The man who procrastinated his startup for six long months
I had a somewhat stressful weekend, thinking about how dumb and clueless I am compared to my friends and PBwiki co-workers. Every person and his sister is working on another .com startup, and it’s presumed that only the smartest of the pack have a chance of succeeding. Out of all the smart people working in the SF Bay Area, I see myself on the bottom of the hierarchy.
That is, until I read this post on GigaOM this morning. Meet Ian Shea, sole founder and employee of what’s to be Project Maestro.
Since January, Shea has been working alone out of his house on Project Maestro, an online marketplace for connecting experts from any number of fields to individuals that want top-dollar tutoring. So a retired minor league pitcher, for example, might be matched to a high schooler aspiring to earn a college scholarship on his fast ball, or a gerontology nurse might be matched to an investing club for Baby Boomers. Maestro will also handle the scheduling and billing, much like a virtual talent agency might.
The guy seems quite smart and savvy, but his “Six month method of starting a startup” doesn’t make too much sense to me. He “collects feedback” from friends and advisers, yet he doesn’t even think about the product specifications and engineering talent until the sixth month.
When someone asks me what I’d do in X business scenario, I think, “what would David Weekly do?” Well, in this scenario, he wouldn’t be interviewing with GigaOM about a startup that’s six months old and doesn’t yet exist. If he had the same business idea and time to execute on it, he’d have a site up and running over the course of the July 4th weekend. Launch first, vision later. By the time Ian launches his prototype in his (ninth?) month of doing business, he very well may realize that there are other things worth pursuing. Or, the vision that he had with the company may take a total swing in direction. Who knows?!
Even if people see you as being incredibly smart, a bad method of doing business can totally kill the company before it’s born. I speak from experience! Or, my favorite strategy for figuring out what to do in pretty much any scenario: I ask myself, “what would David Weekly do?”
July 6th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Holy crap! I read that article and I get self-conscious. My one question is why it takes a whole month for each. Why would he take so much time out to discuss his vision? Ok, so maybe he’s giving himself one month to find his 4 advisors. But, he could combine some of these steps. And after 5 months of discussion, without even starting development, he might decide not to launch based on all the feedback he collected.
Elton John once said he can decide whether a song he’s writing is going to be good enough in about 20 minutes. I think that says quite a bit. To me that screams confidence. Plus, he’s actually starting something! He’s in front of the piano composing, not knowing how its going to work out. But Shea’s methodology seems way too cautious. He’s stressing tons of metric measurement over drive and passion, two things which I feel are far more important than having advisors help me validate whether or not I should even get started.
I can’t say too much. I procrastinate for other reasons. And I hope this works out for him in the end. But even if it does, I agree that this isn’t a good blueprint for a startup.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Launch first vision later…
Many web 2.0 solutions involve social collaboration. To test ideas out requires collaboration. Followed by iterations to hone in on resonant solutions.
… all easier said than done:
Boom-De-Ya da
July 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Hey Jessica,
If I were working on a startup (which I am), I’d take an approach somewhere between Ian Shea and David Weekly.
I agree with you that there’s little point in spending six months on a phantom startup. I’m honestly surprised that GigaOM interviewed a founder with so few results, when there are so many people doing so much more productive stuff with their time.
On the other hand, I have a hard time with the notion of “just building it” and bringing vision later. By taking the time — somewhere between a week and a month — to flesh out an idea, get feedback from your peers, do research into the space, and so on, you’ll not only have a better sense of what you’re getting into, but based on what you learn, you may change your idea considerably.
Before building a site, I suggest talking about it with ten smart people. They’ll provide you with feedback, insight, and constructive criticism that will influence, mold, and transform your idea — and just might make the difference between your being good and great.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:15 am
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September 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Hi there
I think that procrating it bad
November 18th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I think Ian Shea just raised 50MM from Sequoia…