WANNA SEE WHAT MY TEAM IS DEVELOPING?

I thought I would do a different blog post today. In light of my absence because I was so busy with my start up, I thought I would share some UI images of what we're building. It's a competitive eSports platform. Our team is focused on building multiplayer league games. With a team of roughly 15 people and bootstrapping from nothing, we will have something to show to investors waiting by the end of December. What we will have is a minimum viable product which is an early demo for early adopters to try. Bare with the sub in images as our concept artists create our own. Hope you like it. My team definitely looks forward to future users playing our competitive league games.

Here's a sneak peak:

JUST ASK!

As an entrepreneur, I've faced enormous obstacles. Just imagine yourself on a very steep hill trying to push up a boulder 10 times your size. Why do I say that? Because that's what building a company feels like. People think that entrepreneurship is glamorous when it's really not. It takes a significant amount of time. It also requires you to pitch to ask for money to put into your idea. It's risky. However it is also rewarding. I pitched my companies idea through email and in person in the thousands. I kept all the 4000 rejection letters I've sent out. What did I get out of it? A little bit of feedback, some perspective, and I grew a very thick skin.

As a non-technical founder, I come from digital media from the creative side. One thing that a big chunk of investors look for is a technical founder. I've had to recruit and build my start up in a different way. One of the things I've learned is to simply ask people for help. Not all of the time you will get a yes from people but the worse thing that can happen is that you will get a no or a maybe. That's not so bad right? So one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is to just ask. It has led me to  meet the top people at Microsoft, the Founder and CEO of Electronic Arts and so much more.

So just ask.

THE STARTUP KIDS

I ended up wondering if there were any good start up movies after going to the theatre to see "Steve Jobs". While I liked the movie as a whole what I felt was missing was the fact that it didn't have a lot of the start up zest that the I look for in these type of stories. The movie was more of an abstract interpretation of Steve Job's persona with 3 connected acts through various accounts. It didn't really seem like the Walter Isaacson book was that much of an influence given that Sony had purchased the rights within weeks after his death.

I ended up Googling some terms to find the best start up movies to watch. Some top 10 lists had documentaries as oppose to movies. I decided to order a few documentaries and watched a few. One that particularly resonated with me is a documentary called "The StartUp Kids". It covers the CEO's recollections of being in a start up and bootstrapping a company. It was great to see and one particular part was inspiring especially the Co-Founder of VIMEO Zach Klein. What I particularly liked about him was his thinking and passion for life. He worked hard and bootstrappped to build VIMEO. Shortly after he sold the company to IAC and instead of building another company in tech, he ended up building his own house in the forest where he looks so free and happy in a place without distractions. He goes to New York as he pleases and he gets invited to all the tech parties but at the end of the day he goes home to this wooden cabin he built himself. I just loved the passion he has for building. The other entrepreneurs were so inspiring and I could definitely relate. 4 of them today are doing very well today (Drew Houston of Dropbox / Jessican Mah of Indinero / Brian Wong of Kiip / and Alexander Jung of Soundcloud). You can also learn some interesting lessons on selling your company to failing from Leah Culver of Pownce and Ben Way of Rainmakers. Definitely enjoyed the documentary and recommend it to all entrepreneurs.

Check out the StartUp Kids trailer: