Welcome to my blog!
Here, you’ll find the weekly updates of my journey as a solo founder of an early-stage technology startup. The goal of these posts is to share the story and learnings as they unfold in real time instead of after success or failure has been reached. By de-romanticizing the narrative, I hope to share information, ideas, and challenges in a transparent manner that sparks conversation and inspires change.
Who am I? I’m an engineer who said yes to an idea. I’m a leader who’s ready to take on business challenges from the top instead of the bottom. I’m a community builder ready to set an example for inclusive and equitable workplaces. And I’m a founder of a music and technology startup.
Blogs not your style?
Just. Keep. Going.
It has been nine months since I started my journey as a full time entrepreneur in the tech space. In that amount of time, I have started and left two projects with different people and started a third on my own. It’s easy to look back on the year and feel like nothing was accomplished after two false starts and barely getting a start on the third. However, a good friend and former colleague reminded me of something:
This is normal.
Back Online 📶
I’ve been away from the blog for a few weeks and so to the world it seems like things stopped moving. In reality, it’s been the exact opposite. I started working on a new business venture. I have alluded to it previously, leaving little easter eggs in previous blog and social posts, but I’ll tell you a little more about it now. 🧘
Mission Accomplished 🚀
My First Startup is in the Books. ✅
This was a week that took an unexpected turn. Within a matter of days, our startup that was just beginning to pick up momentum ended with an impasse between myself and my co-founder. Let’s talk about what happened.
TAM: Total Addressable Market
AKA The Most Important Number You’ll Ever Bullshit As An Early Stage Startup.
Communication: Tech vs Non-Tech
There is an incredible amount of value in being able to explain your work at a level everyone can understand because it brings about:
Diversity of thought
Inspiration
Transparency
And more
But what are some effective ways to make this happen?
Customer-First Marketing: How Generalization Can Lead to Stereotyping
In a way, we behave just like a machine learning model does. When we’re given the data we have, we try to generalize it as best we can, but at some point we can easily lean toward overfitting for optimal yield.
Spoiler Alert:
If you want to build a company that fosters belonging, promotes inclusivity, and models business practices you’d be proud of for years to come, you have to do the work on yourself first.
Accelerators
A good accelerator program will connect you to resources, information, networks, mentors, and more…so why is it that some folks have terrible experiences with accelerators and others need it just to figure out what is going on?
Did You Know?
To assume the title of Founder and C-Suite Executive of an AI tech startup, all you have to do is say yes to an idea.