Author: Peter Cauton

Entrepreneur, startup advocate, writer, speaker, and HR guy. Husband, father to 6, worship leader, unabashed follow of Christ

The Destructive Power of “Not Yet”

Peter Cauton
Dangerous business

Around three years ago, I had a coffee talk with an entrepreneurial fellow named Randy (not his real name, rhymes though).

Randy was a mobile applications programmer working for a large telco. He was carefully explaining to me about his idea for a mobile application/mobile service which I thought was just super – first in the local market, clear user value proposition, clear monetization strategy, low investment costs.  I had a lot of questions, but he gave thoughtful answers – it was obvious he gave a lot of thought to his idea. Typically, I got really excited and told him he should start working on the code immediately. I reasoned he didn’t need to resign, but that he could work on the code and the interface after hours. I immediately offered him whatever help I could give – assembling a team, a table in our office, etc…

He smiled a bit and stopped me from rambling on. Then the all-too familiar words were uttered.

“Not yet.”

He explained he wanted to “polish” his idea further before we did anything concrete. I argued with him a bit, but he was resolute. I didn’t want to appear too excited and do a hard sell, so I just stopped and asked him what his timetable was.

“Maybe in a couple of months.”

I emailed him a couple of months after. I asked him about his timetable.

“A bit busy now with work. Maybe early next year.”

I didn’t push anymore.

Around year and a half after, I sent him an email. It featured a link to a local application. It was basically Randy’s idea. Only, it wasn’t him who made it happen.

He replied with something like, “Too bad. On to the next idea!”

Too bad? Too bad?! I’m not really sure if he didn’t feel any regret at all or it was a coping mechanism. I had no doubt in my mind that the experience he would have garnered would have been tremendous – best case: a successful startup, worst case: invaluable knowledge. Instead, he chose to throw it away without trying, another startup which died without even getting a chance to live.

This is why “not yets” are so dangerous. At least a “no” isn’t self-pretentious. A “no” isn’t about fooling ourselves.

A “not yet” is comfortably nestled between a yes and a no – it’s such an easy reply to give to any question which implies a commitment. And so it remains the most common barrier to startups.

But life will not wait. Competitors will not wait. The window will not wait.

(and if you are in corporate, the longer you wait, the more the system will make it harder to for you to take any leaps)

I remember an ex-officemate once told me about his brother who got into this huge vehicular accident and nearly lost his life. The next things he did are almost too obvious: he quit his (largely successful) work in corporate, and put up a resto in Tagaytay. (If I remember right, it’s Firelake Grill – an awesome place)

Does it really take a life-threatening moment for us to pursue our passions?

Enough not-yets.

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The only shoe that will fit perfectly is yours

Peter Cauton

Each individual is unique.

From our fingerprints, our view of the world, our biases, our histories – we are each truly unique.

Our uniqueness extends to what exactly satisfies us at work.

Some of us prefer sales, some research, some human resources, some supply chain management, some finance, some technology.

Some of us prefer to work at night, some mid-afternoon, some are morning folk.

Some of us prefer working with people, while some prefer to work alone, for some “it depends.”

Some of crave simplicity, while others desire sophistication.

Some of us get a thrill out of talking to someone new everyday, while some of us want to a correspond with more an intimate set of people.

Some of us want structure, while some of us would want none of that.

Some of us like synthesizing, some facilitating, some writing, some performing, some speaking to large groups.

We all have a unique fulfillment menu. We are each fulfilled by a combination of different things.

This is why job-hunting is so tricky. We ALWAYS end up compromising something.  Isn’t it funny that there’s always something missing?

How many times have you said or have you heard others say, “The salary is good, my boss is cool, the work is okay, but, I don’t know, I’m just not happy.”

A corporation is someone else’s dream. It is someone else’s menu. Someone else’s shoe.

In the end, the only shoe that will fit perfectly is yours.

9 Startup Myths Part 3 of 3

Peter Cauton

This is part 3 of a 3 part series. You can find part 1 here, and part 2 here.

7) Bigger is better

Last year we were up to around 15-16 people. This year, while we’ve lessened our headcount to around 10-11 people,  we’re set to double last year’s revenue level. Guess which situation I’m happier with?

Early on, it was always an assumption of mine that the successful companies are the bigger companies – bigger headcount, bigger operations. So expansion was one thing I was conscious about. I also remember the saying that you MAKE room for an A-player in your firm even if there’s isn’t exactly an urgent opening.

This was until I experienced needing to fight to meet payroll. This was something that I’ve never experienced before – if I didn’t make a sale, my guys don’t get any money for the month. Remember, recruitment in a startup entails selling dreams and encouraging people to take risks. The LAST thing I wanted to do was to face them and tell them we don’t have any salary for them for this month. So we did everything we could to meet payroll (and thank God that in our 7 years, we’ve never missed payroll – I find this to be nothing short of a miracle, especially during the early years). We also exhausted all means necessary before having to actually hire a new person.

This also allowed us to look at opportunities in a totally different light – how do we help this new client and make it work with only our current manpower? We forced ourselves to reconsider our assumptions and leverage everything we had (technology, network, processes) into making it work.

The results?

Larger revenue per employee. Lower costs. Better efficiency. A more versatile team. A smaller team which feels more like family than anything else. If, 5 years we experience much revenue growth and we’re still at 12 people?  I’d be ecstatic.

8) There will be no more jerks

The term I wanted to use was this one (an interesting book – talks about the negative bottom-line effects of employing jerks, even super-talented ones). I changed my mind, thinking my kids might end up reading this someday.

So, jerks it is.

You know the type – every company would seem to have them – pompous hotshots who humiliate and specialize in public lashings. After 10 years of encountering people like these in all the corporations I had worked for, I said to myself, “No jerk shall ever set foot in my firm! If one of them slips throughout the cracks, I will fire the person immediately.”

You know what, we’ve actually never hired a jerk (well, maybe one teetering on the edge). Our office has always been a fun, light place to work in.

Alas, while our firm has largely been jerk-free (not a small feat, as there are stealth jerks who don’t register during the recruitment process), I had forgotten that I was now exposed to more of the outside world – clients, suppliers, partners, government agencies, etc. While a large majority of the people we work with are fantastic people whom we love interacting with, there are always one or two exceptions to the rule.

Sigh. So I guess there will always be jerks. The trick is learning how to manage them.

9)You can do it part-time

Sure, you can do small businesses and lifestyle businesses part-time. But a startup? (definition here)

In a lot of ways, growing a startup is like parenting. You need to spend TIME with your baby – nurturing, guiding, supporting. Like a parent, there will be some point where your startup baby can fend for itself without you. But during the formative years? Your startup will not grow to its fullest potentials if you are an absentee startup parent. Name one uber-successful startup with part-time founders. There has to be someone full-time.

He's going to need your full-time help...

What made STORM work was that for the last 7 years, either Pao or I were at it on a full-time basis at any point in its existence. Now that we are both back at it full-time, we are experiencing tremendous growth. That’s no coincidence.

So Peter, how can you do these other startups if you are full-time in STORM?

Just early this year I’ve had illusions that I could somehow pull this off – being CEO of multiple firms, in effect. This is a fool’s errand, I have quickly come to realize. For these other, newer startups to work, I know I will have to groom quarterbacks. I can coach, but only from the sidelines. Someone else needs to quarterback.

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9 Startup Myths Part 2 of 3

Peter Cauton

(The following post is the second of a 3 part series. You can find part one over here)

4) Business Plans Are Important

Yup, it's for dummies alright.

What 4 years of college business teaching hammered in me was that I needed to create a business plan for my startup. I needed to put everything in writing and project my financials – on a short-term, medium term, and longterm basis. So during our first foray, we spent several days crafting an 80+ page business plan, crammed with a boatload of projections and analysis. We had a five-year sales forecast with assumptions on pricing, costs, and market. We had complete projected financial statements across those five years. It was a nice plan. It was something you could submit to a marketing class and get an A with.

It was also a complete waste of time.

The investors we gave it to never read it and instead asked us for a “simpler” 2-page summary. Moreover, after our initial effort to draft this plan, we ourselves never bothered to look it again.

Why? We really had no idea how people would react to our company. None. Our initial product, a fully customizable flexible benefits system, was a first in that 2005 market. Who knew how people would react? Our assumptions were guesses.

Remember this very important quote from renowned entrepreneur Steve Blank:

No plan survives the first contact with customers.

True enough, the moment we talked for the very first time with potential customers, we threw the initial plan (our 80 page masterpiece!)  out the window almost immediately. Almost all our assumptions were wrong. 2 weeks of work flushed down the toilet in seconds.

So instead of a crafting a long, static business plan, draft a short, flexible 2-page one. Use common sense to check if your numbers look alright. Take note of your assumptions.

Then, MOST IMPORTANTLY, immediately talk to potential customers and check out all your assumptions. Most of them will be wrong. Using what you learned, redraft your 2-pager. Rinse and repeat. Test and iterate till you get your model right.

5) Things Stabilize

Pao and I always thought, “OK, in time, we’d stabilize.”

Uhm, no.

What we’ve discovered instead is that every year is different. Vastly different. The moment we’d think that, okay, steady na tayo, let’s just stick with this, the market throws us a curveball and forces us to change things. Twice, we’ve decided to kill off certain services, only to have a huge company come and ask us for exactly those services. When it happened a second time, we even joked that the best way to make a business line profitable is by killing it off. Once, we were excited to bring out this new retention tool in the market. We made a big launch and started getting new clients. In a few months however, the recession came out of nowhere. Retention was the last thing on our clients’ minds, and one by one, our clients pulled out.

Bring it on!

Running a startup involves navigating your firm through a sea of constant change. So, while there’s always that huge problem which can sometimes threaten your very existence, thank God there are always even more opportunities to seize and take advantage of.

Yep, it isn’t for the faint of heart, but hey, you can bet it’s so much more exciting – and gratifying – than being a cog in the machine.

6) You need to pump money into traditional advertising

For years, I would always bemoan the fact that most of our clients came from word-of-mouth. I would always say, “imagine if we did active marketing instead of…nothing” And I would dream of big marketing campaigns – but couldn’t do it either because of a lack of time, a lack of budget, or both.

Eventually, we did direct marketing campaigns and sent an untold number of letters and email to potential customers. For all the time, money, and effort this necessitated, we got meager results – we got very few clients through this route. I then realized when I was in corporate I would just shred unopened sales letters, and delete sales emails before I read them. I hated spam.

In the meantime however, the “nothing” marketing strategy was churning out client after client. There would be phone calls from strangers referred by people we worked with, even people whom we didn’t work with, but with whom we shared an interaction or two with. Our biggest clients are almost all from referrals.

It turns out, it wasn’t “nothing” at all. The good work we poured in with our current clients – the service levels, the innovation, how we made it easy for people to relate and work with us – created ripples we never realized were spreading. In 2011, we spent I think the least amount on traditional marketing as we have had in the last 4 years, yet, this year is shaping up to be our best revenue year ever, by far. This has really made me reevaluate what I think I know about marketing. The rules are changing.

Last three myths next post!

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9 Startup Myths Part 1 of 3

Peter Cauton

For the next three days, I’ll be talking about 3 assumptions I discovered were completely wrong as I went through the startup process:

1) You need a ton of money to start

Nope, you don't need it.

Back in 2005, we were rejected by 2-3 investors before we said, “The heck with it, let’s just pool our own money and start.” My initial cash-out as an owner was P30,000.00. Far cry from the hundreds of thousands we thought we needed. It turns out it was enough.

Nowadays, you could start firms with even less, as the cost barriers continue to fall.

Last Thursday, I had a productive brainstorming session with an old friend of mine who was in the printing/publishing business. I suggested, “Why don’t you try building a 2.0 version of your current business on the net?” He told me he thought it would take around P2-3 million to do a web startup.

I told him I could connect him to tech people so he can knock zeroes out of his initial investment assumption.

Web startups are the most cost-effective startup type of them all. If you can program, you can build an e-commerce website for less than a pittance and start a business. You don’t know how to program? Sell your startup idea to someone who does and offer her substantial equity. She can instead work on the website for the equity instead of you paying a salary or a fee.

A great entrepreneur will ALWAYS find a way to get things done without a huge initial investment.

2) You will be your own boss

This was one of the first myths I discovered just wasn’t true.

When Pao and I started, we immediately made business cards which said “CEO” and “COO.” Yeah, we just loved the sound of that!

The moment we worked with clients though, it became very apparent who the real boss was. Needing to prove ourselves and earn trust in the market, we needed to over-deliver every time with every new client. That usually meant being under the beck and call of each client who chose to work with us. They were the real bosses and dictated everything.

Oh, you want this 4 month project crammed into a month?

Sure, no problem!

Oh, so you want me to do this 20-slide presentation which isn’t in the contract we signed? For free?

Sure, no problem!

Even the titles themselves worked against us. Once, Pao was in a presentation with a bank executive,  to whom he gave his “COO” biz card. Upon looking at the card, the client smiled and replied, “Oh, COO ka pala eh, ibaba mo naman young presyo.”

From then on, we just changed our titles to “Consultant.”

3) My corporate life would prepare me for startup life

When we were starting, I thought my 10-year corporate experience would help me run things in STORM.

Wrong.

There is nothing in my corporate career that could have prepared me for life in a startup.

Here’s the big difference: in corporations, unless you are the CEO, you think only as far as your function is concerned.

Going up the corporate ladder in human resources, I only thought as far as HR was concerned. Yes, I was trained to be a “strategic business partner” and know the business better – but I never made decisions for anything beyond my departmental role, and I would always look at things through the lens of my function.

In a startup, you learn veryveryvery quickly how and why every decision affects every other business function. Since resources are extra-scarce in new startups, you are forced to make (quick) decisions considering ALL the affected functions. Nothing in isolation.

Let’s say you want to implement a particular marketing plan. You then make an analysis that you would need someone full-time on it for 3 months. You could do it yourself, but then who would do current consulting work you are doing for a current client? Let’s say you consider hiring a person instead, what would that person do after the 3 months are up? What sort of person will you need? Do you have enough money to afford her? Who would train her? What happens if she’s successful and lands projects within the first month? Who would do the account management for these new clients?

Corporations train us to do work on a per-department basis. Sure, you have your management trainee programs – but each of these trainees is ultimately assigned to a home department after their tour of duty.

Startup work demands immediate holistic, systemic thinking. A corporation trains us in a singular function, because this is the most efficient way to structure things (like an assembly line).

This is why I’ve always said to friends that in a single year in a startup, I learned more about business than a decade in corporate.

Three more myths busted in part 2!

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What’s The First Rule of Startups? There Are No Rules!

Peter Cauton

Early this year at STORM, we began building a competency framework for use in the company.  This is one of the tools large firms use to align everything towards their vision. The logic was, as we got bigger, we would need these structures to guide us. Building a framework like this is massive work, and our HR guy, Dino, was assigned to work on quarterbacking the project.

Around two months ago, we were laying the finishing touches on the framework. We had our core competencies (behaviors everyone in the company should follow), and were finishing with the functional (behaviors everyone in a specific function/department should follow) ones.

Then, I recalled the “big” employee handbook project we did the previous year – something NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO OPEN. I then thought “What the hell are we doing?!”

So I quickly called everyone to our conference room to say I wanted the project scrapped ASAP. Bewildered, Dino asked me why. I apologized and told him that I knew he was working hard on it (I probably assigned it to him in the first place), but that we have to scratch it out as soon as we can.

It was a distraction.

We’re fifteen freaking people, I don’t need a complicated list of behavioral indicators to ensure everyone is “aligned.” I know exactly what each person is doing.  If something were amiss, I don’t need a complicated report to give me the details. I’d rather look at you straight in the eye and talk about it openly and transparently.

So we scrapped it. I made sure any form of “job description” was also scrapped as well.

I hate job descriptions.

The lesser the rules there are in a startup, the better.  

Don’t concentrate on creating rules. Concentrate on creating culture. It is culture that should drive your startup. And I don’t mean the culture that you supposedly create from drafting those useless “Vision-Mission” statements that no one really cares about (Guy Kawasaki talks about this in the video below). Culture will emanate from you – how you act, what you say, what you stand for. If you are always late in the office, then that is the culture you will create. If you continually ask people opinions on what they think and encourage risk, then that is the culture you will create. If you hold people accountable – then that is the culture you create.

Rules in a startup are oftentimes unnecessary, and all most them do is constrict and distract. The time you spend crafting that 40-page employee policy manual is time you could’ve spent talking and learning from your clients. And guess what, NO ONE WILL READ your manual 40-page masterpiece anyway.

So what do you do? Aim to create as less rules / policies as possible. There will be policies  you should hang on to  – mostly policies on pay and benefits. But the rest? Scrap ’em.

Manage each person in your team personally and uniquely instead. Talk to them. Connect. Lead.

So if your question is,”what about HR policy in my new firm?” Take it from someone who used to make a living crafting those rules. Forget about taking care of HR policy, just take care of your people.

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Start@Starbucks!

Peter Cauton

Start-bucks Coffee.

My first startup, STORM Consulting, started as an idea in 2005, I talked about it with around 10 people – all potential co-owners I targeted – mostly in Starbucks. I then narrowed the field down from ten to two people and began building the foundation of the firm with my two new partners.

A recent startup, StreamEngine, (site is still in beta) which is launching this January, started when I talked to potential partners – mostly in Starbucks (some in Seattle’s Best).

A chunk of my time now I’m currently using by  talking to different people regarding different ideas – all in coffee places and dining areas in the metro, 30-60 minutes each, mostly after hours.

You want to know where to start? Talk about it with someone. Get that idea of yours out of your head and into a conversation. To properly nurture ideas, they need to be out in the open, where they can grow, receive feedback, and get the attention they need. The more you talk about it, the more your idea will become real, more palpable. Energy is generated, momentum is generated – both critical elements in launching a startup.

Ideally, you are also using this process to recruit for potential partners. This is very critical, because once the incorporation is done – you essentially become married to your partners. Listen carefully: Who is excited about your idea? Who can help you take your idea further? Is this person DIFFERENT than you in key areas (ideas, skill set, network)? Is this person SAME as you in the key areas? (values, principles, work ethic)

So you want to start? Grab a cup with a friend tonight!

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Get Off The Corporate Assembly Line!

Peter Cauton

Do you remember the last time you did truly great work? I bet your output was made possible because you were fired up and inspired, and you threw your entire being into the project. I bet you thought about the project during non-work hours, in fact, I bet you had trouble sleeping because your mind was so buzzed thinking about possibilities regarding your project. It was work which was consuming, inspiring, and meaningful. There was a point to it.

It was work you believed in.

Now, how long ago was it when you felt this way? A lot of my friends in the corporate world haven’t felt this way for a long time. Oh, they might feel this way for the first few months of a new job, but when reality sets in, the humdrums return with a vengeance.

Why?

One reason is autonomy. Or lack thereof. I find that I can do far greater work in projects I know I have the autonomy to fully influence. In big corporations, such blanketed autonomy is rare. You have an idea for your project? Then you have to sell it to your boss first, then perhaps more bosses. The larger the idea, the more signatures you have to collect.The more radical and revolutionary your idea is, the more difficult it is to secure signatures. This is why in large corporations, to be effective you really have to be a politician. You have to collect the signatures to get things done.

Another reason is that majority of companies are built for efficiency.  The owner equation is simple: I want my company to produce goods and services at the least cost. The fastest way that is achieved? Using the assembly line.

“Assembly line” jobs are more commonplace than you think. The “copy-paste” job I described in my very first post exists in large numbers, albeit perhaps not as blatant.

Take a look at your job description. Are you given enough freedom to pursue something that’s meaningful to you?

Come to think of it, the very fact that you have a job description points to the whole conundrum. The purpose of the job description is to limit your role – its to make sure boundaries are set. Interestingly, I hear so many people say “I hate working with this guy – he doesn’t do work beyond his job description.” Then why have the job descriptions in the first place? Isn’t it ironic then that the people who succeed and are promoted in firms are the very people who go beyond what is in the job description?

Are you lost in the org chart?

Traditional corporations are structured by silos, by departments. The bigger the firm, the more sub-departments are created, the more limited a job becomes. This is why the biggest firms have people who cut and paste all day. This is when people get commoditized.

A person can be given a manual, sent to a training course or two, and few months on the job, and…boom! You have been assimilated. When a person can replace another person by sticking closely to the job description, I’d call that an assembly line.

Of course, there are exceptions. I’ve worked with several companies who give autonomy to their employees and treat them as partners. I’ve met several individuals who truly love what they are doing, do great work, and inspire people around them. Are these common? You know the answer.

YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED

Instead, we find people in the assembly line. People who hate Mondays and treat Fridays like the greatest thing since sliced bread. People who work merely for their paychecks and look for their kicks elsewhere. People who just go through the motions and find themselves on Facebook the whole day, because they can do the required work in just 1-2 hours. This is a tragedy.

Dare to be Different…like Tita Moning

Peter Cauton

I still remember my first visit to LaCocina de Tita Moning when my wife took me there around five years ago.

Vividly.

Why?

It was such an experience.

A few days before our planned dinner, Pauline asked me what I wanted to order, which I found a little weird.

Uhm…so can’t we just order from the menu when we’re there, just like every other restaurant?

Apparently not. This restaurant does not accept walk-ins. You have to call them a full 24 hours before your planned meal to preorder your food. Oh, and there’s not much to choose from. There are only 12 set menus, so you just choose once. That’s it.

These items alone made them different from 99.9 percent of the food places I knew, and even before I set foot in their premises, it was already making quite the impression on me.

Finally, we got to the place. It was near Malacanang.

The place itself did not look anything like a restaurant. It was an ancestral home and I felt like I was in another era. With good service, too. From the moment we entered the gate, someone was serving us, helping us park our car, and leading us to an al fresco foyer, where we had tea and some appetizer.

The server then asked us if we were ready to eat, or if we wanted to explore the house first.

Explore the house?! Pancake House has never asked me if I wanted to explore their house before. This was new. And therefore this was exciting.

Apparently, the house was also a museum. We proceeded to explore several rooms ogling different vintage furniture and radio equipment.

Finally, it was time to eat and we were brought to a grand dining area, where the other guests were.

We partook of our set meals in grand style. When we were having dessert, we were handed a guest book by the waiter who asked us to put a dedication. Then, our waiter called the cook and some of the other members of their staff, who then posed with us while our waiter took our picture. Not the sort of thing you see in Jollibee. The waiter then explained that this picture would be uploaded to their website the day after. (you’ve got some restos doing this now, but 5 years ago, this was unprecedented)

It was an amazing and a totally unique experience that someone designed. An experience someone took great care to execute and deliver.

To rise above the noise of today’s information-saturated world, you have to be memorable, magical, unique.

How can your startup be like Tita Moning?

Postscript: Oh, and food was just superb! Best bread pudding ever!

Postscript 2: No, they aren’t paying me to do this. Maybe someone can send pudding…

Buhay Bootstrap (plus, free startup glossary!)

Peter Cauton

The year is 2006. Pao and I were about 15-20 pounds lighter. Pao was still enjoying his mullet haircut, while I was still enjoying some hair.We wanted to put up a flexible benefits solutions firm, capitalizing on my own early-market experience with flexible benefits.

None of us were really “entrepreneurs” when we started. I was an HR guy and Pao was a programmer. We tried pitching to investors for startup capital, but I think this failed for two reasons: a) the mammoth 100+ page business plan (AKA complete waste of time) we crafted, and b) at that time, no one understood what our idea was and could become. So we ended up bootstrapping.

Funding. There are two general ways to fund a firm: a) raising capital from investors, or b) bootstrapping. Bootstrapping basically means getting no outside funds. The founders themselves would put up the initial capital (another common ploy would be credit cards, although nowadays there seem to be no end to spammed loan offers), minimize costs by all means necessary, survive, and wait for the business to break even and eventually, be profitable. What you give up when you get funding from investors is equity – and thereby control. When you bootstrap though, and it works – you retain control.

We put in around 90K all in all and got started. Pao actually took the leap much earlier than I did. In a crucial move, he went full-time in STORM immediately. I worked with him part-time. To minimize costs, the company began operating in the living room of my 1-bedroom condo. The bedroom effectively became my house. (When I stepped out of the door – boom, I was at work!) We didn’t pay for any office furniture – everything was something someone had donated, so uhm … it wasn’t exactly a breathtaking sight. Our monthly costs were Pao’s salary (near minimum), electricity, and the cheapest internet provider at that time – Destiny (don’t get me started). We felt like we could manage the burn and survive until we got a client or two.

Burn rate is a synonymous term for negative cash flow. It is a measure for how fast a company will use up its initial shareholder capital. If shareholder capital is exhausted, the company will either have to start making a profit, find additional funding, or close down. (wikipedia)

Our plan: to make money from flexible benefits consulting first, and then eventually use the funds to develop an online flexible benefits system to market. Game.

Excited, we planned out a half-day seminar on flexible benefits in Discovery Suites.  Then we started calling people to come. The event was jam-packed, filled with a lot of large firms. Peso signs started broadcasting out of our eyes and stuff. We we’re Kings of the World!

Until we talked to them.

None of them wanted merely consulting. They wanted the online system.

Hokay. This was a significant problem. We had wanted a kick-ass online system. We had previously developed the specs and we designed the data flow very carefully, capturing the various nuances of a comprehensive flexible benefits program. The resulting design was a gargantuan task which would take months to develop for a team. On pao’s salary alone we had 2-3 months of burn left. So what to do?

This led to our first pivot.

Pivot: this is when, due to new insights gathered from the market a firm does a quick turn, a quick strategy change, WITHOUT changing the overall vision of the firm

We needed small, quick wins to allows to raise funds to hire one more programmer to help Pao finish our system as fast as possible. Prior to this time, I had conducted an organizational climate survey for a friend’s organization – and thought that might be a cool service. However, there were a large number of competitors in the business, so we thought an online web survey tool (there wasn’t a popular one at that time) could make us unique in this market.

Amazingly, Pao did the tool in a month, we dubbed it WebSurv. (we still use it now for some projects) Websurv helped STORM land its first few projects – analyze/report projects for some medium-sized firms.

We eventually got to hire our first employee, Angela (who, during her initial interview, took fifteen minutes waiting just outside the door of my residential condo unit before finally mustering the courage to knock). This set the stage for everything. We finished the flexible benefits system before the year ended, managed to land two major flexible benefits clients as 2007 started, and the rest is company history.

In six years, STORM has manage to become a bona-fide player in the local HR technology market, with its sights set abroad.

Some items to takeaway:

1) No, it’s not as glamorous as you might think. (not at all!) It takes a whole lot of sacrifice and humility.

2) It really helps to have a partner with you to weather the storms (pun intended).

3) It’s mighty tough to get investor money (a bit easier nowadays though). Bootstrapping is entirely possible though and has a lot of upside. Check this out. I’m a big believer.

4)  Your plan has to be really be very very flexible to changes.

5) It can take a long time – so patience and perseverance are paramount.