I had a couple of good conversations with George. This is great example of how the team informs the product. Great work Artifact team!
181 karma · joined February 9, 2013
I had been working on 7 Cups for about a month prior to getting to YC. I had a home page up, which I was pretty excited about. The core idea of the chat/voice support wasn't yet live. I showed him the website and wanted to show him some of the segments we wanted to focus on (parents of children with disabilities, veterans etc.). He quickly asked - have you got the actual product in front of users yet? I tried to dodge the question, talk more about the site etc. He repeated the question. I had to honestly answer that no we hadn't yet released it. He was like, okay go do that and report back next week. I was stalling because, on some level, I was afraid that it wouldn't work as well as I hoped. We pushed through, launched it, and learned a ton in that next week. For example, we learned that voice was too intimate and people preferred messaging.
And that basic cycle happened over and over again. Like there might be things that sound right or are even partially right, but if they are not the most direct thing that is going to help you learn and make a product people want, then it is probably not a good use of your time.
The guide is here:
http://www.7cups.com/startup-support/
If you have thoughts/ideas on how we can make it better, then please let us know. Thanks!
Thanks Garry for all that you've done for the YC community. I wish you the very best in this next leg of your journey.
Also, we launched www.7cupsoftea.com/startups to help make startups less stressful.
I'll highlight one point that I think is really important: Kill all daemon processes. Psychotherapy is a process that is designed to help quiet these menacing internal voices (harmful parent voices, self-doubt etc.). There are different therapy orientations: cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, psychodynamic therapy, etc. They approach these outdated programs in different ways. CBT tries to kill them by applying logic (e.g., My startup is going to fail! [what rational evidence do you have for that belief?]) Relational approaches try to better understand the threatening feeling or impulse that triggers the harmful programs. It focuses on the defense used to keep the threatening feeling in check and anxiety at bay (e.g., I'm really afraid of failing [emotion = fear of failing], so I become a driven workaholic to try to avoid this outcome and feel less anxiety [defense]). A relatively recent innovation in the therapy space is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The key insight is that often the attempt to control, diminish, or avoid pain is what keeps you entangled in the pain. Simply making space for the pain, sinking into it, observing it, and feeling it, is what allows it to become disentangled. This, however, is very hard to do, b/c the natural impulse is to avoid pain and the issues that cause pain.
Here is a helpful short video that metaphorically captures the ACT disentanglement process (Demons on a Boat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-wyaP6xXwE.
Okay, one last point, I'm game for doing my small part to help reach the impossible goal. This is going to be a collaborative project right? : )
Dalton is always super fast to respond to emails. I've gone back and forth with him, asking lots of questions, and really drilling down to make sure I understand what he is suggesting. Without fail, he'll get back to me within a matter of hours and respond in-depth to my questions. I think his background in psychology and experience working with younger populations gives him very insightful perspectives. He is also very honest and supportive.
Alexis is one of the people I most admire. The guy has real integrity. I think he understands what is truly important in life and lives in a manner that holds up these values. They are implicit in how he relates to others. He is also an amazing worker. I remember asking him for a consult on a Saturday morning. I was thinking we'd connect later on that next week. He got right back to me and called me on a Saturday morning. I apologized for bugging him and he said not to worry that if I'm working he is working. Then, to take things a step further, he connected me with Ashley Dawkins (his Outreach Director). She is also awesome, quick to respond, and very helpful. The last point I'll highlight is Alexis is really hopeful. Hope is pretty damn powerful and I think he gets that in manner that few people understand.
"But whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, other people have it. People in the community have gone through it. Many people have gone through it, in fact."
The technical name for this is universality. It is one of the most helpful parts of group therapy. You hesitantly share what is on your mind and then suddenly discover that in a small group there are usually at least 1-2 other people that can really identify with what you are describing. For us, as founders or startup people in general, we can tell ourselves, "I'm really struggling with X right now. Okay, it is very likely that many other people are struggling with X right now or have struggled with X in the past. They've made it to the other side and I will as well. It is just going to take time."
X might be normal startup concerns like growth, retention, co-founder issues, employee issues, client issues, bugs, investor issues etc. Or, it might be more personal issues that are often tied to startups: pressure, unrealistic high expectations from self or others, stress, anxiety, depression etc. Whatever X is, there are many other people that are currently experiencing it or have made it through to the other side. It helps to know that we are not alone and we can keep moving forward by taking one step at a time!
Nassim Taleb talks about entrepreneurs as people who should be championed when they fail. They take on projects with very long odds. It is a tough life with little upside if you don't make it big. These entrepreneurs teach us a lot. We all get to learn from the path they traveled down. Dalton tried something new and it didn't work out as planned. Someone else will build on what he started and we'll all be better for it. Failure is part of our ecosystem. These situations are good reminders that those that make it big have learned from others and have often had a few lucky breaks to help them out.
I'd have to disagree with you on lack of concrete achievements. He has a lot of concrete achievements that you can point to. Starting and selling a company that was before its time. Also, helping many startups succeed. Either one of these alone would count, in my book, as being significant. I think the fact that other people perceive him so positively is a good indication that perhaps he is considerably more talented than even his current concrete achievements suggest. Think about it. Thiel, Graham, etc. These guys evaluate the best of the best on a regular basis. Having been through YC and seeing the deliberate and enormous amount of analysis that they put into each founder, I can't even begin to think through all the thought that they have put into asking Sam to be President of YC.
Another potential positive of empathic caring for another person is an increase in your own personal happiness. It doesn't come directly, but indirectly through helping another person.