When you have a startup company, you’re taught to fear your competition.  Watch what they’re doing.  Analyze, compete, and conquer.  It seems intuitive to watch their every move, but certainly never get in touch with them.  This is just silly.

It’s more than likely your startup company will fail because of something you do, than what your competition does.

Whether it’s running out of money, co-founder split, technology fail, market fit failure, customer acquisition problems or any infinite number of things that can kill a startup.

Today a friend of mine reached out to me and asked if I had heard of ParkCirca.  I had and told him I spoke with the founder Chad a bunch of times and had some very good correspondence.  He was shocked and said, “But, you guys are are competitors?!??”

Two of the biggest challenges with a startup in a new industry are Education of the Market, and “share of mind”.

Educating the Market

Prepaying for parking ahead of time is a relatively new industry.  It takes time to educate the market.  In this case there is the educating of two groups:  Those listing their parking spots (parking garages, individuals, etc), and those purchasing parking ahead of time.  Each company that is out there expending effort educating each group helps us all.  If we gain a large foothold in Chicago, it will be that much easier for ParkCirca to expand here, and if they gain a huge foothold in San Francisco, it will be that much easier for SpotHero to expand there.  Should we thank each other for educating the market?  I think so.  Will I regret ever writing this post in the future?  Ha, maybe but I don’t think so.

Share of Mind

It’s incredibly difficult to get people to notice you.  Anytime the concept or company in your space is noticed it helps everyone in the fledgling industry.  If a competitor is mentioned there is sometimes a reference to competitors or companies doing similar things.  Whenever one of your competitors is noticed, there is a chance you too will be noticed.  Additionally, if a customer if willing to try out your competitor, they are more likely to try you out than someone who has never heard or had an experience with either company.

Expanding the Pie, Not Cannibalizing Sales

The market for parking is huge.  Nearly $30 Billion.  The companies gaining traction in this space have but a drop in the bucket in terms of overall market share.  This isn’t Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi.  The soft drink market is mature and saturated.  If someone buys Coca-Cola, Pepsi directly lost out on that sale and visa versa.  They are directly competing for the same pieces of pie.

The prepaid online reservation market is micro compared to how large the overall parking market is.  Each company in this vertical that is out there marketing, educating the market and “expanding share of mind” ends up helping us all.

Note:  I’ve also had correspondence with Ben from BestParking , Eugene from Parkopedia, and George of ParkHub all of whom are incredibly nice.

SpotHero is an online parking marketplace that allows you to reserve a parking spot ahead of time for example if you need Downtown Chicago Parking or are going to a Cubs Game and need Wrigley Field Parking.

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I have returned from Morocco, and am now back in Chicago.  The trip was incredible.  I won’t focus on the travel details here, but if you’re interested, I do travel writing for flighster.  While the trip was amazing, it couldn’t have come at a worse possible time in terms of development of SpotHero an online parking reservation company in Chicago.  The trip was planned way in advance, but came at a pivotal time.  It was in the middle of applications to startup accelerators, private buyer flow testing, and many important technology and entrepreneur events in Chicago.  We were lucky to get interviews with two of the startup accelerators we had applied to.  We found out we had been asked to come back for an interview with them while we were in Morocco.  The scrambling began as things had to be put in order to prepare.  We actually had a skype interview with one of them while we were in Marrakesh.  A good half of the day was spent finding an internet cafe that had the equipment and connection for a video conference.  We rented the whole place out for 2 hours.  Good times!  It was my first taste of “working on the road”.  While it’s exciting, there is an element of stress due to unfamiliarity and lack of access to technology and certain things.  We were still able to get everything done we needed to.  Life has been great, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been happier., but here is something that I have been struggling with of late.

Blogging About Life vs. Living It

I am troubled sometimes by whether I should be blogging or not.  On one hand, I would love to update Lifestyle Ignition as much as possible.  I love connecting with new people and really enjoy having a platform of honesty with those I currently already know.  However, sometimes I am so busy with my startup SpotHero, that when I have a free moment, I do not feel like writing.  I feel like living.  It felt great to head to Mardis Gras in New Orleans and not be connected to the internet.  I spent the time with some close friends exploring an amazing city I had never been to before without constantly checking my cell phone or logging onto the internet.  Morocco was great too, and after 6 straight months of powering away in full time startup mode, it was a nice break.  Going forward, I cannot foresee another break for a long while.  I am enamored with the startup process and the startup world and can’t wait for SpotHero to get off the ground!   I think there is a fine line and balance that must be kept.  Blogging is a wonderful platform.  Though, I read many blogs where it seems all the person does is blog and there’s more to life than blogging.  I love reading about interesting people doing interesting things.  Blogging is interesting and blogging is great, but there is something that trumps that 1 million times over.  That is life.

Side note: (If someone tells you travel is expensive, I paid $390 round trip Chicago to Casablanca).  Thank you travelzoo alerts!

SpotHero is an online parking marketplace that allows you to reserve a parking spot ahead of time for example if you need Downtown Chicago Parking or are going to a Wrigley Field and need Cubs Game Parking.

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I wrote about having to make 1000′s of decisions every day for my startup SpotHero. But what decisions specifically?  There are so many to make for my Chicago parking startup SpotHero it can be overwhelming.  Each decision made breeds more questions and more decisions.  As time goes by these decisions have to be reevaluated, changed a bit, or completely thrown out.  Some decisions you have to make knowing you can’t go back on.  There’s so much uncertainty and so many unknowns it can actually be quite scary.

Venture Capital vs. Angel vs. Startup Accelerator vs. Bootstrapping

Which route to take?  Do I bootstrap?  I will have the most amount of control over my startup, but at some point I’m going to need extra money in order to take it to the next step.  Venture capital will grow my startup the fastest, but am I willing to give up the amount of equity I need in order to secure this sort of financing?  How do I know if an Angel is a good fit through the life of the startup?  How will their objectives affect a later round of financing?  A startup accelerator would be amazing, but competition is high and I cannot rely on that.  Many other entrepreneurs I have come into contact with wonder if they are at too late of a stage to go the startup accelerator route.  These are questions I have to ask myself.  It can take 6 to 12 months to secure financing.  Is it worth the time at this stage to spend away from the business?

Functionality of the website

I have a list of awesome ideas and functions for SpotHero that have come up either in conversations amongst my co-founder, programmer and I or feedback from others.  There are so many things I’d like to add.  However, I’ve had to scale back the scope and number of functions immensely in order to get SpotHero launched.  It comes down to cost and time.  Each function or option can add an exponential layer of complexity as it’s not so easy as simply adding a function without it affecting the entire project.  Each function has to interact with the rest of the application.  Then there is the support going forward which can add even more cost and time to the project.  Since we are bootstrapping our startup we have had to focus on the core functionality in order to get our product to market.

What to do during the pre launch phase

How do I build buzz and get people ready and knowing that we are going to launch before we have an actual product?  Many people talk.  They have grand ideas of this and that and talk and talk about what will come.  We’re used to this, and rightly so are skeptical when something new is talked about that is not yet tangible.   Add to that the weight of statistics stacked against me that make it likely I will fail, and it becomes hard to get people to believe in it.  So during this build out phase I have to get people to believe in SpotHero before they have even seen it.

Customer Acquisition

Which came first the chicken or the egg?  In a marketplace model which depends on both buyers and sellers of parking, SpotHero needs both in order to succeed.  To start we have focused on obtaining a list of people willing to rent out their parking spots when they’re not using them.  That way, when we do go live, we already have a stock of parking spots ready to go and can then focus on driving buyers to those spaces.  But how to go about customer acquisition?  What is the best route in order to obtain them?

Legal and Intellectual Property

There is much wisdom is setting things up early in this “department”.  It can save headaches, pain, and disaster later on down the line.  But anything related to law, legal, and lawyers is extremely expensive.  How do you balance legal pragmatism?  Capital is precious.  Do we spend the money now to be pragmatic or “wing it” to conserve capital?

Putting together a business plan

Do I put together a business plan?  What is the purpose of a business plan?  So many people ask about the business plan, yet it is based on many assumptions that are complete guesswork.  For this reason, many people say a business plan is unnecessary.  I still haven’t decided how I feel yet.  (It’s easier to make a decision in hindsight )  Right now, the business plan we have worked on has been a great exercise for ourselves and understanding certain aspects of the business and our market.  Many people we talk to want different things and ask for concrete numbers.  When working on unknown and untested scenarios there are a large amount assumptions that need to be made.  Which assumptions are the right ones?

Payments Processing

Which payments processor to use?  I’ve spent countless days going over different ones.  Which payment gateway?  Which merchant account?  Will they underwrite a marketplace business where we take a commission for facilitating a sale between two parties? Is their rate good?  Are they trustworthy?  How hard will it be to set up?  How long will it take to get going?

Where do I focus my time?

This just scratches the surface.   This is what I am thinking about this moment as I write this.  There are many more things I think about each hour, each day, and each week.  So, what do Entrepreneurs Have to Think About?  We have to think about everything and all the time.  There is no HR, sales, or IT department.  There’s just you.

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Being an entrepreneur, you have complete flexibility over all facets of the business.  You can change and create at will and have nobody to answer to but yourself (or co-founder).  This is exciting and exhilarating, but can also be stressful.  How do you know what decision is right?  How will things turn out if I choose this over that?  There are so many unknowns.  I wrote about success needing no excuse.  If a decision turns out to be right, then it was a “genius” decision.  However, if it turns out to be wrong, it was a “perilous” decision.  There’s so much judgment, but only after the fact.  When in reality, the decision was based purely on what seemed right at the time.

I find myself having to make hundreds if not thousands of small and large decisions every single day for my Chicago parking startup company SpotHero.  There are so many different facets of the business running in parallel that just the focus of time involves a lot of decision making.  Do we practice our presentation for the class we’re guest presenting at, work on SEO, write a SpotHero blog post, work with legal and liability issues, answer emails, spend time going door to door in key parking spot areas, on the ground event parking research, learn how to code Python, apply for startup funding from a place like Y Combinator, or schedule meetings with perspective owners of parking spots?  These are just a few of the endless list of things we must allocate our time to.  Each facet has a multitude of decisions that must be made.  It seems there are so many critical decisions made each day, yet it’s impossible to know how they’ll turn out or impact the business later on.

Some decisions you can see results right away.  I disagreed initially on a key part involving our design with my co-founder.  I was extremely adamant, yet we ended up going in his direction even though I disagreed.  It ended up being one of the best decisions we’ve (I mean he’d) ever made.  As an entrepreneur, you have to make hundreds if not thousands of small and large “right” decisions every single day.  I know for a fact there are some decisions I’ve made that will probably negatively impact my business later on down the line.  I don’t know what they’ll be, but I can’t fret over them.  I take solace in the hope I have made enough “right” decisions that will counteract all the “bad” ones.  I have those two words in quotes because a decision that seemed right can actually turn out to look like it was a bad one, and then flip flop and end up being the best decision ever.  This is true in the reverse also.

Sometimes my co-founder and I fret over decisions because we just aren’t sure.  All the research in the world sometimes just doesn’t help.  There are so many unknowns, yet the decisions need to be made today.  It’s impossible to make 1000 right decisions every day, but an entrepreneur must try.  In the midst of constant choice and infinite paths, having a co-founder helps to keep some sanity.  There’s no way to predict the future, but I’m hoping that it will show that of all the decisions I make each day, the good ones will make SpotHero prevail and uplift it from the bad ones.  Only time will tell.

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There’s no road map.  There’s no formula.  It’s a mindset.

We want the shortcut.  We want the secrets, the how to’s, and coveted strategies in order to become successful.  Success comes from your mindset.  An undying and relentless hunger for success.

“Think outside the box”.

I’ve heard that so many times, it almost makes me want to puke.  What does think outside the box even mean?!  That buzzword is thrown around time and time again. It’s on resumes, it’s used as a conversation “enhancer”, but it’s really just an empty feel good saying that most don’t put into practice.  If you’ve done everything conventional your whole entire life, tell me what do you do to “think outside the box”?  Here’s the secret:  Those that actually think outside the box do no go around telling people they think outside the box”.

So you want to make money online

One way to make some quick money is to start selling things on websites like amazon, ebay, and craigslist.  I know countless people including myself who have had varying degrees of success selling things online.  One friend of mine in particular has been especially successful.  Selling stuff online usually goes something like this.  Get a product, see what it’s worth, sell for that price, and get money.  Millions of people do this all the time.  It can be a great way to sell off some of your stuff or make some money, but is extremely hard to turn into a business.  You’re at the mercy of the market and policies of the websites you sell through.  Right?  Well only sort of.

Selling baby bottle nipples

A friend of mine was able to get an incredible good price on bulk baby bottle nipples.  He tried selling them through the normal channels, but since they didn’t have individual packaging, nobody would buy them. They actually were brand new and sterile, but nobody would trust that from an unknown seller online.  Most people would accept this roadblock and say they can’t be sold.  Not this time.  He contacted each seller who was selling the product and asked if they were interested in purchasing the nipples in bulk.  Someone made an offer for them all.  He took the offer.  1st bulk lot of baby bottle nipples sold.  Another lot of nipples came in.  The previous buyer said he was having a hard time selling them without packaging and didn’t want anymore.  He called around and nobody was willing to buy them.  Game over?  Hardly.  I remember when he put down the phone and realized nobody would buy them.  He said to me, “Mark, if nobody will buy them without packaging, then I will make packaging for them.”  He then proceeded to research companies that made packaging, and had them professionally done.  He sold them for an even larger profit than when he dumped the previous lot in bulk before.

Success as a mindset

People see him making really good money online.  They see his flexible hours, and financial success and are always asking, “how do you do it?”  ”Tell me what your secret is.”  ”Just tell me how to do it so I can”.  How do you teach something like that?  His success is due in large part to his uncanny ability to make decisions on the fly as roadblocks come up.  There isn’t an endless supply of bulk baby bottle nipples.  There’s no specific company that buys them.  It just doesn’t work to say, “buy product x, do y, and sell for z.”

The ability to work around whatever life presents is the differentiating factor.  ”Where there is a will there is way.”  And it’s near impossible to teach will or that mindset.  I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that it’s not easy.  If a mindset has not made you successful, and you’re convinced you’re doing things right, doesn’t it make sense to at least try and approach things differently? Thinking outside the box is one thing, but actually doing it, is another.

Photo from Flickr

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Good ideas are worthless.  Execution is everything.  Many people have good ideas, but few of them actually follow through.  I’d like to showcase someone who not only has good ideas, but is someone who follows through on them.

Meet Jalila, a Moroccan woman with a vision.  She wanted to find a way to give back and help Moroccan women through a service project.  There were so many different routes for finding a service project.  Instead of signing up for social projects that already existed, she wanted to embark on one of her own.  This social project ended up turning into a business; Amal Oils which sells Moroccan Argan oil.  She started the company on her own and has to manage every aspect of the business.

She now flies back 3 or 4 times a year to Morocco and is constantly trying not only to improve the business process, but the lives of the women involved.  Jalila has been able to combine a passion for travel and social awareness into a business that springs from her Moroccan roots.

Jalila was kind enough to answer some questions about her Entrepreneurial quest:

At what point did you know that you would turn this social project into a business?

Before embarking on my search to give-back in Morocco, I never imagined that it would be so difficult to find a way that you can be sure that your funding, efforts and time are going to the right place. My goal was to give back to Moroccan women in a meaningful way, ideally I wanted to mentor female entrepreneurs and help them start a successful business that would continue to provide them with enough income to support their families.  After searching for an opportunity that would enable me to do this via established organizations, I felt bogged down in all of the paperwork. Instead of giving up, I took a different direction.  I focused on the Moroccan products that I love,  both beauty and artisanal.  I went on a road trip to explore all my options and discovered the argan cooperatives along the way.  That is when it hit me! Rather than just giving back once, I discovered that by sharing the Moroccan beauty secret of pure argan oil with women around the world, I could indefinitely help preserve an ancient Moroccan tradition, mentor women through their entrepreneurial challenges, and help women  move from poverty to self-sufficiency and create a successful small business all at the same time.

Did you ever feel overwhelmed as an individual founder?

I feel overwhelmed everyday, and there have been times when I felt like giving up.  The key to overcoming those moments is determination.   Because Amal Oils is so focused on supporting and giving back to Moroccan women, I feel a lot of pressure to do well so that I can give more and more back.  There is nothing easy about being an entrepreneur, and I’m sure that most entrepreneurs will agree with me.  However,  having said that, I don’t think I will ever have a more rewarding experience in my life.

What would you recommend to others who would like to turn a service project concept into a business?

Going from service project to business is a major mental transition, but I say go for it!  The biggest benefit is that through a business you are able to make a larger impact because you can continuously generate funds to give back, such as the case with Amal Oils.

If there is one thing you have learned on this Entrepreneurial journey that you could go back in time and tell yourself, what would it be?

Everyone is good at certain things, very few people are good at everything.  Rather than trying to do everything youself, seek out help in the areas where you need it the most so that you can focus on your strengths.

Jalila Bouchareb is founder of Amal Oils and you can find her blogging about argan oil benefits there.

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I hear good ideas all the time.  So many people have brilliant ideas.  Whether it’s to make something better, a process easier, or a cool way of doing something.  Ideas, are great, but alone are worthless.  Execution, implementation, and action are what’s worth something.  Whenever I hear about an awesome idea from someone, I get excited and want to talk about what the next step is too making it happen.  This is where people’s jaws drop.  Their tone changes from excitement to apprehensive as the reality sets in that their idea requires real work.  It’s an illusion that you stumble upon a magically amazing idea and sell it off for lots of money to someone who does all the work.

Too often action isn’t taken.  It feels good to think of how great an idea is, but hard to commit to the hard work and time it takes to execute an idea.  Another thing that can be disheartening to think about is that hard work and time do not necessarily lead to success.  Committing oneself to the execution and implementing of an idea eaves open the possibility of failure.  This is scary.  I am leaving open the possibility that my startup company SpotHero will fail.  While I am prepared for that, I am working as hard as I can in order to make the company a success.

This quote is fitting:

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule?  One day at a time. — Fred Brooks

There’s so many good ideas out there.  The ones that get executed are what’s worth something. There are an infinite number of decisions that need to be made in order for a new company to successfully get off the ground.  Each decision has the potential to break the company.  The odds aren’t great, but the potential payoff is extraordinary.  Not just in monetary terms,  but in building something remarkable from scratch.

Many companies attempted to build a better search engine, Google did it.  The idea for a portable digital music player wasn’t revolutionary, Apple’s delivery was.  Winklevoss twins believed in ideas.  Mark Zuckerberg in execution….

If you have an idea you truly believe in, roll with it. Get the ball rolling and start the process of seeing it out.  Time flies fast, so if you’ve got an idea, don’t sit around and wait. The best time to start something was yesterday but today will do.

Photo From Flickr

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Money (or fear of not having money) controls our ability to have freedom, and flexibility.  It’s one of the reasons we can feel trapped in our current situation.

Generally, there are two routes:

1.  The “stable” path.  Go to school, get a job, further education, work a job
2.  Take the risks necessary to pave your own unconventional path

One of the first ways I was able to obtain some personal freedom to experiment with living my dreams and embark on this journey, was to save enough money where I could live without having to have a paycheck.  While living with a paycheck I wanted to figure out what my sustainability rate was.  (Amount of money I needed every month to sustain myself).  The following questions need to be asked.  Do you know what your sustainability rate is?  How much do you need each month to sustain your current standard of living before you’re broke?  Keep track of every single expense you make so you can find this rate.  You’ll be able to identify areas where you can save, or cut down on expenses.  Once you have this number you’ll know how much you need to save in order to live for a year without having to have a paycheck.  Once I had saved enough money, I wanted to take some time and travel the world.   Traveling the world is much much cheaper than people think, and can be much much cheaper than living at home.

While I originally planned to travel, I decided to stay put in Chicago and pursue a startup SpotHero with my friend and co-founder Jeremy Smith.  We are working on our start up now, and because I saved money and lowered my “sustainability rate” I am able to work on this project every day without needing to spend time at a job to get a paycheck.  I am no longer controlled by that.

Now, the first thing that comes to mind is, well what happens when that money runs out?  I am hoping that my start up becomes profitable before that happens.  This might sound scary to some, but I am willing to take the risks if there is a chance I can do something I am passionate about and live the life I want to live.  Will I succeed or fail, I have no idea, but I’m willing to take the risks to try.

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While I’ve decided to stay in Chicago and pursue my startup SpotHero, I’ve still been able to travel around a bit.  This year I’ve gone to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Austin, New York, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Burning Man, and my Uncle’s farm in Ohio.

In each place, I took way more pictures than necessary.  I love taking pictures.  I can’t help it.  If you haven’t seen the Body Paint Girls Photo Album, Check it out.  Those were taken with a Canon Rebel XSI with a 17-55mm Canon F/2.8 IS USM.  While you’re at it, you can also look at this cool online photo retouch site I came across.  Pretty neat and simple.  While I love my SLR and the flexibility that comes with it, I still have an affinity for my Olympus Stylus 790SW.  This camera is waterproof, shockproof and freeze proof.  It’s small and it can fit in my pocket.  I’ve even taken it on a “resort” dive in Papua New Guinea!  I used this camera to take pictures at Burning Man.  The sharpness and nighttime photos severely suffered.  However, it was nice not to have to worry about the fine alkali dust ruining my SLR and accompanying lenses.  It would have been nice to capture some of the night time activities that my waterproof Olympus could not, but it was also nice not having to lug around the much heavier camera equipment.   There’s a tradeoff between photo quality/photo flexibility and camera weight/annoyance factor.  Either way, it depends on the situation.

What’s not up for debate is that pictures are awesome.  They help us remember situations and people that can be hard to remember over time.  They help us convey a message, feelings, or moods.  They can be relaxing.  (My current background image on my laptop is a photo taken by my friend Thomas in Myanmar).  It is a beautiful idyllic landscape of the Temples at Bagan as the sun sets.

As the year comes to a close, I look back on many photos taken over the course of this year, and memories come roaring back.  It’s been snowy and cold in Chicago lately, and I haven’t been giving my cameras times.  Though, I have my eyes set on this car wrecking yard nearby where I live.  Giant machine claws tear apart once youthful cars.  Another machine takes its giant magnet arms and lifts jagged metal into a furnace.  It’s a scene straight out of The Brave Little Toaster!  When the weather warms up, I’ll surely be taking my SLR and lens friends there.  Until then, I must say I’m happy with the photos taken this past year!

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This year has been one of great change.  As I sit here now, looking back, and reflecting, a rush of memories comes over me.  This year has been beautiful.  The good times and memories that have been shared with friends and family will be with me forever.  Thank you all for being part of my life.  I can only hope that next year can be just as great.  I started the year off working at a bank with hopes, aspirations, and preparations of a bike trip in Africa, and some travel/language learning in France.  As I move forward in entrepreneurial force with SpotHero, it’s crazy to look back at the many changes that have taken place.  I look forward in wonder and awe at what the next 365 days will bring.  I could never have imagined how this last set of 365 days would play out, but I am happy with how things have turned out.

I used to get nervous at the thought of leaving the conventional setup and life path. I had a good job, and sometimes I would get sick to my stomach and ask myself if I was crazy.  I can say now, I have never been happier with my decision to live unconventionally and take charge of my own life.  To question assumptions, seek answers, and explore ideas.  Life isn’t as rigid as it’s sometimes made out to be. Whatever the situation, there’s a method of change.  Where there’s a will there’s a way.  It was only about four hundred years that it was a common belief Earth was the center of the universe that all the planets and the sun rotated around it.  I wonder what things we believe and say are impossible today will be laughed at by the people around 400 years from now.  2010 has been awesome.  I’m ready to rock out 2011.  Who’s with me?

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