Fire costs $0?” may include a bit of hyperbole, it’s not hard to imagine a day when the Kindle Fire: (1) has progressed to being a truly capable tablet that covers 90% of the iPad’s functions capably, and (2) costs a trivial sum, maybe $49 or $79. What happens then?

If we’re to believe Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma and expect this market to follow other technology markets in history, Apple and the iPad will not be able to simply innovate with ‘sustaining’ features that incrementally drive the state of the art forward. Apple will need to continue to introduce disruptive innovation into the tablet market just to compete with their lower-price, down-market competitors. 

In other words, a slightly better browser, camera, or email application won’t be enough to fend off the Kindle tidal wave. It will need to be marrying the iPad with a hovercraft skateboard, a frisbee, or maybe a hot plate stovetop (don’t laugh, think about how handy that would be!). Jokes of course, but you get the idea. It is a lot to ask, but Apple has been developing magical products for quite a while now, so perhaps the disruptive innovation will continue.

In either case, I’m bullish on Amazon’s prospects in moving to win the non-iPad segment of the tablet market. If I see another $499 tablet from any number of poor Apple competitors, I’ll lose my mind.

The French Laundry

A friend came by for dinner last night and we eventually started talking about his experience visiting The French Laundry, the iconic Yountville Thomas Keller restaurant. This morning, I opened up my browser and was greeted by a page from the The French Laundry website, left over from the evening:

“Every day we create two unique nine-course tasting menus – chef’s tasting and a tasting of vegetables – each a series of smaller, focused dishes. No single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal. What we want you to experience is that sense of surprise when you taste something so new, so exciting, so comforting, so delicious, you think, “Wow” – and then it’s gone. We want the peak of sensation on the palate to be all that you feel. So we serve a series of small courses meant to excite your mind, satisfy your appetite and pique your curiosity. We want you to say, “I wish I had just one more bite of that.” And then the next plate arrives and the same thing happens, but in a different way, a whole new flavor and feel and emotion.”

I found that description and mission to be incredibly compelling, not just as a (hopefully!) future customer, but for the business itself. The experience that French Laundry seeks to build for its customers is beyond excellence – it seeks to provide emotional stimulation in its work. Surprise. Curiosity. Longing.

If Thomas Keller’s more accessible restaurants (Bouchon, Ad Hoc) are any indication, I’m positive the dishes at French Laundry are unreal. But the craftspeople at French Laundry are really pursuing a mission more substantial and lasting than their employment and the quality of food that they prepare. The creations are just vessels for a deeper experience. And in that way, the institution becomes more meaningful than just the food that is plated.

I think we all want the work we pursue in life to be that meaningful. We want the pursuit to be more profound.