How we work at our startup
I have been in 3 different startups before starting my own. One revenue generating, bootstrapping startup that’s quite below the investment radar but silently raking in millions, one that raised a crazy amount and grew faster than cancer and one that had a moving prototype, a great guy but lacks product demand.
Last year this time, I started my own startup and I can tell you, I am so blessed to have had those experiences to draw from because they’ve helped me make some of the most critical decisions early on in my own startup.
Here are my key takeaways:
Staying objective and prudent with funds
When I started SushiVid, I did have some savings — all prepped up for the long bootstrapping journey. Single and in Malaysia, I know I would stay alive for 30 months? I was prepared to do this on my own but money came in sooner than I anticipated and I must say it was a good decision.
If I hadn’t raise our angel round, I’d be a lot less willing to hire and a lot more careful, not that I’m not now, I still take the bus instead of the cab to the airport, and I would co-ordinate to go to Jakarta when my sister goes, to crash at her hotel. But to be able to not worry about the next paycheck for my team has definitely given me the peace of mind to move faster and bolder.
If you’re able to stay objective when it’s your own money or you have a huge stash, sure! Bootstrapping works but when you’re like me, with a fairly low upper limit, raising an angel round was really liberating.
The foundation of the team must be build on trust.
Just like SushiVid sells trust marketing, it has to start with our team. I trust my team with my concerns and decisions and in return they can trust me to have their back. When dispute arises, when I know it, we solve it immediately.
I’ve seen personally how good employees together, can become really bad employees when there’s toxic in the team. One complain can turn into a series of bad-mouthing and bullying starts to happen — excluding someone intentionally is bullying.
I’ve also seen, when the founders try so hard to shelter the founding team from real issues instead of discussing openly, it can breed insecurities and unnecessary stress which in turn leads to overall bad performance.
We may not be founders but it doesn’t mean we cannot understand or emphatize as a person and one thing we founders don’t realise, your team wants in on the fear and worries too because a lot of times, it’s not a job they are working for, but a dream that we’ve planted in them too. Not letting them in on these, makes them feel like their not apart of the startup.
Respect is earned, not forced.
I personally have not had anyone put someone else on top of me, but I’ve seen in my ex-colleagues, how they’ve retaliated against a later hire that was placed on top of them in the org chart. I imagine, I would be just as defensive.
This one needs extra special TLC and attention. As a founder, I need to find someone to lead and when I can’t find it in my team, I’ll need to find someone from the outside to lead and the team’s not going to like it. I realised that communication is absolutely vital here. The team needs to know why I absolutely need this crucial role to be filled and why it is something I cannot find from within. Getting their understanding first, is most important.
I found a good way to do this, is to let the team choose the candidate. Everyone must agree to hire this person and everyone is well aware that the role is vital and is something that we need critically. Everyone gets a chance at interviewing the next hire, even for BO reasons, a person can get rejected.
Hiring doesn’t solve everything —time to refine the process
At seven pax, I am still hiring but I start to hesitate more now than ever before. I know some companies bootstrapped and survived all through to exit with less than 10 pax and I’m already at 7 pax in one year. That’s a little scary.
Every time we want to hire someone, I would always want us to think again and again, find ways to refine the process before I actually hire because if that one thing we’re doing can be turned into a quick process in the company, maybe we wouldn’t be needing that extra person?
Having said that, I need a designer. :)
Saying No
There are actually a lot a lot of support in this space for us startups, from pitching events, to accelerators and talks and the sorts but what I realised after joining two accelerators (DBS Hotspot and MaGIC Maps ASEAN) is we had to learn to say no. While both accelerators were extremely helpful to us, we also had many other enticing offers like the Alliance Bank SME Innovation Challenge and Digi Accelerator that we either gave up applying or refused because we’re about our business, not the startup scene. There really is only so much they could help us. What we need ultimately is traction and a sound business that is actually revenue generating first.
Same thing with partnerships and meetings. A lot of people give me so much grieve about not meeting up or refusing an appointment but the truth is I much prefer to respect their time and mine. While I would love to know what they’ve been up to and how they can help us, I can’t afford to spare the 2 hours to meet up when every single person wants to meet up. Skype works perfectly and an email with as little fluff as possible would be really more effective than driving 45 minutes, getting stuck in traffic, and parking and all that. MALAYSIANS should learn to use Skype more.
Oh and here’s a video interview I made with my best friend Max, in Iceland. Throwback to Nov 2015, when SushiVid was just one month old.
