“Ramping Up” Instead Of “Winding Down”
Even though we’re hitting close to the holidays when most people think things are slow, we are ramping up our efforts to finish in big style. 

It’s been now a year since I quit my previous job. I went from a phase of working at home alone to working with my partner at home to both of us renting a desk at a co-working space. The less stressful period was the first one, excitement was running through my veins, fretting over the finances was not an issue yet and work was organized in a very simple way: if I feel like doing it, I do it, if not, I don’t. The second period was hell. Little was accomplished with both of us working from home. The third period started when we started renting a desk at the co-working space. We started building routines and accomplishing more and working more and better.

Startups do take over your life. You end up thinking about it all the time, weekends included. It can be overwhelming and you have to put up some limits and rules to deal with it. I thought it would be different. I thought I would have another motivation and not so many limitations. Its very easy to get your hopes down. Its easy to start thinking and over thinking.

Here are some of the things that cross my mind every now and then, followed by how I try to deal with them:

I feel like I have to decide everything. I don’t like it when it is up to me to take all the decisions

That’s part of being a leader, some times you have to be confident and just stand your ground on what you are doing. If it turns out that it wasn’t the best decision you can always turn.

My co-founder says “what should we do” instead of “I think we should do like this…”

The other person probably just wants your opinion, not your decision. you can always say “I don’t feel like deciding this right now..”

Things are not going forward as I expected. The deadline is always slipping and we never ship.

Be more careful when estimating; are you estimating too low?

I don’t have enough experience. I don’t know what to do, when to do it, why, where or how to do it!

Invest in whatever training you think can help you improve your experience (management, etc).

I have so much work, I can’t possibly do it all :(

Prioritize. Get rid of the crappy stuff.

And remember, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t manage to get a startup running. There are lot of startups that fail every day.

• Brad Feld (feld.com)
• Clint Nelson, Director of Startup Weekend
• Bill Liao, co-founder of Xing.com
• Alex Farcet, co-founder of Startupbootcamp
• etc.

I must say I’m particularly attracted not so much by the talks themselves but by the workshops. Rather than having the normal conference talks, in the first two days the program includes workshops such as:

• Stone Soup – “how to create something from nothing”
• The Art of Customer Development
• Making Open Innovation Work
• From Innovation To Cash Flows
• Social Media Tools and Open Innovation
• (more to come)

Definitely worth checking out, hope to see you there!

http://www.lxfactory.com

There is one little thing I would like to suggest.

Say I get an email from a client A in New York to schedule a meeting at 9am followed by another client B in New Zealand for a meeting at 1pm. They are both scheduling a meeting at the same time because I’m sitting in Lisbon so I’ll have to reschedule at least one of them. It would be very practical if Yoomit could make the time conversion and eventually warn of overlapping meetings. Is it too much to ask? Maybe it is but anyway here is the suggestion. Anyone else feels this pain? :)

p.s. I’ve also sent a message to the guys at MuchBeta. Let’s see if they say something.

LX Factory, Alcântara,  starting at 144€ per month

http://liberdade229.com/

Av. da Liberdade, starting at 204€ per month

http://www.coworkpicoas.com/

Picoas, starting at 181€ per month

Note that coworking is not about the price, it’s an opportunity to socialize and work with other entrepreneurs and like-minded people.

Being a sun shinning day outside I wasn’t quite sure if he was talking about the weather :) but of course he was talking in terms of the conditions and general atmosphere in Portugal to start and run a business. Here’s a brief overview of what I told him and what I think after having put some thought into it.

1. Talent

It’s hard to find and recruit good talented and ethical workers. It’s even harder to get them to stay with you in the long term. This “individualistic attitude” and aversion to risk was indeed pointed out in a report by the European Commission in 2006. Maybe the solution here is to recruit more foreigners that would like to live here?

2. Entrepreneur Support

The initiatives to support entrepreneurs pretty much boil down to strategic propaganda by the government and are extremely bureaucratic. They have to treat everyone the same way, it doesn’t matter if you’re starting a tech company or a hotdog booth.

3. Net 60/90

We have Net 60 or Net 90, payment 60 or 90 days after invoice date – the government and big corporations all seem to use this. That’s really bad for entrepreneurs because after a sale there’s still 2 to 3 months before getting any money into your account.

4. Not a big market for mergers and acquisitions

The likelihood of your business getting bought by “bigger fish” is very low. Can you list tech companies that were acquired or merged? There are no examples of successes so there is little incentive to try something like starting a startup to sell in the first years.

5. Universities are not entrepreneur oriented

The creation of startup companies is not adopted by the Universities as a priority and as a result most students finish their degree without never ever thinking about the possibility of starting their own company. It is something so remote that it is not even worth thinking about.

6. Anti-entrepreneur culture

Most of the older generations does not recognize any value in someone that takes the risk of starting a company or going self-employed. It’s simply not appreciated. A friend that runs a startup told me his mother didn’t believe he was working until she saw his name on the newspaper.

On the positive side,

1. Climate

the weather is very good. According to an article by BBC, “Its southerly latitude gives it a Mediterranean type of climate, similar to that of the state of California, but one where the summer heat is tempered by the Atlantic influence.”

2. Food

and the food is great (we were having Sushi so I don’t think this point applied very well at the time). Portuguese food varies but fresh fish and shellfish are found commonly on every menu, and the country is full of specialty seafood restaurants.

3. Taxes

Our taxes are still lower than most countries in Europe. The tax burden is at 36.2% for singles with no kids (I would say the typical entrepreneur) in Portugal, compared to e.g. 51.8% in Germany. (OECD, 2005 data)

4. Green Receipt Book

Although a plague for employees (because companies misuse them) , the green receipt book (Caderneta de Recibos Verdes) is actually a helpful measure for entrepreneurs because they allow to hire people with less costs on the first year of company operations.

5. Tourism

The climate, beaches, lifestyle and leisure activities that attract companies, researchers and students to Portugal are also the mainstay of the country’s tourism industry, which accounts for more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product.

6. Community

The amount of Hackers, Makers and Geeks in Portugal is growing and so is the number of group meetings that you can find. Many are held monthly or at least regularly.

Please note,

this is of course far from being complete, accurate or even meaningful. I was careful enough to include a few positive points to counterpart for the negative ones. I didn’t want to be accused of pessimism, a point many would have listed here as well.

http://ineo.pt/2010/02/podcast-goncalo-quadros-critical/

Do outro lado do oceano, as histórias são bem diferentes mas também valem a pena ouvir :) Aqui fica um vídeo de um painel com 6 estudantes de Stanford que criaram empresas nos seus 20 e poucos anos.

“Six young Stanford grads and entrepreneurs — Steven Garrity, Clara Shih, Kimber Lockhart, Jeff Seibert, Josh Reeves, and Tristan Harris — share their experiences starting companies and raising capital. While being in their 20s may seem to be an obstacle to outsiders, they said they “flipped” this liability into an asset — focusing instead on their raw ability to bring innovative ideas to life. They advise all young entrepreneurs to be persistent, opportunistic, and scrappy. “