Founders at Work.pdf

404 Founders at Work
Livingston: Is your time horizon several years?
Ross: No. It’s short term for launch.
Livingston: Because there will be a race?
Ross: We don’t know of anyone doing specifically what we are doing, but you
can just feel in the air that everyone’s moving toward this kind of model. Who
knows, someone could announce it tomorrow.
Livingston: Are you able to say who you are most nervous about as a competitor?
Ross: I’d say Google or Microsoft. It’s a big enough project that I’m not sure a
startup would be trying to do it, except us because we’re nuts, but it’s possible.
Of the known companies, it would be Google or Microsoft.
Livingston: So right now you are operating on a small amount of seed funding?
Is that to pay your rent, etc.?
Ross: We’re going to take more before we launch, but we’re trying to take as
little as possible. We don’t want $12 million. I don’t know what we’d do with
that. We don’t even have an office. We’re just working out of our apartments.
Livingston: Do you plan to get one?
Ross: Eventually. I need to see how many engineers I can fit in my bathroom
and closet first.
Livingston: Are you nervous that this idea is too big for two people?
Ross: Yes. But we’re also nervous about finding someone else, so it’s hard. Just
finding and interviewing candidates is stressful, because it’s not like there’s a
team back home coding. If Joe and I are at a meeting, no one is pushing the
product forward, and that’s scary. There’s a question of, “Is it better for us to
spend all of our time iterating very quickly, or potentially ruin that dynamic by
bringing on someone that we don’t know well?”
In short, I’m nervous about everything. If you’re doing a startup and you’re
relaxed, you should be very worried.
Livingston: So far, what has surprised you most about starting your own
startup?
Ross: One thing I didn’t know was how tightly connected everyone is in the
Valley. We’ll meet someone, and then we’ll meet someone who I would never
expect to even know that person, and they’ll say, “I heard you met Tony last
week.” It’s such a small industry, and so much business is done through the network
circuit, which is kind of upsetting, because I’d rather the good companies
get the good deals and the bad ones don’t get deals at all. Instead, it’s more like,
“Who do you know?”
I can definitely see where the Google guys came from when they refused to
play by these rules. They didn’t know anyone, and they didn’t schmooze their
way in.