Thursday, May 9, 2013

What's The Deal With That Dollar?

What's up with that first dollar hanging on the wall of a business?

In 2009, I printed up 30 fliers and headed towards the campus of the University of Central Florida to find my co-founder. I walked the campus hanging fliers for nearly 3 hours in the hot Florida sun. During my search that day, I had talked to about 20 students, 3 computer science professors and was kicked out of an office.

Several weeks later, I was sitting in front of my future co-founder - at this time he had hair - and we talked for hours about building a technology business. We complimented each because he was a logical hacker and I was an emotional hustler but most important, we both loved technology and wanted to change the world. A month later, we came up with an idea and built our first prototype of the product.

In 2010, we incorporated the business and brought on a 3rd technical co-founder.  Everything was rolling along when we decided to enter a UCF business competition. Unfortunately, we never made it out of the first round and the winner selected by a panel consisting of a Well digger,  insurance executive, a real estate broker and a bank president selected a company that sold sandwich bags in custom quantities. I told the guys I would never get humiliated like that again and three days later, Heman fired off a scathing blog post about the lack of vision the competition panel possessed.

In the middle of the year, we'd pivoted the product into a hyperlocal text messaging system. Every evening, the team would meet at Panera bread to work but on this day, it was just Heman and I.  At some point, while sipping on his decaf coffee, Heman leans across the table and informs me that we had to fire our co-founder because he was not very motivated. A few days later, we called a team meeting and I proceed to fire someone for the first time. I was nervous as hell but amazingly, it went off without a glitch because I'd did a bunch of internet research on how to fire someone without make  things worst for both parties.

Quickly, Heman found us another technical co-founder and we debuted the product at a local tech event in Orlando. Up until the day of the event, we were building the product and rehearsing our pitch - wasn't going to repeat of the UCF debacle. I also remember driving around in my car for hours the night before the event to make sure the location component of our product was working correctly and relaying information back to the boys, so they could fix any issues. On event day, we  came, saw, presented, crushed it and left felling awesome.

In December of 2010, we brought on a 4th co-founder that Heman had cherry picked out of a UCF computer science class he taught. Life was good! We even found some development work to pay for our startup. Simultaneously, we're building our system and a new client's system. With our new found fortune, we hired a PR firm for 15k, I made up an enemy to compete against and some how got talked into showcasing our product at CTIA, one of the largest international electronics events in the world, in April 2011. For weeks leading up to CTIA, the team was going to school, working full time, building two products at night and pressing repeat. Three days prior to the event, we're pulling all nighters and I almost passed out on the bathroom floor of my apartment from exhaustion - I'm coming home Elizabeth!!

CTIA arrived and the adrenaline is carrying us through the three days. The team is rolling, we're doing interviews and our story goes national during the reality show called the Bachelor. Instantly, our users go from 300 to 4,000 in seconds! Hitting the refresh button and watching users signup in massive numbers was an epic feeling. Finally, we're a national hit and everybody was happy! A week later, some jerk hacked our system and started loading pictures of penises into the site and sending creepy messages to female users. Also, our new user registration had slowed down close to zero - Houston, we have a major freaking problem!

Some how in all the excitement, we forgot about the consulting work we needed to deliver on. For a two months straight, we built and built and finally, our client just fired us! Things were going downhill pretty fast and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the kaboom! The product had a major problem, Heman had to leave Orlando, one founder quite because he was having a baby and another told me he was done 3 days before Christmas because he was getting married.  Worst time of my life!

Sometime late in 2011, I met Mike Yavonditte, a startup guy who sold a company to AOL for about 400 million. Mike came to speak at an event in Orlando but a few days before the event, the interviewer quit and as a result, the host asked me to fill in. By chance, Mike and I ended up in the same place the day before the event and spent the next 6 hours talking about startup in an empty bar. He told me about all the ups and downs, the focus and sacrifices that a tech entrepreneur has to endure to have a 5% chance of success in this game. After spending two days with Mike, the direction of the product changed and my drive and focus were renewed.

In January 2012, I called Heman and told him about the new concept and by the time our call was over, we were back in business. Three months later, we released our beta and was featured in Tech Crunch, the top tech publication in the nation. Once again, life was dope. During the year, we decided to apply to a few top technology accelerator programs because we felt it would give us a boost. We applied to TechStar (#2) and got rejected. We applied to I/O Ventures (#10), made it to the finals and got rejected. We apply to 500 Startup (#5), made it to the finals and got rejected. In between all this rejection, I tell my boss I'm resigning in three months, which turns the heat up to scorching F'ing hot on my butt.

We run the product at a few events and people love it. Now that we have some product success, we decided to apply to two more accelerators. We apply to Ycombinator (#1) and Dreamit Ventures (#3). The whole time, I'm stressing out while waiting to hear back. I'm praying asking for clarity and a few days later, we get rejected from Ycombinator! That night, Heman and I have the worst argument in history but some how pull it together before our Dreamit Ventures interview the next day. We totally blow the interview because I give the Dreamit partners the wrong Skype ID but fortunately, they give us a second chance. Three weeks before my resignation went into effect, we find out we're 1 of 8 companies accepted into Dreamit Venture's Austin class. Cue the hallelujah music!

I'm going to walk through the last six months pretty fast, so you need to keep up.

A week before Christmas, my girlfriend breaks up with me and two weeks later, Heman and I head to Austin to begin our program. During the program, we pivot about three times, demo during SXSW interactive on March 7, 2013 and head back to Orlando three weeks later to take over the world! On April 17th, I have $5 in my bank account. On April 26th, I'm on my knees crying in my room because nothing is going right. We need a small win, so on May 3rd we release the first part of our real revenue generating product. I spend the next week cold calling, attending meetings, more cold calling and getting frustrated because no one is buying - the wheels are about to come off! On May 8th, I'm sitting in front of the World Peace Film Festival organizer as she enters her credit card and paid for our product. Seconds later, I receive an email confirming a successful credit card transaction. For five minutes, I stared at that woman and it took everything in my power not to burst out into tears in front of her.

Now I understand why that first dollar hanging on the wall of a business is so special.

Kyle Christian Steele

4 comments:

  1. Hands down the deepest post I have witnessed in a while. But the beauty of it is rejection is God's protection. Its his way of saying I have something better for you, and please let me help you. But we consistently try to do things our way until he breaks us down and then makes us back up. Thats life but without those obstacles you take success for granted.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks man. Thank God that he still likes mess ups! LOL

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  2. So this. Is what you mean. By trenches...

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