My top tips for foreign entrepreneurs
Recently, one of our investors asked me to make a short video & screencast introducing myself and my company to a group of foreign entrepreneurs that wanted to peek under the covers and see what the life of a US startup CEO is like.
Since I believe in capturing content for knowledge sharing, I decided to go a step further and write this full post about how I work, so this investor would not only have the video he requested, but also have a URL to send to these foreign entrepreneurs with specific tips.
About me & how I work:
I've written passionately about Scrum before, and how it's a great way to create an agile development environment in a startup. I've adapted a flavor of Scrum for my personal daily routine. (This isn't full-on Scrum since it's something I just use personally, but it adheres to the most important principle: At any given point in time. You should be focused on whatever is most important, regardless of any arbitrary deadlines).
Here's what my personal Pivotal Tracker account looks like:
As you can see in the screenshot above, I use Pivotal Tracker (PT) to manage the things I need to accomplish. Every morning, I spend ten minutes having a "standup" meeting with myself (sounds silly, but it's incredibly valuable) to make sure that the stories in PT are prioritized the way I want them to be. Then I attack the list of things I need to get done, checking stories off as I deliver them. It's a dumb yet awesome feeling to be able to look back at the end of the day to see what you accomplished that day, and importantly, to know that the things you got done were the most important things you could've gotten done that day, and not just busywork. Watch the video above for more details on how I use PT to be as productive as I can be.
You can also read about what motivated me to come out West, to San Francisco, you can find my bio here, and you can learn more about the things I know to be true.
I'm also passionate about the value of building a strong personal brand, playing a computer like an instrument (and especially being efficient with Rapportive and CloudApp)
About my startup, Socialize:
Socialize is a social API that mobile app developers use to make their apps more social. You can learn more about Socialize right here, or take a look at this recent demo day video that describes Socialize:
I was recently asked in the community section of this blog about what marketing an SDK is like, which I answered in detail right here.
Socialize is seeing strong growth:
About Fundraising:
Socialize is angel funded, and we raised a large part of our angel round using AngelList. I've written extensively about the value of AngelList, which you can find in these posts right here. I've also written about some of the things I've learned as an entrepreneur in this post titled "Evolution of a startup: Lessons learned."
About this blog:
If you're one of the foreign entrepreneurs reading this blog, I'd encourage you to join the conversation in the community section of the blog. You can post any thoughts, comments or questions you have about startups and being an entrepreneur over there. My goal is to create a sanctuary for entrepreneurs to help each other via this blog. Hope these links are helpful.