The Capital of Experience

Background

Since 2007 with my first project Roaming Keyboards I started working on my ideas putting all my knowledge of design and technology combined in the search for my idyllic dream, creating computer.

Sixteen years have passed and more than ten previous projects and a lot of experience. I can tell I was able to gain experience the cost effective way possible building sturups.

Aside from my current projects, where I learnt a lot already since for four years aldreay as my main startup Notimation in my previous experience I was able to gain more experience with PadKite, GestureKit and Radon basically because of the effort, work, money invested and above all the very high expectations.

If there is one thing I can say, it is that almost two decades after I started I have experience and far from feeling discouraged I am more motivated than ever with the poise of knowing that I am doing the things that make me happy in life 🙂.

After many years of undertaking, I suppose that anyone who is reading this will think that it is a long time to continue in the search for dreams and I must say that for some time now I have understood that it is not about time or success or a carrot that never comes. It is about enjoying the road and accepting that it is always rocky and you never get there. With this reasoning, the day to day can be carried forward with more happiness where crises and problems are never real problems and where everything has a solution.

This essay is one of those fundamental pending accounts to look forward to and that can only be done by acknowledging mistakes so as not to repeat them. Experience in my opinion is the most important asset one can have, more than power, more than money. It is because with experience, power and money are useless. Without experience, everything that one can achieve in life or achieve a dream can be finished overnight.

Starting a Startup

I have come to the conclusion that when carrying out an idea it is better to develop it yourself until it is proven. On the contrary, believe that just because you have a good idea, it is enough to spend your money, possibly mom’s and dad’s money as well, plus that of some other relatives, to show that your idea is good. First, an idea is nothing and second, no one but you has to bear the personal cost of proving it.

Starting a startup is an act of idealism and individualism that can be tainted with an ego that can lead to a real meat grinder. Currently, I fervently believe that it is in the process where enjoyment goes beyond the result and that if the expected result is not the death of anyone, it depends on expectations.

Running a startup (or more than one), which is not the same as creating one, is not easy and can sometimes be dangerous. It mainly means a daily struggle with permanent ups and downs that not everyone can tolerate. It can be created and destroyed in weeks, the challenge is to sustain it over time. Doing so is very challenging. In my case, I have found myself on the brink of collapse on more than one occasion, going through difficult times mainly because of something that at this point in my life in 2023 I think I have overcome. It boils down to one line: Enjoy the process 🥳.

On the other hand, when you run a startup with responsibility for the decisions that keep it alive, there is generally only room to make a critical mistake and then correct it. If in a startup more than one mistake is made in a row without being able to be corrected, it is very possible that this will trigger a series of chain errors that will determine that the course is lost, therefore it is necessary to finish it.

In these cases when this happens it is very important to understand that it is no longer possible to go back and it is best to close it. This can be due to multiple factors, generally related to not knowing how to distinguish the desire from the incontrovertible reality that in everyone’s sight it is evident that the model cannot be demonstrated and only the dreamer continues pedaling. This is very sad because all attempts to get back on track are a huge waste of time, energy and money that can be considered a drowning blow where a new feature of the product is going to save the adventure. The reality is that the patient is already dead and it is not possible to revive him. Hard but real, better to let it go in time, recognizing the end cause is the best for all.

Process vs Carrot

Success stories, happy millionaires, the new world of technology rockstars added to a general ignorance of what it means to run a startup and even more so a disruptive business model = a miracle of nature. It means something trivial and it is very easy to confuse why and when one reaches that privileged place that these “enlightened” people have. I no longer look at others and I don’t care if they are doing well or badly, I really don’t care because what I do makes me happy, enough. I’ve been around. If there is one thing I can say after many years of riding, it is one piece of advice:

Don’t chase the carrot, it doesn’t exist, it never comes 🥕.

Running a startup is like chasing a carrot on a stick, but you never quite reach it. The carrot is elusive, always dangling just out of grasp. It’s essential to understand that in the startup world, the ‘carrot’ is a fleeting concept, and one should not expect it to materialize. You never reach the carrot, forget about that and start enjoying 🙂. There is no better thing in the world than enjoying what you do every day and having the gratitude of being alive to live the dream.

The Origin

I must say that the way of life and the meaning of life of running a startup began at home. My father, an electic engineer, has been able to build engineering companies for the countryside and at home there was always an air of entrepreneurship. Since I was a child and during my childhood I was also surrounded by a technological environment that without realizing it absorbed. However, I don’t do what I do to prove anything to anyone but because of my personality.

Stubborn and Reckless

No personality, stay at home. If you expect to be able to demonstrate a business model or create a disruptive startup of course you need to be strong and tough, but may not be enough. You must be stubborn and reckless, stand the pain plus a positive mind who always finds a way out on the way to his mission. I think i know who I am already and I am, some of my features:

Personality Side-Effects

Undoubtedly, the five characteristics of a personality that builds and pushes forward with effort, determination and will are fundamental and without that forget it. But they are not enough and are often counterproductive when it comes to demonstrating a disruptive business model in technology. What an entrepreneur must build with that strength and energy is to be what doesn’t work out for us, what is difficult. Being petty, calculating and suspicious is just as important as being positive 🙊🙉🙈.

You need to find a balance otherwise you never come down to earth. Unfortunately, reality is built with data not dreams and build a possible reality that must be validated every day. It is necessary to polish the hardest aspects of our personality to achieve it. That is where the real challenge of undertaking is. Doing what one doesn’t like or doesn’t like. Mitigating uncertainty, achieving the necessary balance to do it well and do it more than once well. Which inexorably leads us to leave a legacy, the one that each one leaves on earth.

Legacy

I believe in legacy, its my vehicle. Why? Because I want to leave a mark on the earth. Not a small one, a mark the size of the Colorado canyon. Not because of what I do for myself but what I do for and for others affecting their lives positively. Not because of what I do for myself but what I do for and for others affecting their lives positively. Taking my ideas forward, teaching new generations, creating and building with them (Maular School). Telling my story and leaving my bit of teaching for those who come for the future.

I choose to work on my ideas and ideals. They are not negotiable. After so many years doing it, it is my way of life, my way of being in the world. Added to who I am, I wake up believing in it and I want to die doing this. However, one does not get to have that determination because yes, it is built based on convictions and dreams. I’ve had some hints that paved the way to startups. Clues and Signs that at the time I have not been able to understand but now they confirm who I am.

Gain Experience

Without hesitation I affirm that it is when there is pain and nothing easier than exposing yourself to a situation of unsustainable pain is starting a company, your own statup, your boss, furthermore demonstrating a business model is a dream.

Shortly, being an independent entrepreneur and failing, succumbing, collapsing physically, economically, psychologically is one of those ways. Exposing your meat to the slaughterhouse, showing yourself to the world naked and defenseless. That is what happens when one fails, however, it is when more experience is gained. Saving the loss of a loved one or illness, of course, does not enter into discussion in this conversation.

Rule of thumb

Perhaps the most important rule in creating a technological statup is being confused that building technology is fun and lovely but nobody is asking for it. Its crusial then to be very cautious and distrustful when analyzing the real possibilities we have of solving a problem with technology. Using the least effort and immediately validating that it aims to solve a real user problem.

It is a common mistake that technological entrepreneurs involve us with technology before understanding the needs and problems of users, which is a mistake. However, the advantage that technology offers is that solving the error produces expansion and growth that could not be achieved otherwise. These are some of the rules I encounter.

The more expectations, the bigger the failure

Generally speaking there is something that I learned throughout the years and that is that the more expectations, the bigger the failure. This does not mean that when you create a project or a startup you should not aspire to the top, it is a must. It means not exaggerating things and believing more than what really is. Because then when the goals are not met, sometimes not even close, is when the results arrive and reality is generally seen as failure.

The question is when one truly fails. I think the answer is the more expectations there are and the further from reality you live. That is very possible in the case of entrepreneurs given the nature of creating a business, a new technology or solving a real problem for our species. It is natural and I attribute it to two endemic ills: procrastination and wishible thinking, combined they generate a total abstraction of reality and the creation of unfeasible idealistic parallel worlds. These are the best friends of failures and the same under high doses of both are extremely painful. If this is the case, it is because that person has gone bankrupt, the distance from family and friends added to a personal crisis that can only happen twice in a lifetime, no more than the opposite can lose your life.

This situation occurs basically because the solution, to stop doing what one does to achieve the dream, is in the hands of the problem, that is, oneself. That is why carrying out this profession is so difficult when so many expectations and so many dreams are at stake.

Repetir Errores

Gain Experience

If there is one thing I can tell about my multiple intents to demonstrate a business model is experience. I can tell that if I have to say how I payed my degree as an entrepeneur has been from my pocket and the hard way, failing.

Quetion is why should I blame myself for failing and punish myselft exposing my previous closed projects?

Tobegin with, is a good question.

Answer is

Allways a New Opportunity