Adii Pienaar

I first signed up for Path a little more than a year ago (on 23 November to be precise), after it was lauded as an "app to watch" being the brainchild of long-time Facebook employee, Dave Morin (heck, Google apparently tried to acquire Path for $100m back then). Path sounded good, so I gave it a try... A signup and one "status" later and I didn't see how Path would fit into my current social (networking) landscape.

Fast-forward to today and everyone is raving about Path V2. Like any pretend-hipster, I can't resist the urge of having a look at the new version; so I install a new copy on my iPhone (because I obviously deleted it after the useless experience last time around).

First impression: Shit, this looks really great! I love the UI, the interactions and everything is just so beautiful. I want to spend more time with this.

Second Impression: Wait. This now means I need to maintain yet another - separate - network. Mmm, unlikely. 

Having thought about this in more detail, I'm really unsure why Path are trying to create a whole new network, when there's so many great networks out there already. Surely it would've made sense to tap into those, since this would lower the barrier to entry (assuming that the user's time to maintain multiple networks is the constraint) for so many users?

Path is being billed as "A diary for a mobile and social world" and I actually think that - at the heart of the app - they accomplish this incredibly well. I can imagine myself scrolling through screens and screens of beautiful data, looking back at exactly what I did in the last year. That's not my problem with Path, in fact I love that about them. But as is the case with most things in life: "shit in, shit out", meaning that if I want that lovely reminiscing experience, I need to get the data in there.

I guess it would've been easier for me to use Path if they were aggregating my social data from elsewhere. Why not take my photos from Instagram? My check-ins from Foursquare / Gowalla / Facebook? And how nifty would Spotify or Rdio integration have been for music?

Had this been there, I'd likely have been a very active Path user... As things stand though, I've already deleted Path from my iPhone.

Whilst spending time with my newborn son in the last 48 hours, I realized that it's possible to draw a lot of comparisons between how founders act within their startups and how parents do with their newborn babies.

The one comparison that particularly jumped out at me, is how new parents (any parents?) believe that their baby is just the most beautiful baby in the world. I've yet to meet a parent who doesn't believe that their baby is the most beautiful in the world and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I have the same feeling about my newborn son.

I don't care that rationally this might not be the truth. I can even accept the fact that I'd never be able to prove this or that with 6bn-odd people on the earth, that this is statistically very improbable. This doesn't matter though, because I believe this to be the truth.

And this is how I believe startup founders should view their own businesses: in their eyes, it should be the best in the world. Founders need to have the kind of conviction & determination to make their startups succeed, even if all rationale odds indicate to the contrary. In most cases - and especially in the early stages of a startup - the rationale stuff doesn't matter; instead it's about chasing that burning fire called passion and working hard to execute your idea(s). It doesn't matter whether a sexier startup exists out there.

Your startup will flourish with the kind of love & attention you'll direct to it if this were your mindset.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my personal ambitions on how so many revolves around being an entrepreneur and being involved in business(es). In my attempts of figuring out why entrepreneurship is such an integral part of who I am, I realized that there's one aspect of being an entrepreneur that greatly appeals to me: the sky is the limit.

I believe that in business (and as an entrepreneur) that everything is possible that we're only driven by our own passion, ideas, hard work & ambition. Stumbling blocks or supposed limitations are only challenges that entrepreneurs need to face (and find creative solutions for) along the way.

This appeals to me, because I'm a naturally ambitious person who doesn't like to be put in a box. I simply love the fact that I'm able to have this never-ending journey from project to project, business to business. The sky is the limit.

Everyone knows that word-of-mouth marketing represents a significant competitive & business value. Such is this value that word-of-mouth & viral marketing has almost become an exact science in recent years.

Customer testimonials forms a big part of such a marketing strategy and this evidenced by almost every online product / service's homepage where you'll see a fair share of customer testimonials.

So when I read a recent case study & testimonial from a WooThemes customers, it just this home to me again: you really can't buy anything else that represents similar marketing value.

That case study just communicates so many great things about WooThemes: passion & love for the product(s), the flexibility of the product(s), the maturity of the product(s) (which allows the customer to use it for a big, commercial project) etc. Not even the best marketer in the world could conceptualize a campaign that communicates those values as efficiently & authentically as that customer testimonial.

So how are you enabling and empowering your customers to write a similar testimonial about your company and products / services?

I think most would agree that ideas are just a multiplier of execution, and that just having an idea for a new startup isn't sufficient to actually get started or be successful. Neither does it make you an entrepreneur.

I have however recently come across quite a prevalent problem with this: if you're the non-technical ideas / business guy within the startup realm, you are most probably struggling to get your projects out there due to your lack of technical skills (and thus your ability to actually build anything).

So sure, there are a couple of ways around this:

• Find a technical co-founder. Even if you manage to figure out the question of equity distribution, quality technical co-founders seem to be few & far between.
• Outsource the work to a top-notch developer. This is expensive, because quality development talent is in high demand, which means you will have to put a considerable amount of cash into a startup just to get it to Alpha or Beta.
• Outsource the work to any other developer that you can afford. There's probably a reason you can afford these: they either don't have the skills / experience, have a bad reputation or are likely to drop you before ever getting close to Alpha or Beta.

This is probably one of the biggest reasons that I failed in setting up a side-project beyond WooThemes. And this exact challenges have come up in so many conversations that I've had with talented individuals that have great ideas for startups.

How do you get around this?