Three Cocktail Lunch

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q&A-1  |  Q&A-2  |  Q&A-3  |  Q&A-4  |  Q&A-5  |  Q&A-6  |  Q&A-7

Q # 8 (last one!): “What does the Kansas City startup scene need now more than anything?”

Answer:

I hear this question a lot. I enjoy chewing on it, because in a relatively short time I’ve seen the startup batting-field from three different viewpoints – shoeless start, growth company, and corporate. (I’ve never really been in a civic role besides volunteering, so that area remains a relative mystery to me.) My answers would be different from each perspective. Given where I’m sitting now – back in business diapers – I recognize how far removed top-down perspectives are from bottom-up challenges.

From my vantage point today, I’d highlight three main issues that pain the KC startup community: (1) early-stage support, (2) luring and keeping talent, and (3) fragmentation and fluff.

Early-stage support

I’m certainly not the first person to mention a shortage of Midwest startup money. It’s what most people point to first as KC’s big entrepreneurial problem—particularly with regard to technology.

I just seem to be a rare one who thinks the issue is small Series Seed support ($25k-$500k and well-connected, emotionally invested mentors) as opposed to $1 to $5 million Series A injections and beyond.

I run into a lot of disagreement on the difficulty of scrounging early capital. “Friends, family, fools and foundations” are perceived as easy targets up to the $250k mark. Frankly, I believe that’s a rather elitist perspective that doesn’t consider the goal of drawing out more new entrepreneurs. One community activist suggested to me that there are plenty of other early financial sources coming onto the scene like Digital Sandbox, SparkLabKC, Think Big Accelerator … But I’d point to the fact that Sandbox was only able to help six out of 100 applicants this summer.

I have met a lot of would-be starters with relatively promising ideas who didn’t make it out of their heads or jobs because the earliest phase – testing an MVP in a new market – is the hardest to tackle financially. In fact, at Red Nova Labs we were visited by a seemingly endless parade of local entrepreneurs – one or two a week! – seeking very small investments of cash and programming help. It might surprise a lot of people that Mike Farmer at Leap2 was one of those entrepreneurs. Look how far Mike has been able to go with his “new approach to search” after receiving just a tiny injection of help at the critical start. RareWire, Fully, even MANnaise … These are all people I met when they were looking for help early on. How many more didn’t make it to Beta because they couldn’t find a bump?

“What about the ideas that weren’t worth a bump?”

Yeah, I’ll be the first to agree that many entrepreneurs’ startup ideas aren’t worthy of investment as-is, and that some entrepreneurs are unrealistic about sharing equity and bending ideas. (An idea without an inkling of execution isn’t worth anything. And another iPhone app? Do you know hard it is to make a splash in that space?) That’s where the “emotionally invested mentors” can buttress the situation and turn strong entrepreneurial personalities into real starters. (Note that Sandbox offers to mentor applicants it doesn’t fund, but their time is tight.)

I think it would help the situation if KC’s deep-pocket angels and experienced mentors were more aware of the tech startup successes generated in this metro area. A lot of growth is happening here that’s not showing up in the press because many startups are not drumming up much hype outside their target markets.

For example, does anyone know that Westwood-based Red Nova Labs is cash flowing from cloud-based self storage marketing tools on a starter investment of less than $1 million and no further rounds? Or that lean startup BuzzMeDo (now operated by Ruxter) is making headway nationally as a marketing solution for the pizza market? What about SpiderOak, a secure data storage solution that rivals DropBox, with employees all over the U.S.? Did anyone know LuckyOrange was making money off of one man’s basement tinkering long before Brian Gruber showed up at TechCocktail in an orange tux? Even a teenager at Blue Valley CAPS sold his website TeenJobs around the time he graduated high school, only to move on to two more ideas. Those kinds of success stories don’t seem to get the broad attention they deserve until there’s a Series A/B/C plug, an acquisition, or a relocation in the news.

Hell, I’m personally much more intrigued by who’s making money from a super lean financial and technological start than who’s getting another $1.5 million injection but isn’t cash flowing yet. It gives me hope for underdogs.

It would also help, I think, if investors saw more success-hungry starters hard at work. You know what freaks me out? Visiting this area’s rich, well-resourced coworking spaces on late afternoons or weekends and finding only empty computer catacombs. I spoke with investors at Invest Midwest who mentioned that KC tech starters seem to play as much as they work. I’m not sure what’s happening with entrepreneurial culture. Are young starters buying in to Timothy Ferriss malarkey too soon? When Brad Feld spoke at Kauffman Labs [KCSourcelink] he answered a related question by saying, “Entrepreneur is an overused, trendy term that has lost its meaning.”

KC investors want to hear less talk and see more do.

Luring and keeping talent

The other day at a Blue Meadow meeting, a local investment-banker said that promising KC-born firms like Zaarly, AgLocal and DivShot are moving out to Silicon Valley for the money. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not, but I believe a close-second appeal of moving a startup to the coast is the talent. Not only is that area a breeding ground of tech talent; it also draws tech minds in droves from all over the world. KC, needless to say, doesn’t have quite the same track record. Rather, many tech skillworkers bred here emigrate away. In fact, the whole Red Nova Labs starter-team seriously considered moving to California in 2008. (Two of them landed in Seattle after all.)

It seems our city’s solution to this debility is the mission statement and brand strategy of being “America’s Most Entrepreneurial City.” I hate to say this for fear of offending people I respect, but I think that’s a silly objective.

A brand is not what you want people to see; it’s what people perceive you to be. It’s earned over time via action and reaction. Unless global warming puts San Fran, Austin, Seattle and Boston under water, people are not going to see KC as the U.S.’s startup mecca. Imagine if McDonald’s suddenly advertised white linen dining and fine wines. Or if Apple announced a new branch as an athletic shoe manufacturer. Or if Silicon Valley stated a mission of offering the nation’s best BBQ. Would you buy into it?

Instead, KC should concentrate on the mission statement and brand strategy of being “America’s Most Entrepreneurial City Offering Quality of Life.” That is how the Midwest differs for the better. Entrepreneurs here are a few minutes’ drive from offices. They’re close to nationally ranking schools. They’re mere miles from no-man’s-land getaways. They can fly a variety of airlines to any U.S. coast in under four hours. They can afford homes and vacations and cars—or skip the cars and rent affordable space downtown. They can see major sports teams play in their own backyard. They are safer than pretty much any other American from nuclear attack. On and on. Why not embody what KC is – not what it wishes to be – as the message to lure and keep great talent?

That message offers a solution to many challenges of starting in other metros, and it’s real.

Fragmentation and fluff

People who are already involved and very familiar with the KC startup community seem confident that fragmentation and fluff aren’t hindering entrepreneurial progress in KC, and/or that the situation is improving with grassroots initiatives like 1MC, Blue Meadow Project, Sly James’ civic push, even the formation of the CSC.

Also I often hear it said, “Any entrepreneur worth his salt can figure it out on his own, that’s business.” Just last week at the Blue Meadow meeting a community member boldly stood by this perspective. My question is: Are we trying to haze would-be starters with a gauntlet of challenges, or push them to make quicker startup progress?

Everyone has an opinion, and mine could be wrong. That said, I believe the KC scene can be disjointed, difficult to navigate, distracting, or even alienating for fresh faces or reserved personalities who could make progress faster with a clearer view of resources. Similar opinions were often shared with me at Venture Fridays last year, where my main goal was to draw out unknown starters.

Truly, there are a lot of meaningful things happening across KC—networks, events, startup-friendly pubs, educators, incubators, mentors, coworkspaces, and public funding to be rounded up and invested in new business. Yet it strikes me that these things still largely exist in silos, rallied around by insiders. The entities and/or figureheads within them rarely integrate in a productive, consistent measure despite great intentions and concerted efforts, because they speak different languages. I see several classes of silos that fragment a would-be tight-knit community:

1. Key-player silo, where several civic and commercial entities are working hard but not together
2. Industry silo, where tech, bio/med, agriculture, etc. operate in different virtual corridors
3. Size silo, where tiny, medium and corporate entities don’t speak the same language
4. Race/culture silo, where white, black, Asian and Hispanic cultures interrelate minimally
5. Tug-of-war over KC’s Kansas & Missouri border and the odd “frienemy” relationship

In my mind, fixing fragmentation will go a long way toward helping KC’s starter capital and talent issues too.

As for me, my biggest challenge lately is lack of meeting-spots with big, spacious parking lots nearby. Tom Boozer has accused me of being a “spoiled suburbanite”. Call me whatever you want, just give me a handy place to park.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 7: “You spearheaded several startup initiatives … Are you going to continue in those roles?”

Answer:

Absolutely. Working with the KC startup community is a labor of love for me. I am inspired by the people involved and their unflinching optimism that the Midwest is an underdog not to be underestimated. It gives me a boost. But it will be more of a challenge for me now. I no longer have a building full of employees helping propel my business forward, so I have to be more careful about balancing my time between my startup and my advocacy. On the other hand, I have a lot more peer support for my community objectives now.

Several entities have approached me about helping assume responsibility of Venture Fridays, but that initiative stayed with Red Nova Labs in the split. Some similar proposals have popped up, so I’ve been mentoring re: what KC gaps a new group might fill. There is a lot of stuff going on here, and I constantly question: is it helping entrepreneurs, or distracting entrepreneurs? Is it bringing anyone new out of the woodwork? Is it connecting tech people with business people? Is it expanding the “startup fraternity”?

As of now, I have a few community initiatives on my plate that I believe are meaningful. Let’s see…

I’m working with Kauffman Foundation and the Chamber to plan KC Startup Crawl #2 during 1Week KC. I’ve joined the Advisory Panel of the Blue Meadow Project, a nonprofit launched by Jonny Kot toward “helping KC entrepreneurs engage, connect and support their community” … As well as a new, yet-to-be-named KC civic panel Jon has spearheaded for “breaking down community silos”. I’ve been volunteering and helping student-entrepreneurs over at Blue Valley CAPS;  such a great program. The topic has come up of teaching, which seems like a good fit, but I’m not sure what kind of time I can commit. A few event organizers have invited me to mentor, including Startup Weekend and Hack of the Sexes. I really enjoy that but I’m far better at commercial than municipal guidance.

Some of these KC efforts suddenly motivated me to help launch a Startup Weekend and related projects in my home town of Idaho Falls, Idaho, which I’ve heard is fairly empty of startup initiatives … That fact really surprises me given that it’s (1) smack between Salt Lake City and Boise (both innovative tech hubs since the late 1980s), (2) home to Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) with its supporting contractors, and (3) land of Idaho State University (ISU) which has been pumping out tech people for decades.

I’m also interested in helping a few private organizations in KC become advocates by their own right. Agile Précis has tied me on to advise them and BetaBlox on building a robust community group. (I really like what they’re doing for KC devs now—opening their doors every Saturday as a workspace.) And Jenny Rogers has talked to me about her nonprofit startup concept for Asian Student Ambassadors, whose purpose is to help Asian students acclimate to American culture. (She needs a lot more support so if anyone out there reading this has the time/interest, please get involved.) And I’d like to continue work with the Invest Midwest VC Conference.

Sigh. We’ll have to see how all of this goes alongside and after the SparkLabsKC stint. It looks to be a busy summer; I don’t want to spread myself so thin that I’m not effective, so I’m pruning what I can without letting people down. My favorite KC community support activity, frankly, is talking shop with one, two or three people over patio cocktails. You might be surprised by the number of great ideas and connections that come of long, close conversations.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 6: “What other projects came your way?”

Answer:

Some really neat, unexpected opportunities found their way to me after I left Red Nova Labs. It was a flattering and fun couple of months. And quite frankly, it totally validated the past two years of getting to know and support the Kansas City startup community “for no good reason”. What a great feeling for a strategic marketer who’s constantly trying to demonstrate ROI for her intangible crap.

However, the situation suddenly gave me pause.

I had jumped off the cliff determined to land in my own startup, but then I found myself plunging into my own midlife juices … I questioned, what do I want to do with the next phase of my career given that I could do pretty much anything [within reason]—take a job, start my own thing, write a book, open a brew pub, teach, buy a hacker house, run away to the mountains and paint orchids that look like genitalia?

In the end it all strengthened my resolve that the startup life is for me. Specifically, I was centered on building a creative content cooperative and brokerage platform (code-named ShabbyHats) that I’d been thinking about for a very long time. So I picked up years-old industry research, started mapping plans, began my search for a CTO.

Then a couple of more wrenches fell into my mental machinery…

With my break from Red Nova Labs, I ended up with the ownership rights to ShopFauna—a small startup born during our accelerator phase. The project can be broadly defined as a lifestyle-local shop gallery platform and marketing cooperative. It hasn’t come too far since 2011, just a little MVP with a hundred or so KC users, but I have long had great ideas for taking it forward. Opportunely, as time has gone by those ideas have only become more relevant to local shop owners’ needs. I get very excited when I talk about it; I’ll spare you 17 more paragraphs.

Last month I happenstance had the chance to bounce both ShabbyHats and ShopFauna off of angels and VCs at the Invest Midwest Conference*. (I’m on the tech startup selection committee so I wasn’t there in an entrepreneurial capacity myself; people just happened to be asking what’s next for me. How many times have I mentioned serendipity in this blog series? Count one more.) Both of my startup concepts were met with positive responses. I expected the opposite—investors can be pretty hard tire-kickers. Some angels even started brainstorming about how I could combine ShabbyHats and ShopFauna into one disruptive concept. I left with a handful of cards.

Then of course Prodigy Arcade landed in SparkLabsKC (catch up on that story here). It’s an exciting time, but it means that my other two startup concepts have to be shelved while this thing pans out over the next four months. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that you have to keep your eye on the ball. Fortunately neither ShabbyHats nor ShopFauna will die. The marketplaces will exist for quite some time, even if a competitive threat pops up. For ShopFauna, I’ve secured a reliable developer to keep it breathing. For ShabbyHats, I’m very lucky to have found a partner and CTO who isn’t in a big hurry since he owns a profitable development and IT agency.

We’ll see what happens.

* Tickets to Invest Midwest are expensive but worth it. Next year’s event will be in St. Louis.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 5: “How did the Prodigy Arcade team come together? And then land in SparkLabsKC?”

Answer:

Our original team fell together organically at KC Startup Weekend #5, with a little stealthy recruiting help from my husband Daniel. I really lucked out. I barely knew two of the ten people before we started working. They were simply excited by the idea.

Unfortunately, after the win most of the team went back to their day jobs and projects. Only three of us could stay on full-time—I was on sabbatical from Red Nova Labs at the time. After a couple of months, my Red Nova Labs partner asked me to come back too. So I handed the CEO torch to Eze Redwood [Under30CEOs], who continued to work with Coty Beasley [CandyCam]. The two of them web-stalked and wooed local illustrator Kevin Myers [universe K], whose style is spot-on. For months they kept the dream alive.

One year later I left Red Nova Labs, and Eze quickly threw a net over me. I didn’t actually plan to prioritize Prodigy Arcade, but he talked me into applying with him to SparkLabsKC. It was kind of a funny twist, really—I had been talking to Kevin Fryer about mentoring at the accelerator. Before I knew it, the team was in.

All that was missing was a stellar game developer. (“All” she says, ha!) We’d spent months hunting all across the Midwest for a CTO, so Eze and I knew that was a tall order. The area is pretty dry of game dev. Enter Serendipity.*

After mentoring at KC Startup Weekend #7 last month, I joined the revelers at Snow & Co’s after-party and happened to sit next to someone I hadn’t met over the weekend. I peppered him with get-to-know-you questions. Ten minutes later I was texting Eze rabid demands that he high-tail it to Snow & Co. Nathan Walker was “The One”. I still can’t believe it. Nathan [Mooncalf] is a broadly experienced programmer and independent game developer with an interest in educational games. Our new CTO has already made great strides toward finding more talent/advisers, solving the building-blocks challenge, and mapping an MVP.

Meanwhile we’ve recruited Derrick Idleburg Jr. on the business development and sales side. Next on the shopping list is a local animator, an audio designer and additional game developers … When the time is right.

We’re all really excited about the SparkLabsKC opportunity. The pressure is on. The mentorship pool specifically looks to provide key expertise and relationships in the educational and gaming sectors. And the money is definitely helpful at keeping the team fed.

* Recommended reading: When God Winks by Squire Rushnell.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 4: “What is Prodigy Arcade and why did it win [KC Startup Weekend #5]?”

Answer:

Prodigy Arcade is a cloud-based “gaming academy” that aims to introduce kids to the fundamentals of logic and programming through exciting game-based learning programs (GBLs).

The company’s overall mission is to set up kids for more fluid learning of programming syntax and languages down the road. Studies show that kids who are introduced to basic concepts early on have a much easier time absorbing advanced subjects later.

The idea came to me while watching my 7-year-old son (now 9 years old) play online games. He was learning history, science, math and more without realizing it. Over dinner I’d be hit with these crazy random facts he’d picked up by trying to win badges and coins. (Incidentally, I was recently informed by his 4th grade teacher that he can type almost 70 WPM. A decade ago that was unheard of without specialized training. Think about the implications of that.)

At the same time I was in a pinch back at Red Nova Labs, trying to staff-up with advanced, affordable coders. I was scouring Kansas City for programming talent, something the U.S. educational system doesn’t currently feed into the economy. Check this out: By the year 2020, there will be 1,400,000 computer jobs but only 400,000 computer science students (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Science Foundation). And a good majority of those students are immigrating from other countries. The situation is worse in our own backyard: Of the thousands of KU graduates in the class of 2012, 27 received a BS in Computer Science. Twenty. Seven. People.

The fact is, most programmers are self-taught. Which is why they are rare compared to other skillworkers.

Every programmer I know personally is self-taught. All of the tech guys who helped me start Red Nova Labs back in 2009 were basement gamers throughout high school who taught themselves to code. No teachers, no professors, no Asian parents poking them with the splintery handle of a broom … Just a natural desire to problem-solve.

It hit me: I need to bridge that educational gap and prepare my kid for the new economy, without shoving the boring lessons down his throat that turn him off.

I tried to find fun tools, but nothing exists that will effectively draw my kid’s interest away from games and into learning code. What’s an entrepreneur to do?

…Make up her own plan and pitch it to a bunch of Energizer Bunnies at a Startup Weekend, of course. I ended up with a well-rounded team that covered all of the bases of concept validation. We were made up of business development, design, programming, finance, even a couple of people versed in K-12 education.

Regrettably, our Sunday presentation and demo at Startup Weekend were an embarrassment. We tried a unique approach that no one liked, which was bruised further by a glitch in the A/V software. The four judges were annoyed, but they evidently saw past it to Prodigy Arcade’s value proposition and projections. The judges were a formidably seasoned team with at least three largely successful startups between them, backgrounds in big industries, and families. I think we simply happened to relate to them as tech-savvy business people and parents.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 3: “What would you tell other local executives debating the leap into uncertainty?”

Answer:

If a local exec were thinking about pushing the eject button on a sweet corporate seat, I’d hit him/her with a warning: Entrepreneurship is tough. You’ll think you’ve never worked so hard or taken so much shit in your life.

You think you’re going to be your own boss, when in truth you end up with more bosses—your partners, your investors, your shareholders, your employees, and most importantly your customers. My aunt once said to me after taking the leap to invest in her own business, “I thought I would be my own boss, not my own indentured servant.”

You face uncertainty and possible failure every day, no one hands you the right strategy (or takes the fall if it’s the wrong strategy). Your business ideas are constantly tire-kicked, no one helps you decide what to act on and what to ignore. When you’re worn out, no one pays you to take a couple of weeks off. And when people ask you how it’s going, you smile rather than confide. My partner at Red Nova Labs and I used to half-joke about going back to “jobs” to alleviate stress we often felt.

On the other hand.

Entrepreneurship can be a major high, especially for high-energy, self-motivated, resilient types. I’d give myself two of those—maybe all three after a couple of cocktails. Every day is new, exciting, dramatic, educational, nuts.

If you can hardly focus at work or sleep at night because you’re obsessed with your idea, it might well be time to push that eject button. And/or if you’re not fulfilled with a job or regular paycheck with predictable pay raises and bonuses, if you’re something of a gambler, maybe your inner entrepreneur is aching to come out.

Be smart about it. I spoke with someone at Kauffman Foundation recently who said it unnerved her how many local execs take the leap without adequate research and preparation. My advice is, don’t get into a huge hurry.

…But you think someone might get to market first? Yeah they might. For every startup idea there are probably a half-dozen teams out there working on something similar, and another half dozen who have already tried it. Don’t let that drive your whole life’s direction. Get some due diligence done in your free hours while you have a nice safe salary and health insurance.* Plan carefully to make your resources last. Start meeting people now, not just in Kansas City’s entrepreneurial environment but also in your prospective industry.

If you don’t already have an idea, I recommend attending a Startup Weekend, here in KC or in another city. There are also some amazing programs through the local universities, like eScholars, that will teach you to think in terms of solutions. Do some research, makes some calls. People in that space are eager to answer your questions.

Most importantly, make sure your better-half is on board—not just paying the bills but keeping the household on stable ground and dealing with your entrepreneurial roller-coaster. Hey, if you can’t convince him/her to invest in your passion, what hope do you have with investors who don’t get to sleep with you? Take my household for example: I’m a risk-taker, but my husband is definitely not. The years I’ve worked sun-down to sun-down without a salary while accumulating debt and bringing bouts of drama to our lives have turned his goatee gray.

To the outwardly simple question “Which is better?” – Corporate exec job or entrepreneurial experience – I like to answer with this analogy: Corporate is like flying first class whereas entrepreneurship is like hang-gliding. Neither is better; they’re just very different. If an exec is really struggling with the decision** it’s wise to meet with a career counselor who can help uncover personality traits and fit. I’ve done that twice and it has been worthwhile.

Of course, I only know what I know. I always recommend opening your ears and mind to different perspectives.

Maybe read a book or two. *Cough*

* Note: Be careful and ethical about maintaining focus on the job you’re being paid for while you research your startup. If your employer suspects that you’ve disengaged while you’re still on the company dime, you could be let go before you’re ready. I’ve seen it happen. It can really set back your entrepreneurial timeline when you’re personally resource-constrained and stressed out.

** Read Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, authors of Switch and Made to Stick.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 2: “What gave you the confidence to leave Red Nova Labs and start over?”

Answer:

Career-wise I grew up in the startup world. You might say I’m used to “starting”.

My first few jobs were with truly disruptive startups whose inventions are now a part of everyday life—RPGs, touchpads, WiFi, NFMC, RFID … In the 1990s I was surrounded by deluded inventors and businesspeople who seemed fearless, well into the years when the economy tanked and the money ran out.

Even my business partner at Red Nova Labs once left a highly lucrative sales position and stake at Intel in the 1980s to starve at his first startup through the 1990s, mortgaging his home twice and fixing computer printers at night. His counterpart at AeroComm once teased him about his precarious financial situation by handing him a job application to McDonald’s. #DickMove

You have to respect that kind of tenacity.

I guess it all rubbed off on me over time, because when I was in my 20s it certainly didn’t occur to me that I could be equally deluded and start my own venture. Hell, these days it seems like it’s in the water.

Except for a couple of stints in the corporate world (which I believe everyone should do—for entrepreneurs, it should be like the two years of mandatory Army service in Israel, there’s so much to learn), I’ve been a starter. Over the past decade I’ve taken the leap several times with only a small safety net.*

Relatively speaking, jumping off the cliff is not difficult for me. Any fear I feel usually comes from leaving people or plans behind, and keeping myself motivated without them (especially when I’m kicked). I like hard work, and my lifestyle still isn’t that flashy.** Sure, I have the same responsibilities as other domesticated grown-ups: mortgage to pay, hosiery to buy, kids to feed. But I don’t mind driving my old car or wearing last year’s shoes (although my teen might have something to say about it). I’ve had enough “working-rich” friends to know that keeping up appearances is more trouble than it’s worth.*** I’m just not as concerned about looking successful as being successful…

My idea of success isn’t typical for a capitalist in a country high on consumerism. Success to me means having the freedom to make my own choices: How do I invest my money and resources? Even more important, how do I invest my time? Time is the one thing that is equal between all human beings, rich or poor, brilliant or stupid. You can’t get more, you can’t spend less, you can’t save it for a rainy day. How do I make mine count? If I haven’t done one meaningful thing every day that propels my ideas forward, makes me happy, makes my kids happy, feels like the right thing to do … Then I haven’t done anything at all.

Finally, I have no shortage of ideas. I’m a habitual solutions-thinker. That’s another skill I picked up over time; when I was younger it was all about “creativity” (which is a big ass waste of time without solution-centric thinking). So if one idea fails, I’ve got plenty more where that came from. If those all fail and my kids are living on Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and wearing shoes made out of tires, I’ll go get a job. I’d wait tables if it came to that. I’m proud, but I’m not shallow. I recognize that any job is worth taking pride in. Even a janitor can take pride in a clean floor.

* Safety net can be defined here as “Maybe we won’t go bankrupt this month, honey. [Puppy dog eyes].”

** Recommended reading: The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley.

*** Recommended reading: Green with Envy by Shira Boss.

I used to love hearing Paul Harvey say, “And now you’ll hear … the REST of the story.”

Recently I was invited to a Q&A with Fred Bauters at SPN for the “Prairie Moves” column. That’s a short-and-sweet section of the regional news site, yet I’m not known for short-and-sweet writing. Fortunately Fred turned my stories into something digestible for SPN thanks to his editorial talents. (Great job Fred!) But here on my own blog I’m going to indulge us in my long, candid answers as a weeklong series. Hope you enjoy.

Q # 1: “What triggered the decision to leave Red Nova Labs and dive into another startup?”

Short answer:

The decision to leave wasn’t really “triggered” by anything in particular. I’d been thinking about it for a long time. I wasn’t excited about the industry we ended up in, didn’t feel comfortable with our evolving priorities, butted heads with my business partner…

I don’t mean to sound negative, but why else does one make a change unless she doesn’t like things as they are? Others remain perfectly happy there and I’m sure they’ll be great. I’m proud that I was able to create something that will support the career aspirations of others for years to come.

When Red Nova Labs was founded in 2009 my business partner and I had dreamed of emulating Bill Gross’s metacompany IdeaLab (started in 1996). Four years and many pivots later, we were a marketing firm for the self storage industry. I had shut down my own marketing agency back in 2008 to start something different with Red Nova Labs. Yet I felt like I was right back where I started, only with a bigger operational staff, greener expense account and nicer office. It just wasn’t where I wanted to end up. So I kept up the Venture Fridays and KC startup community work to feed my entrepreneurial spirit.

Long answer:

Red Nova Labs was originally slated to be a “metacompany” which is a serial entrepreneur’s dream. Even the name “red nova” was meant to symbolize stellar ideas and people coming together. “Labs” meant tinkering on technology.

For countless days in 2008-2009 my business partner and I happily brainstormed about starting with one cash cow, then using it to fund our accelerator. That way we wouldn’t spend half of our lives fundraising; instead we could let our ADHD entrepreneurial minds work full time on helping other ents launch new stuff.

In fact, that’s why I jumped at the chance to buy and remodel that crusty old 1968 Fisca Oil building (with the drab olive curtains and pink smoking room) rather than leasing cube-esque space in yet another industrial park. It was meant to nurture a shared-workspace environment. Venture Fridays were already stirring in my mind back then (among other things), to foster a creative inlet and outlet for KC entrepreneurs—including us.

Unfortunately, our failure rate for new ideas in the MVP stage was pretty typical – 80% or so – and the losses were tough to stomach. In other words, we blew a lot of our own money testing markets. Unlike most accelerators built on the backs of several investors and mentors, all of the risk was on us. We, uh, weren’t Bill Gross.

After we smoked about a million of our own profits, my partner decided to reel it in and center Red Nova Labs on the single cash cow: Marketing platforms for the self storage industry. It was smart, honestly – finally admitting to ourselves that we were a hedgehog business* – but it wasn’t where I personally wanted to be. It was limiting for me, as well as for a few others who had been emotionally drawn to Red Nova Labs for the meta experience. We lost some great employees in the abrupt conversion back to self storage solutions. That was a sad cost to me, but a nice gain by some marketing agencies in town. If nothing else, we were a highly concentrated training ground.

With a good year of self storage fixation under my belt, I again sparked up the notion of a shared entrepreneurial workspace in the empty basement of our building. But my partner didn’t want the distraction or expense. Besides, it turned out that he preferred the operational, corporate atmosphere after all. I really couldn’t blame him. We had already seen how disruptive and divisive split businesses could be to our employees and to us. We saw a lot of “vertical pride” inside, a lot of “sibling rivalry” between units. It was a cultural roller coaster. The opposite of what you’d expect, really … Should make for an interesting “antithesis” startup book someday.

So I turned my entrepreneurial passions outward, growing Venture Fridays even though it didn’t relate to our business model any more, and becoming more active in the KC startup community.

Eventually – inevitably – my partner’s and my diverging priorities/values and strong personalities drove a wedge between us. “Mom and Dad are fighting again” became an inside joke according to one employee. For more than a year I tried to think up a positive solution for us while we grew the business. Stick it out? Branch off and pursue one of my other ideas in the basement? Facilitate his untimely demise and take over as CEO? Heh. I chose to move on. My brain is chock-full of startup concepts, and at age 40, I decided that I have plenty of time to mess up.

Still, it was a lot to give up: More than a decade of close friendship, a startup that reached growth-phase success (only a small percentage of startups get to cash flow), my beautiful customized little building, my pet community projects … But bottom line, I was really unhappy and it was impacting my personality—and my whole life. Too much infighting; not enough career satisfaction. The motivational cliché kept repeating in my head, “Life is too short.”

It was a month-long finale that culminated over our tradition of McCormick & Schmicks lunch mimosas. Three in fact.** I said a quick farewell, offered to sell my stake, cried a little … Even after a year of thinking, worrying, growing ever more determined to dive, I was sad. Later I went out “to celebrate” with more drinks, a movie (A Good Day to Die Hard), and a mani-pedi. In that order.

By 10:00 p.m. I had already started my regrets. So, late that night I stridently posted the news on Facebook, to handcuff myself to my decision to start something else. My partner was rather shocked and friends teased me for drunk-posting, but that wasn’t the reality of it. It was just too easy to go back to my business partner – colleague and best friend of 14 years – and say, “Nevermind.” I was so worn out by the dance. It was time for me to jump and I need to stop being a big wussy about the distance of the drop.

The hardest part was leaving my team behind. I knew a few of them would be leaving right behind me. But they’re very smart people and I knew they’d be fine—likely land jobs in a matter of weeks. I miss them, their help and their humor, their crazy antics like dragging me out on my birthday with an anatomically-correct inflatable date and a huge coffee mug that stated, “A giant cup of I’m the fucking boss!” (That is the only time I’ve almost been kicked out of Blue Moose, which is saying a lot, thanks guys!)

The second hardest part, frankly, was moving out of the building I had remodeled with entrepreneurial collaboration in mind. It was like a starter woman’s nesting instinct incarnate. I had torn down the walls, painted the ceiling, cut and laid the tile with my own two hands (with my Dad’s help). But now that I’m out here, I’ve barely even thought about it. Just one more stepping stone, I guess. My business partner used to get annoyed when I would say, “Hell, at least we learned something. Put a price tag on that.”

He also complained for years that I’m “too honest” … He was probably right.

* The hedgehog concept is drawn from a Greek poem in which a cunning fox tries and continually fails to eat a hedgehog, who is always able to roll into a ball at the key moment. In the book Good to Great, author Jim Collins speculated that if companies were more like the hedgehog (that is, focusing on one thing and doing it well) all the cunning and brilliance out there would not be a threat to success. In my opinion, however, a hedgehog rolled up in a ball limits his own potential to see and pursue opportunities like the fox does. Guy Kawasaki writes in Reality Check that companies with serious growth in mind must kill the cash cow and innovate.

** A Tale of Three Cocktails post coming next month.