Why We Burned The Boats

reecepacheco:

As legend has it, when the explorer Cortes landed in Mexico he ordered his crew to burn the boats that brought them there. This left the men with no choice but to march ahead into the unknown.

Recently, we announced that we planned to shut down the current version of Shelby that we’d launched late last fall.

We burned our boat.

The decision wasn’t easy, but it felt right, and it still does. 

In a startup, you have limited time, limited resources, and consequently little room for error. We realized a long time ago that the current model we built wasn’t the optimal solution for the long run, so we started building a new version that could scale with our growth and provide more value to our users.

Some people have asked us why we didn’t just wait until we had the new product ready and while there are a ton of reasons, it really boils down to this… 

  • #3 Money - When you process as much data as we do, it isn’t cheap. Running a second set of servers to process the same data just wasn’t worth it.
  • #2 Time - We want to get this new version of Shelby out the door as quickly as possible, that means we should be spending as much of our time on it as we can… not maintaining legacy product/features.
  • #1 Focus - The startup illuminati often speak of “focus.” We are now a company without a product in the market. If that doesn’t focus a team on one thing and one thing only, then I don’t know what does.

And as far as whether or not we made the right decision… it doesn’t matter. We’re in this for the long haul and the only thing we can do now is build a great product. Forward, we march… 

An American in Amsterdam: TNW Conference 2012

//reece

A few months ago, my friend CBM suggested I go to The Next Web Conference. At first, I thought - “Amsterdam’s cool and all, but I’ve already been and I’ve got a startup to run…” But when a free conference pass turned up, then a free hotel room from a friend who couldn’t cancel, and finally acceptance into TNW Startup Rally - a pitch competition at the Conference - it was a no-brainer. 

So last week, I flew to the city of pancakes, pot, and prostitution - wait, I mean Pancakes and Pitches! Pancakes and Pitches! - to see what the European tech scene is all about, show Amsterdam what’s new with Shelby and of course, represent America.

I was excited to see a great turnout for the Conference, with startups, investors, and press from all over Europe. Amsterdam, UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic were the “locals,” but teams flew in from as far away as South Africa and Korea as well. So cool to see that type of entrepreneurial energy.

Compared to my trip to Italy last month, there was definitely more appetite for risk in this crowd, but it still lacks the full ecosystem of NYC or Silicon Valley. That being said, I think it will get there. It just takes time, knowledge share, and continued investment. 

The Startup Beta Rally, in which we participated, featured existing companies that are launching something new. So I got up and showed a quick demo of Shelby “GT” - our new version in private beta. [You can get on the invite list here].

The judges - including awesome people like Werner Voegels (Amazon CTO) and Alexis Ohanian (Reddit founder) - liked our vision, so I then had the chance of presenting to the larger audience on the main stage… the largest audience I’ve ever to which I’ve ever presented. Pretty fun, though I admit I wished I’d had my team there with me like TechStars Demo Day last year.** [It’s just more fun when you get off stage and have Spinosa waiting with a giant “FUCK YEAH!”]

Besides the Startup Rally, there were a bunch of great speakers like Hilary Mason (bit.ly), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit) and Chad Hurley (YouTube founder). There was also some fun activity outside, as TNW crew had a live cow in a pen for a game they called Dungville. I’ll let you figure it out from the pic.

The conference ended with the announcements of the winners for the Startup Rally and I’m really proud to say Shelby won “Best Overall Startup.” It felt great to nab that victory as our team worked really hard to get Shelby “GT” ready for launch at TNW. They got the job done. All I had to do was tell our story.

With the conference all wrapped up, I caught up with a good friend and local Dutchman, Jeroen, who took a big group of us to a super local Dutch restaurant for dinner. Really fun times with friends old and (mostly) new. 

I didn’t partake in the coffee shops and usual tourist traps because I really don’t like doing touristy things (in particular, those things), but I did walk around a ton and just explore. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and unlike most cities I’ve been. I definitely recommend going.

Special thanks to my friends Courtney Body Myers, Sophie Op den Kamp, Harrison Weber, and the whole crew at TNW for having me, and to Jeroen for being our guide all weekend.

**[Speaking of which, I can’t emphasize how much of an impact TechStars Demo Day has had on my ability to prepare a pitch and present it to an audience. This time around, I knew exactly how to prepare and how I wanted to tell our story. Thank you to TechStars, in particular the members and mentors of our class for all the help].

Building in a bubble

reecepacheco:

I’ve said before that it’s easy to get hopped up drinking your own startup Kool-Aid. You’re sitting around with great people, rapping about an idea and everyone feels the energy and says “yeah YEAH YEAH! Let’s do it!”

When it comes to building a product… that’s a death sentence.

Or is it?

On the one hand, when you build, write, or create in an insulated environment, you’re guaranteed purity of thought. Your thoughts are your own. Your ideas are yours. They are untested in the outside world, but the product is that which you want it to be and only you can screw up your own vision. 

On the other, when you venture out into the world, when you speak with real people, when you (as a techie) observe behavior of “normals,” “n00bs,” and dare I say it - MOST of the people on this planet, you realize their pain points are not your own. Their desires are a far cry from yours. Their needs don’t include your product. 

And that influences you. It makes you rethink what you’re doing. Makes you question your vision.

Yesterday, Chris and I spent hours on a whiteboard at Cyberdyne cranking out ideas for the evolution of Shelby.tv. We walked away very proud of our work. Excited to show the team and already imagining the first lines of code that would make our wireframes reality. 

Today, however, we boarded a flight to ATL en route to Las Vegas for CES. As we look around - away from our office bubble, our tech startup bubble, hell… our NYC bubble - it’s a painful awakening that the average American may as well be from a different planet (or maybe it is we who are the aliens).

Most of the computer users on our flight now are on PC’s. Some are running Windows 2000. I think we even saw an Android tablet. (I kid… sort of). All (Apple) elitism aside, we mentioned picking up PC Mag to check the sentiment in that world… 

We also spent some time drawing wireframes on our iPads. When Chris proudly opened an app that gives you all the basic iOS elements to work with, Dan was quick to suggest that working with pre-defined elements is a guaranteed way to stifle creativity and any hope for doing something original.

It was a telling moment. We, as a team, spend a lot of time thinking through our vision for Shelby.tv. We love user feedback, yet most of it doesn’t make it into the product… and that’s OK. 

Like most things in life, balance is the key. 

Creators must be well-versed in the way the world works. They should travel, speak and study with others in and out of their bubbles. It is constant observation of daily life. But when it comes to building a product, allowing for too much outside influence isn’t necessarily the best path to creating an amazing experience. Creators must not be afraid of throwing away what they know and starting with a blank canvas. 

And those “aliens” I mentioned? Well if you’ve done anything original… anything that’s worth a damn… anything that creates some value… they’ll tell you. 

But they’ll tell you if it sucks, too.

So, study the world, then shut it off and build your vision. Go.  

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