Let Go and Haul: our intern Christine asks about being a founder
Week 16, 2018 – Brooklyn
Hi folks! I skipped last week's email because I’ve been battling some throat infection nonsense, but powering through it and I have something fun to share with you tonight, a Q&A with one of our interns!
Journey: where we’re at
That priority list of P0s and 1s is starting to look almost all green and “done”. That last 99% is always such killer. Aieeeee. In the meantime, Gen has been staffing up our science group with summer PhD candidates who are working with us courtesy our NSF grant, so that is pretty exciting. Today I spent a couple of hours at the studio meditatively recovering the heinous green stained, decades-old (but free, so I am grateful!) office chairs we sit on with $3 /yard black fabric from one of those shops around Atlantic Terminal. Our asses are moving up in the world!
Journal: what I learned
This week is a special edition by one of our interns Christine! Keen to learn more about entrepreneurship, she asked if she could ask me some questions about it. We thought it would be a neat idea to share it!
Christine Obiamalu is a Nigerian NYU student about to graduate this May with a Bachelor of Music, specializing in Music Business. She is also a musician who spends her free time performing around the city and making music in her basement.
Christine: What made you decide to start a company?
Han: This is actually my second startup! My first company was a music sharing site called This Is My Jam. I’ve always been into making things, and if you want to make big things then you need a team – and for that you often need to build a company.
For a budding entrepreneur like myself, what are the key things you need to consider before starting a company?
It doesn’t make sense to start a company until you think you have a killer idea – it has to be something that you think can combat competition and you can build a moat around. It has to be something that is timely; that is going to hit the market at the right time. It also has to be something that you have enough expertise around to actually pull off and execute on. It all comes down to three things: right idea, right time, right execution.
And of course, the question we all want to hear, what made you start TRASH?
When I was working at Vine, one of the things I observed is that it’s easy to shoot video on your phone, but then I heard so many people say it was too hard to edit. The bottom-up user research was telling me people wanted to be able to express themselves but they couldn’t, and meanwhile, the market trend is that mobile video sharing has been growing at a linear rate for the last two years (which is a sharp uptick since previously).
I got curious about whether there would be a better way to help people edit video. I’ve spent my whole career working on consumer products for self-expression so this is a problem space I love. Leaning on my background working with algorithmically generated playlists and radio features at Last.fm, I wondered if there was a parallel in video. Similar to using music information retrieval techniques to generate a playlist, could we use computer vision to understand video enough to sequence clips and generate a rough cut?
I got curious and started poking around the edges of this problem asking myself about right idea, right time, right execution. And then, I guess there’s just a point where you want something badly enough and you just know you have to do it. Building a company is so hard that if there is any question of a doubt you would never do it. When you know you know.
Another question that I think a lot of people are interested in is how to raise money?
Well, before anyone goes down that path, you should really have a check in with yourself and other founders and VCs to find out if raising venture capital is truly the right path for you. Not every company needs it.
With TRASH, I knew that it was necessary, and I had to learn how to fundraise for this venture. I decided we should do an accelerator program, which was definitely the right choice. I got to talk to investors almost every day, built a network of founders to learn with, practiced my pitch with the accelerator team, and worked towards a demo day pitch to a room of investors. From there, things just started rolling.
Fundraising is challenging and it’s not for everyone, you have to get very comfortable with rejection. You need strong “executive functioning” skills (managing time, calendars, emails etc.) It helps if you are an extrovert and like talking to people all day. Having some background in sales is a serious plus.
So to bounce off that you, do you think that the experience you had at your other jobs is what really helped you to create TRASH?
Absolutely. Since my whole career has been about building tools for self-expression, and I’ve ended up predominantly working on brands for people in their teens and twenties. I had a lot of experience with both before I started TRASH.
I’ve heard some founders say they’ve been working on the same problem for years. There’s a certain category of person who keeps circling the same kind of questions, poking at them from different angles, and that’s definitely true of me.
Every day I have a moment where I’m grateful I know how to do something because I learned it at another job. The 10+ years of experience and one “failed” company behind me makes everything about this one so much easier. And it’s definitely not easy, so anything that can make it a bit easier counts!
As the industry has matured so have founders. Sure, the kid out of college trope still and will always exist, but what I’ve heard from my investor friends is they are more interested in older founders with leadership experience and one or two companies behind them. HBR recently published findings that the average age of a startup founder is 45.
Yeah big time. Yeah, my mom kind of told me the same thing. I was like, I think I want to be an entrepreneur and she was like, you should probably work a little bit first!
Definitely get some experience! Even just like the day-to-day aspects of running a business can become a ton of overhead that eat up all your valuable time if you’re having to figure it all out for the first time – for example how to run an interview or filing your taxes. That stuff should ideally be second nature because chances are, you won’t have the cash for an operations person at first. Just knowing those things can give you a huge edge.
Very curious to ask because you have so much on your plate, what motivates you?
As a baseline, I've always been a very ambitious and competitive person… to the point that I think it grinds other people's gears sometimes. When I was a kid, my friends used to roll their eyes about me always “turning everything into a competition”. The world doesn’t (or didn’t) necessarily love ambitious competitive young women so I continued to get negative feedback on that one, but at some point, it became obvious to me that my weakness is my strength (or whatever!) and being overly competitive is a positive personality trait for this job!
In terms of what motivates me: first and foremost I really want to see TRASH in the world, and large. When I commit to something, I really commit and I have a lot of grit and follow through. I don't let myself get down with the problems – I focus on them being hurdles to jump over. The second thing is the team. Getting to work with this amazing group of people and seeing the incredible work they’re doing makes me so happy and energized. The third thing that motivates me is all the people that told me that I would fail. There’s a lot of fuel for that fire in my life! In the words of Beyoncé, “best revenge is your paper”
I feel that! Could you describe your typical day?
Well, I don't really have a typical day! They’re all different! I’m not much of a morning person but I get up before 7 so I have time to exercise in the morning and get focused around the day and think about my priorities. I have a very specific style way that I have my to-do list and by the time I’m in the shower it’s usually prioritized. I’m on my way to the studio for 10am (we work later hours on the East Coast so it’s less terrible when I’m out west and in anticipation that we will eventually be more of a bi-coastal team).
Monday is a setup day, planning with the team and getting focused for the week, unblocking people. Friday is a closing down day so that we “go home clean” taking in status on things and getting ready for the next Monday. Wednesday is my no meetings day where I do product and design work. Tuesday is often a lot of operations, QA. Thursday is usually the only day I take external meetings when I’m not fundraising or hiring, and it’s also the day we usually do user testing if we’re doing it that week. I finish up around 6 or 7 and then usually have something I need to be at directly after work – an after work meeting, an appointment, networking event etc. I’m usually home around 9 and do a couple more hours of work before being in bed by 11 on weeknights. I schedule exploratory meetings or calls on Sunday afternoon so they don’t take up valuable Mon - Fri hours, and otherwise, try to relax and catch up with the people I care about on the weekends.
Very busy, Okay, so jumping off that how do you manage stress?
This is another one of those questions where I think my baseline is unusual. Sometimes I think I lack a normal barometer for stress. I operate better under a significant amount of it and need a bit of it to stay motivated. I don’t mind some amount of chaos. That all being said, it’s definitely something I have to keep in check. Journaling, exercise, music, water. I try to journal almost every day so that if I am angry or frustrated about something, I put it on paper instead of letting it out at work. Nobody needs my stress, that is not productive. Exercise, especially running is great. I’ve been slowly working on learning pole dance which is really fun and really hard, but dancing, music, in general, is a huge stress relief for me. I love going to see live music, DJs, so concerts and clubs. Listening to great music in a dark venue with a bunch of other people who feel the same way is one of the most life-affirming things. Water is another great de-stressor for me. I drink a lot of it, and love being around it. In the winter I go to King Spa in Jersey with a crew of friends (thank you for introducing me to this, Rachel!) 40 bucks to sit in a bath all day and have nobody bother you!
Yep, sign me up. What key activities would you recommend for my upcoming entrepreneurs or even entrepreneurs right now to invest in key activities?
It depends on what kind of business you want to build but I think just getting experience in business and trying to learn all aspects of the business is the best possible thing you could do. For example, doing an internship at a company, just try to get involved with learning as much as you can. This is really easy to do, all you need to say is “do you need help with anything?” and chances are, some busy person will be excited to share some of their plate with you. Learn as much as you can to dig into all the nooks and crannies of a business.
Side projects are also helpful. During high school and college, I worked in and later helped run a string quartet (for about seven years). That taught me a lot about business. These days it's so easy to get involved in some kind of online business – anyone can become an influencer or set up an online shop or if you’re skilled enough, teach an online course etc.
I’m curious to know what your favorite business book is, or maybe just your favorite book?
My favorite business book is the Harvard Business Review book on Leadership. The orange one. It’s part of the whole rainbow series on business which is all good but that specific book was life-changing for me. I don't know how helpful it is until you've actually lived through some shit though, so perhaps it’s not a beginner book, but a good one to get on your shelf early nonetheless.
On the softer side of things, another book I love and I go back to often is ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. It has some beautiful ways of thinking about life, especially patience and gratitude and acceptance and all of these things that keep you sane. It’s specifically written for a young person, which is something I love about it.
Okay, if you were to write a book about yourself, what would you call it?
I've actually thought about this. I was thinking of calling it. My Brain is a Very Hungry Animal.
I love it.
Jams: what I’m into
Homecoming, Homecoming, Homecoming. It’s so beautiful I have no words. The part with Kelly and Michelle had me choking on emotion. I haven’t had time to watch the Netflix doc yet, but that is next on my list!