Spacekraft – Creating Genius
Date: June 2, 2016
Name: Spacekraft – Creating Genius
Presenters: Chris Brandt, Andrew Hall, Mike Tan, Phlipp Postrehovsky, and Wayne Webb
Spacekraft’s event, “Creating Genius”, invites two panels to share their business insights on their industries. In this presentation, both panels will inspire young entrepreneurs, small business owners and many start-up founders with their experience and advices. Moreover, both panels will share their unique stories to motivate future entrepreneurs to move forward their ideas into the right direction.
How to do good and make money at the same time
This panel includes Chris Brandt, the Executive Director of Music Heals, Andrew Hall, the Co-Founder of MealShare, and Mike Tan, the COO and Vice President of Product for ChangeHeroes
Brandt had been in the music industry for over 20 years. When Napster revolved the music industry, Brandt pursued his new passion of being a yoga instructor. The teaching directed his focus into charity. Brandt loved creating relationship and the charity aspect fulfilled his purpose. Hall mentions he and his brother left his job to pursue something greater. Hall believed the concept of appreciate the value and they corporate the concept into MealShare. The idea behind MealShare is “buy one, give on to other family”. Tan mentions the idea of ChangeHeroes is to build many schools as possible. ChangeHeroes focused on 3 keys: online campaign, social campaign, and corporate video. Tan wants to help other corporates to give back to community.
Brandt believes every new idea starts with the answer “Yes”. Hall suggests entrepreneurs to build their own job in an impactful way. Tan believes every social entrepreneur has the desire to let friends to be involved with the right movement.
“Consider your life as a story, by going with life, you fill with characters”
Motivation fuels entrepreneurs’ energy to continue their passion. Hall believes it is easy to start a nonprofit and nonprofit gives Hall the motivation on momentum. However, the model to start nonprofit can be difficult. The model needs to pay for itself in order to survive. Therefore, Hall appreciates every supporter. Brandt emphasizes the first year of business could be a challenge. Storytelling needs to be consistent until the idea is recognized in the community. The process can be long, but consistency will help entrepreneurs outperform other charities. Tan shares that the first year of ChangeHeroes was tough. There was no plan and only one goal. The Founder sold everything and put everything all in. Until people start to donate, the momentum starts. Tan believes when entrepreneurs do good or educate people, others will see and support.
“Follow your heart, good things will happen”
Hall recommends entrepreneurs to start their business with many co-founders. This will provide multiple skill sets into the business. Second, entrepreneurs need to be clear on their mission. When people believe in entrepreneurs’ mission, they will see themselves get there. Brandt recommends entrepreneurs to get used to caffeine. Entrepreneurs need to love what they are doing and willing to do whatever it takes. In addition, entrepreneurs need to surround themselves with strong and not weak. They need to be honest on what they are weak at. They need to focus on what they are good at. Lastly, they need to bring in people. Tan wants entrepreneurs to start with why. Business is not a sprint; in fact it is a marathon. If entrepreneurs want to go fast, they can go alone. If they want to go far, they need go together.
“Get advice, act on it, go back and get more advice”
Hall chooses to pursue nonprofit instead of for profit is because he believes nonprofit appears more audience to earn trust. Tan mentions for profit can attract better talent, but Brandt believes nonprofit can fulfill his life purpose.
Brandt believes how entrepreneurs do anything is how they do everything. Hall believes by setting the right values, entrepreneurs need to stick with it all the way. If entrepreneurs change too frequent, it will be difficult to change in future. Tan believes money is the energy and entrepreneurs need to look for the right intention.
“Shine light on others and let the light reflect on you”
How to grow your SAAS or Startup Company
The panel includes Philipp Postrehovsky, the COO and the Co-Founder of RentMoola, and Wayne Webb, the Director of Operations at Food.ee.
Postrehovsky is also the CEO of RentMoola. The idea behind RentMoola is to eliminate the hassle of preparing rent cheques. The mission is to address the pain point of writing rent cheques in global perspective. Webb shares the idea behind Food.ee is to help restaurants to deliver food to their customers. A friend of his introduced the business to Webb and Webb started to tackle the challenges in Food.ee. Currently the business is grown huge.
Seed money is important for every startup company. Webb would bootstrap the funding and ensure business only spends necessary expenses. Food.ee had angel investor and as the business grew, they needed to scale up the finance. Postrehovsky would also bootstrap the funding. Postrehovsky mentions the business started hard, but they got confident because the model was proven to be profitable. This attracted more investors. Entrepreneurs need to depend on how much they are willing to give up their equity. Postrehovsky suggests entrepreneurs to push as far as possible.
As the company grows, Postrehovsky wants the philosophy to remain the same. New features are added, but the company stays true to what the original pain point is. Webb shares Food.ee changed a couple of time. It started with a simple model and it got too complicated as the company grew. The model failed and it was forced to go back to original model.
Hiring can be a challenge for startups. Webb wants to hire for fit. Webb conducts many online interviews. Entrepreneurs must realize they can hire anybody, but they cannot train people to fit into culture. Postrehovsky spends a huge amount of time on Human Resources. 75% of hiring for RentMoola comes from referrals. The culture comes naturally. Entrepreneurs will discover the hiring process can be slow, but firing process can be fast. Culture fit is everything.
Postrehovsky believes employees need both sale skills and technology knowledge. RentMoola used to outsource, but Postrehovsky turned it to in house. Postrehovsky suggests entrepreneurs to hire a team that can accomplish and always be scalable. Webb points out the CEO of Food.ee was from sale. When sales increased, the company will keep pushing. Webb wants entrepreneurs to look carefully at the core mission of the company and understand where the momentum is.
Postrehovsky suggests entrepreneurs to hire someone who knows sales because it can save a lot of time in the future. Webb suggests entrepreneurs to look for partnership relationship. It can help them expand the market.
The equity crowdfunding is popular for startups. Postrehovsky suggests entrepreneurs to hire good lawyer who knows the space or to find partner who knows what to do. The biggest challenge for Postrehovsky is to find ways to fundraise faster and scale quicker. Webb needs to build a powerful developer.
In any startups with software application, Postrehovsky think it is wise to spend time on hiring the right developer. It is important to stay local and try not to go over sea due to tax credit advantage. Entrepreneurs can hire co-op students and have someone mentor them.
Entrepreneurs need to look at a larger picture. Moreover, it is wise to test drive first before moving people up for more responsibility.