Lessons learned from TechStars for a Day
After we learned Omahan Gabe Kangas was invited to participate in TechStars for a Day, we asked him to share his thoughts in a guest post on his return. Needless to say, he accepted the ask. Below are some very important takeaways from his experience.
You can learn more about Gabe at gabekangas.com or follow him on Twitter at @gabek.
Photos by Gabe Kangas
Alright, stay with me. I promise you'll get something at the end. I don't promise you'll like it, though.
I attended TechStars for a Day in Seattle. If you want to know what this rockin' organization does check it out. But in short, they are a business accelerator. Get your company off the ground in the most awesome way possible.
It seemed like a classic case of serendipity. I was behind the controls at Big Omaha helping the speakers tell their inspiring stories when an email invite came in from TechStars to join them in Seattle to hear more about the program and to give them an opportunity to meet me. It was at this point I was faced with a very important decision: jump up in excitement or let Tony Hsieh finish his talk. History shows what path I took, I didn't interrupt, and everyone got a free book. So good on me for that one.
I didn't know what to expect. The only person I'd ever met that's gone through the TechStars program was Matt Galligan from SimpleGeo. I used the opportunity of Big Omaha to ask him what he thought of it after going through it. He recommended I absolutely make it to Seattle to see what the inaugural Seattle TechStars class has to offer.
So Sunday I jumped on a plane and headed to Seattle feeling not just as a representative of #MysteriousDottie, but maybe as an unofficial spokesperson of Omaha for a day as well.
Showing up Monday morning I met so many people. All seeming to fit in a category of person that I honestly can't say I've really met before. They are passionate about launching or improving on something awesome. Everyone had an idea and regardless of what happened that day, what happened in the past, or what happens with TechStars or otherwise they are going to launch this particular thing that means so much to them.
Even though these companies are all technology based, there was zero talk of tech. Nobody asked me "so what are you building your company with?" or asked my opinion on web frameworks. No side discussions about browsers, operating systems or programming languages. Nobody cared. If you were to ask someone the (increasingly awful) question "What do you do?" You won't hear: "I'm a ruby on rails developer," but instead, "I run a company that does X." I always joked with Megan Hunt, a.k.a. Princess Lasertron, that her title in the world was "Textiles Engineer" and that seems to be a parallel to these business owners. She's as much of a engineer of fabric as these people are programmers. It's a means to an end to build something completely radical.
I won't lie, there was an air of competition. I want to guess there were maybe 30 companies in attendance, between one and four people per company. This however is very narrowed down from the hundreds that apply from all around the world. While each person there is supportive and excited for everyone else, they all want to be a member of the final 10 companies that will be selected in June.
An example: Andy Sack, the director of TechStars in Seattle, mentioned he had forgot his camera and asked if anyone in attendance had a camera that wasn't a camera-phone. I was the only person to raise my hand. I was dubbed the official TechStars for a day photographer and I did my best to make sure I captured the event. Though unexpectedly I got a few people telling me that it was a "good move" to volunteer to take pictures and get an "in" with the TechStars committee. Honestly, that was the last thing that came to mind when raising my hand to say I had a camera but others saw it as a strategic move.
I got to meet a handful of mentors and past TechStars companies. Urbanspoon, Feedburner and Everlater (below) were in attendance. There's something really great to be hanging out casually with the team from Urbanspoon, asking them specific questions about their mobile development strategies.
So enough about facts and what I saw. You're here for my thoughts. So here are my personal reflections.
To me, it felt like I was taking Big Omaha a step further. Where just a couple weeks ago I was being told to follow my dream, an event like this with knowledgeable, real-world tested companies were pointing me in a direction to do so. From founders openly discussing the mistakes they made to groups saying openly they really had no idea how to program before embarking on the path to their idea it opens up a layer of "realness" and detail to each person telling their story.
Much like me when I decided I wanted to build something awesome you start developing more questions than answers and our local community is lacking on those answers. Having people be completely transparent in detail about not only the things they've done right, but also what they've done wrong helps so much when giving people the tools they need to launch the next really great thing. Now that I see the startup community of Seattle (and before that TechStars having Boulder and Boston classes) I hope Omaha starts making the steps to go that direction as well. But as I've mentioned to others, Omaha is slightly in a chicken-and-egg situation. In order for people to open up about how they launched something great we need a handful of something greats to launch. And for that to happen there is that possibility that the best scenario is to leave the area.
I know, the infamous least popular opinion of all of Big Omaha. But you'd be surprised how many mentors and successful business owners in Seattle told me how I need to get into a bigger pond. And I'll stick by the thought that for some people it is a valid choice. Until Omaha has a culture that strives to enable people to succeed in their dreams not just in great community (that we have), but in experienced mentors and investments that are geared to the startup sector, people may be spinning their wheels. Sorry. <3 you guys.
I don't say that to stir controversy, but more to be appreciative that these types of things exist. The opportunity for someone like me, just some random dude in Omaha, to visit, if only for a day, is a great thing. I encourage any of you if you have an idea and some first steps on executing it to apply to TechStars, or YCombinator or local institutions like the Halo Institute. Maybe it'll be the move for you to take your idea to the next level. Maybe it'll be a complete waste of your time. For me, even if I never hear from TechStars again, just the application process and being a part of the club for one day was worth the effort. You learn something just trying.
ARCHIVED COMMENTS
We enjoyed having you, and thanks for the photos!
Nuice wrap up Gabe. You make a great point about a controversial topic. People need to look for the best place to succeed at what they want to do. By no means is it impossible for a company to be created in Omaha and succeed here in Omaha, but it may be easier to do it other places. People really need to balance the pros and cons of doing business in a particular place. Omaha is a great city and the creative class and entrepreneurial sprit is building here, but building is not the same as existing. If you need funding and need mentorship from people that have already succeed, it is going to be hard to find that here. If you can bootstrap your company, if you can find the few people that have already done it here in this town or afford to travel to meet with mentors and communicate with them virtually then you can stay. Every person and every company has different needs and advising some of the best and brightest to go other places to succeed may not be easy for the area, but if you are trying to build a community that truly wants to see people succeed some time you have to give them the advice that will help them the most, not the advice that will help you the most. Areas like San Francisco, Boulder, and Seattle have already established world renowned communities that can help the best and brightest succeed. Omaha cannot offer that to its community yet. I believe that one day Omaha and the “Silicon Prairie“ will be able to do that, but it will take at least five to ten years before the area can offer a true community that new entrepreneurs and business can stand on the shoulders of. The true hope is that the people that decide to go other places to build their dreams and business remember where those dreams came from and come back to help the next generation of dreamers succeed. Because then there will be one more great reason to stay right here in the “Silicon Prairie” to make your dreams come true.
Gabe,
Thank you for the wonderful synopsis. I just discovered TechStars and your wrap up of the event provided a lot of insight into what the organization offers. To a certain extent I can relate very strongly to your feeling that Omaha isn't ready to do what a city like Seattle can for passionate people like yourself. I come from Indiana where we have a similar culture. Like you, the comment isn't meant to knock the area down, but to point out a way in which it can improve. I echo your sentiments Kevin when you say we will never forget where we came from.
Thanks again and best wishes in your future endeavors.
Gabe:
Good to hear you liked Tech Stars. It's a heck of a program.
I do have to take exception to the idea that you have to leave here to make something good.
First, it's hard to make something good anywhere. That's not about Omaha, that's about the human condition. Silicon Valley is littered with dead startups. So is Boulder, so is my hometown of Boston. TechStars is a heck of a program, and is going to attract a subset of the emerging companies that are plugged in and more likely to succeed. Does TechStars help? Absolutely. Does being part of TechStars guarantee success? Of course not. No one would believe that.
Second, talking to fellow entrepreneurs is great, and I envy you having the opportunity to do that. But the thing that's most important is talking to customers. Steve Blank is the man, and one of the best things he says is "there are no answers inside the building." Will fellow entrepreneurs get you some of those answers? Sure, some of them. Will spending more time with customers get you more? Absolutely. The whole issue of customers is the biggest determinant in where you should locate. Business should locate near their customers. I get that Sand Hill Road has a lot of VC's, but I'm not trying to optimize my company for VC. (Of course, I may choose to take it eventually.) If I get the customer value proposition right, the VC's will find me. They have to-- it's their business model. And until you build something that kicks ass, VC doesn't matter. You have to earn the right to worry about VC funding by making something that kicks ass.
Third, talent is critical, and I get that other startup hubs may have more coding talent that has been enlightened towards startup life. At the same time, that talent is very expensive. We have Fortune 500-level talent all over Omaha-- at Kiewit, ConAgra, UP not to mention places like West, TelventDTN, and Yahoo. The coders at those places may not be drinking the startup Kool-Aid yet, but they're also not getting chased down by 3 other startups and haggling over the size of their cubicle and their title. (Look at NYC-- coders can make 200K easy on Wall Street. NYC entrepreneurs may have a bigger talent problem.)
Fourth, access to capital. We don't have the biggest Angel scene here, but it exists. Nebraska Angels is real, and as they get more successes, they will grow. We have a lot of prosperous people here who could become Angels. It's our job to convince them that it's a good idea. They may not have the comfort level of a Ron Conway or Dave McClure with tech companies yet, but we aren't exactly a third-world nation here. (And our local Angels don't have a line of people around the block waiting to pitch them.) And most of us are building companies with really low burn rates anyway.
Fifth, we don't have echo-chamber effects here. I liked Alexa at Big Omaha, and more power to her, but a business based on people taking pictures of their food is about as niche as it gets. And I can understand why it's based in SF, not Omaha. Omaha is not a bleeding edge city, and that's a HUGE advantage. For anyone trying to build a business around typical US consumers (a/k/a muggles), Omaha is ideal. (Everyone has a cellphone, but not everyone has an iPhone. Everyone uses Facebook, but not yet Twitter.) For consumer Internet companies, this is exactly where you want to be. I can do real customer research just sitting in the stands talking to the other parents at my son's Little League game. And because we aren't consumed by startup culture here, we get people who give you straight answers. One of the first things to go in any industry hothouse (whether it's Wall Street, Detroit, Hollywood, or Silicon Valley) is intellectual integrity-- people want to be with the cool kids, and don't always speak the truth. It's not so much that everyone in the Valley is parroting buzzwords, but here in Omaha, we never have to worry about buzzword pollution. You get straight answers to your questions.
Finally, we are blessed to live in this century, when access to information is almost ubiquitous. We can watch the Startup Lessons Learned conference over pizza at Brightmix. I can read Steve Blank's blog at the Royals game. Are we missing out on the give-and-take and daily conversations with lots of other startups? Sure. But we can get pretty damn close by reading Hiten Shah's Twitter stream and Mark Suster's blog. (And a plane flight to Austin is cheaper in real terms than it's ever been.) 30 years ago, I might have agreed that you have to leave Omaha to learn what's going on. Now, not so much.
Excuse the rant, but the only thing stopping us from doing great work in Omaha is ourselves. We've got the talent, we've got the customers, we've got people who can be Angels, we've got access to information from all over the world, and clearly we have an emerging startup community. The hardest part of this has always been to "build something that somebody wants." That's very hard to do. But no harder here than anywhere else.
Stay in Omaha-- we have everything you really need.
Happy to follow up online or offline.
ADB
Another local group is Leap Ventures. Where the others I mentioned (among many others: Launch Box, Sprout Box, etc are full time "you're doing your company" approaches, Leap locally understands people need to grow their idea while still probably doing a day to day life. It's a different approach but one that I think is more accessible for people.
Awesome article... Great insight! Congrats!
Gabe,
I agree that we need to expose ourselves to experienced mentors, and that is why I joined Rotary International. The young guys tease me for joining a bunch of old guys, but I must know something they don't or be willing to reach out and find mentors.
Rotary provides me access to mentors that have been there and done that. Their experiences aren't only in ag, service or manufacturing, there are people with significant experience in tech. For example one guy sold his software company to Intuit. They are busy creating sweet companies, we need to go to them. One guy in my Rotary is 76 and yet he continues to build his business. They might not be hip, but they don't need to be, they are successful.
If anyone wants to be my guest at Rotary you are welcome. It is every Thursday at noon at Anthony's steakhouse. You won't get an instant return on investment. You have to spend about a year of volunteering and networking to be accepted into the group. It is just like Omaha young creative group, you have to prove yourself first. Also if you are my guest lunch is on me.
Thank you,
Grant Stanley
Contemporary Analysis
cell: 402-679-8398
office: 402-218-4457
gstanley@contemporaryanalysis.com
@GrantStanley