Searching for a Mate

Over the past year I have had several (in my opinion) excellent startup ideas. There are two specifically I thought were “the best” and I am running with them. I have even felt the waters so to speak and I had people willing to pre-order the items I wanted to make/develop (there was a lot of enthusiasm).

Yet, when I talk to competent people, that I am willing to work with they are either too busy or not willing to commit completely to a startup/business venture. At what point is an idea exciting enough to join? When is a good time to ask a person if they would like to join you on a business venture?

My Conclusion

I have come to the conclusion that searching for a business partner is like searching for a mate. You have to show off your pretty colors, hop around and impress everyone to the point they want to join you. Woo them with technical details, seducing them with the stench of shower less weekends and the promises of sleep less nights.

I understand those who are competent are likely those who commit to a large number of things or spend all there time working for some particular goal. What makes it hard is that even after I talk to someone about an idea and they get all excited. They only work for maybe a week, then give up. It is as if people are want interesting things, but are not willing to make interesting things (go figure).

Combating the Stagnation

I’ve decided with these last two startup ideas I am just going to go out on a limb, not get discouraged and pour my heart into it. By myself I will design, create, launch, advertise, and pitch the idea to who ever will listen. If they want to help I will let them, but I’m sick of relying on them. I want to change the world, and regardless of anything else that goes on in my life I will spend at least an hour a day working on both of my projects. Many days I suspect I will work more, but for now I am requiring 7 hours a week to work on my projects.

Progress so Far

I have been doing this the past two weeks and as of right now I have the BasicBookReader to show for it. It is decent, it doesn’t crash (often) and I think there is only one major memory leak, but it is tangible. As it turns out, half the people I show it to scoffs and says “why wouldn’t you use kindle” or “iBook’s does that better.” Well of course iBook’s does that better! I’ve spent ~40 hours creating an app that can only read .txt files, what do you expect? I bet iBook had at least 5 people working on it with a budget of a million dollars plus, over a few year period. Literally, many magnitudes more man hours went into other applications, yet they do not offer what mine does. Analytics, not “good” analytics, but analytics none the less. I should add, I have some ideas (some are implemented – just not on github) that will blow away the current products, but I want to keep them a secret until I need investors.

The other half of people that check out my application think it is an interesting/good idea, but that it needs work. Understandable and at least it is not a scoff, some even offer to help and I let them, but none have panned out thus far. Searching for a business partner, I am learning, requires patients and I am willing to wait. I need the right person to work with or all of my work could be for naught. It is better to wait for the right person to come along.

Then again, maybe I need to make chainsaw noises to attract the right partner….