anders.tyckr.com

Seedcamp's new promotion video interviews a bunch of great entrepreneurs and investors and asks them a couple of very interesting questions. After seeing the video I wanted to give my opinions on the matter from the point of view of being a fairly fresh entrepreneur that won the Seedcamp competition last year with my company Tablefinder. So here it goes:

1: What is an entrepreneur?

To me an entrepreneur is someone that does not consider work a burden. My job is partly doing exactly what I would be doing in my spare time. So thus I work a lot. Another key factor for me is passion. You have to see the sparks flying out of the eyes and ears of the entrepreneur as he or she is trying to solve the problem.

2: What are investors looking for?

This is obviously not the easiest question to answer for be but I will answer from what I've experienced works and what doesn't.

The single most important factor is your 30 second pitch. And the most important part about the pitch is that it doesn't have to describe all of your business. I made the mistake in the beginning because I wanted the investors to understand everything about my idea and why it was/is so great. Those type of conversations tend to be very detailed and long and complicated, and clearly not suitable for an elevator pitch.

Another thing I've learned is that the pitch is not about to create something that sounds nice and really smart gives metaphors  on all of the cool functionality your idea will have. It is rather about simplifying everything to just its core. If you cant say your main thing in one sentence, you are not enough focused, or you are trying to explain to much of the idea.

So from my experience investors are looking for a really clear idea that you can express in a few sentences, and that has a big proven market.

All investors talk about that they think the team is the most important thing. And I agree fully, but the point is, if you and your team is really good, you still need to be able to pitch your idea. And if you even get to have a meeting with one of the bigger investors, you probably already have made a pretty good impression as an entrepreneur.

Your team is not always about bragging about all the stuff you have accomplished, but sometimes passion is enough. If really love solving the problem you are working on, and make that rub off on people around you, I believe you have come very far towards what investors are looking for.

3: How do you find investors that are right for me?

This one is very important, but also very tricky. It clearly depends on what stage your company is in. I made a big mistake, but got invaluable pitch-training in the process, by pitching Tablefinder to all of the big investors in London, when we clearly, with hindsight, needed angel funding. The problem for us was that the business had changed directions a couple of times before Seedcamp and the company was more mature than the business idea. In the end it is always important to have investors that share the same vision as you. They should be people that are well connected within your area of operation, and should be willing to help you grow your business.

An investor is going to be a very close partner for quite some time, so it is as important to screen your investors as it is for them to screen you. Unfortunately sometimes or many times we entrepreneurs don't have the luxury of being picky. But when I will do it again, I sure will put my self in a financial situation where I will be able to be picky.

4: What is it like to be an entrepreneur?

Now this one I know. And I can't emphasize this enough: it takes passion and a whole lot of patience. To be an entrepreneur is doing what you love everyday, and not getting tired of working. Many of my friends think I work too much, but is it really work if you love what you do?

I might not love every moment and aspect of my work, especially working without any income what so ever for 6 months is not the best kind of fun. But the rewards of solving a problem and building your business when nobody thought you would make it, that is what I love. The satisfaction of doing something that nobody else could do, and being respected for doing so is unbeatable.

So, in the video they talk about getting through "the first tough months". I don't think that is the toughest part at all. But the big problems come when you try to build your business after you have launched. If the business doesn't start rolling straight away, and you won't get funding until it does. That is when it is tough. But also the most rewarding if you can push through. Seth Godin's book The Dip was a great source of inspiration for me when things looked like we were out of business. We were in the dip, but now I finally feel we are moving past it.

5: What is the biggest mistake you've made?

I've made so many during the last 2 years, but the one I think stands out the most is that I wanted to do too much. I wanted everyone to have our solution because "everyone who eats could use our service", which is true but not really a healthy customer definition for the business. I also wanted everyone to have the best features already there once we launched. This ended up delaying our launch with many months. And now with hindsight, I would like to say as Paul Graham of Y Combinator says:

"If sitting down for a couple of hours to come up with a company motto delays your launch by a couple of hours, it is probably not worth it"

So when I do this again, I will launch as quickly as possible with one solid problem solving feature and nothing more. Additional features can always be added afterwards.

One thing I learned at Seedcamp was to think of "outcomes" rather than "features". What does the user really want to accomplish? And are we producing that outcome? To me it has worked in the simplification process, not only for features, but also for the pitch.

6: Lessons I've learned along the way?

When you are running with your startup in 200 km/h in one direction you are picking up a lot of experience along the way. The problem is that if you don't stop to think, you won't be able to apply what you've learned until you've run past your objective.

Having gone through a really tough period where I had to focus on bringing in money just to pay the bills, it was like a took a step back, slowed down, and everything became clear to me. Almost a euphoric moment when you get a weight lifted of your shoulders because "It can't get any worse" and that there is no pressure for you to produce results because people have stopped believing.

I never stopped believing and I feel I've been rewarded already. Everything I learned at Seedcamp and through all of my pitches I've made, good and bad, I can now apply, and start to pick up speed once again to get even more experience. Hopefully next time I will settle down to understand what I've learned it will be for better reasons.

I've already mentioned above many of the lessons learned for me. But I think one that I haven't talked about is trust your instincts.

I think one of my largest mistakes was when winning Seedcamp, I thought that everyone around me knew better about my business than me, because of their experience in other fields. And I thought it was all done now since the people around me would "make it happen". Nobody but you make it happen!

Meeting great entrepreneurs and investors has been invaluable for me and I wish everyone could do that, but never think that they know exactly what is right for you, and never expect that they should make any decisions for you. You are the one that knows most about your business, so try to take in the advice, even though it is hard when running 200 km/h, but trust your gut feeling about your decisions and stick with them.

7: Europe or the valley?

As I've never been in the valley I can't really say much about it, but I must say I'm envious of the entrepreneurial environment. As Michal Arrington at Techcrunch say in the video, starting a business in the US gives social credit, but in Europe, many people would look at you and think you were crazy for quitting your government job for starting a business.

This mentality is exactly what Seedcamp is about, which is also something I strongly believe in. We need to utilize and recycle entrepreneurial experience in Europe, and help each other succeed. This reason alone is why I took the initiative to start OpenCoffee in Gothenburg as there are not many places for entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs.

8: What are the classic mistakes start-ups make time and again?

For us, one of the main problems has been focus. As Saul Klein said on Demo day:

Find your mountain!

Meaning that you have to pick one peak to climb, and not take on all at once. This is very difficult, but from what I understand now, a good measurement of how focused your idea is, is if you can define it with just one short, clear, and understandable sentence.

Another problem on the same theme is trying to pinpoint your core customer. I mentioned this above, but the answer to the question "Who is you customer?" is not "Anybody can use this service!" but rather a specified demographic which you know a lot of details about.