Starting Aggregate Knowledge - The right environment
Yikes - it has been tough to get enough time to blog about this stuff! First post about Starting Aggregate Knowledge is here. I'm going to try and tag all my startup posts with startak.
Along with doing your homework I'd say that another important facet of starting a company is doing it in the right environment.
Paul and I had the good fortune to meet up with the folks from NetService Ventures. We had a memorable first meeting with Ethan and even though I thought he was crazy, we hit it off with them. They have a little office at the corner of Sand Hill Road and Santa Cruz where they managed to cram in a bunch of interesting startup people. They have a great consulting business that pays the bills and they also find interesting small companies to put money into. They currently have 3 venture funded companies that have come out of this little "incubator": Aggregate Knowledge, 3Jam and Zvents.
It definitely felt like we were a garage startup. We squatted in whatever conference room was free at the time and had to move whenever someone needed it. Highlights included trying to do conference calls and having Hiroshi fax things through the same at the same time. The conditions weren't exactly what you'd find in a well running office!
There were a few advantages to hanging out there a few days a week though.
It may not be the case for everyone, but I definitely appreciated having a spot where we could meet regularly that was not our homes. Getting into a regular rhythm for me helped me be very disciplined about getting things done and feeling accountable for making real progress on figuring out the business.
Of course the most important part of our NSV experience was hanging out with great people. It's a cliche because it is true but hanging out with great people elevates your thinking. The fact that the NSV folks are terrific thinkers who would challenge assumptions and occasionally call us idiots (thanks Rich!) is really important in evolving the thinking. It lets you iterate through ideas and discard ones that don't pass the smell test quickly.
Another important factor was having other entrepreneurs like Tyler & Ethan from Zvents and Andy from 3Jam who were going through the startup grind. For example - the fact that Zvents was six months older than us allowed us to observe what was working well and not well for them firsthand. It gave us insights into everything from the funding environment to the mindset of customers, to the hiring environment. I'd like to think that we contributed a little thinking to them along the way as well.
I'm always a little wistful when I think about that time - it was crazy and I was vastly underpaid, the ups and downs were totally nutty but I have to say it was a ton of fun. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything right now.
