NewAperio

I remember the first time I came in contact with a device Steve invented, imagined, dreamed. I was nine years old. My father had just brought home one of the new bondi blue iMacs.

“Where’s the rest of it,” I said inquisitively. At this point in my life, my father had already introduced me to computers. I knew about their construction, design and components. I had never seen anything like this — none of us had.

“It all fits inside. It’s all there,” he told me.

“How?” I was beyond confused.

“Magic.”

My father was right. It was magic. Not because it was physically impossible, that it was some sort of allusion. It merely seemed magical. When you bend the idea of what is possible, you get magical. That’s what Steve was known for.

As I grew up, I continued my exploration into technology. I was always fiddling, tinkering, programming. This was largely on Windows computers. But at a certain point that changed.

I remember seeing a small blurb somewhere about Tiger, a new OS coming from Apple. I hadn’t seen anything Apple in years, so I read more. I was intrigued.

By time the keynote came around, I was hooked. Apple was amazing. I had to see this thing.

I was 16. I was waiting in the car as my mom and sister ran into an appointment. I had been able to grab a wifi signal in the car, so I insisted on staying put to watch what unfolded.

It was magical.

I didn’t know it at the time, but there, in my mom’s minivan, with an aging Dell and a stolen wifi signal, a man whom I’d never meet and whom never’d know my name, profoundly changed my life.

Three years later, I’d be employed by Steve. I was a campus representative at LSU for two years. It was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it.

It gave me the chance to tell people about the products that I love, built by the company I love. I got to share my passion with my peers. I showed them what it feels like to be inspired by a computer, what it feels like to feel joy when using a phone, what the magic of the iPad feels like.

I thank Steve immensely for that opportunity. It was, by far, my favorite employment. The only thing that could get me to leave was to start my own company. And I somehow feel that he would’ve encouraged me to do so.

His devices, his company — it’s all truly magical. What he’s given us, what he’s set in motion — it’ll last for generations to come. I rest easy knowing I’ll be using — creating — with devices that were built with people like me in mind for years to come.

But Steve’s true legacy to me — the way he truly impacted my life — isn’t what he made. It’s what he taught me.

He taught me what design meant. He taught me that it’s important and that it’s not just what it looks like, it’s also what it feels like. He taught me to sweat the small stuff. He taught me that it’s OK to be a perfectionist. He showed me how to make insanely great products and he showed me how to sell them.

He also taught me how to build a company. He taught me how to manage people. He taught me how to instill a burning passion. He taught me that the single most important thing is the people who work for you.

He taught me to live my life, to not be trapped by other people’s dogma. He taught me how to shrug off the weight and embarrassment of failure. He taught me how to follow my heart. He taught me that doing what I love is the single most important thing in life.

Five years later, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m doing what I love. I’m building things for people. I’m creating. And I credit Steve with showing me how.

Steve inspired. He left a legacy. He did and gave so much in his short time with us. We can only dream of giving back in the magnitude that he did.

But that’s just it. If anything, we should know that that’s not what matters. Doing what you love, being kind, doing good — those are the important things.

Having unwavering courage in the face of certain failure. Having the audacity to do what’s right. Having the passion to do what you love. That’s what he left us with. That’s what I’m most inspired by.

Steve, I’m crazy enough to change the world. I’m crazy enough to think that I can leave a dent in the universe. I’ll never grow up. I’ll always stay hungry and foolish. I’ll always think different. And I’m thankful that you were there to show me how.

There are many people I respect. There are few I consider heroes. There is only one Steve Jobs.

Steve, may your legacy continue forever to inspire people to imagine, create and believe in the impossible.

With love and humility and the courage to keep innovating,
Logan

Logan: There’s a post on Quora talking about how long it’d take to build Facebook. The former CTO says 1000 man hours. Holy. Shit.
Evan: That seems reasonable and also not bad?
Logan: That’s just a lot of man hours.
Evan: That’d be ~6.5 weeks for our company, not counting interns.
Evan: Assuming we were working full time
Logan: He said 200 employees, two years.
Evan: Then…he doesn’t know what a man hour is?
Logan: Sorry
Logan: Man years

I’m getting a lot of on-the-job training regarding entrepreneurship. I’ve started writing about it on this blog so that others can share in my experiences. The first was about failure and the second about focus. Today is the third post in this series and I’m going to talk about glamor in this line of work.

Entrepreneurship, to a lot of people, is pretty glamorous. To be honest, a lot of it really is — it’s all very exciting. There’s certainly a sex factor to building a business and being behind something great. You meet cool people (sometimes famous ones), get to have a fancy title (like CEO), and have a real chance and making a difference (and a lot of money to boot). It’s the kind of glamor a lot of people would kill to have.

But it’s also a job. A regular old job, just like any other. And like every job, whether you hate it or love it, it has it’s more unsavory aspects. It’s not all fun and games. You get faced with really difficult problems you’ve never thought of before. You have to make tough calls. You get stuck in a corner with only one way out, and it sucks. Your money is stretched thin. You have to fire someone.

Sometimes, though, what you’re faced with isn’t even all that gloomy; it’s just not all that fun.

Let me take a recent example from my own experience. We recently attended a conference. Like all vendors at conferences, we had to have something to give away. But: what?

I wanted to have the perfect giveaway — something practical that people would use and would remind them of us every time they used it. I wanted something that’d put our name in front of them — hopefully daily. That way whenever they left the conference and our constant presence they would still remember us — and, hopefully, call us!

I spent weeks thinking about it. I called a lot of different promotional companies. I asked around, getting feedback and suggestions.

In the end, we decided on coffee mugs. Coffee mugs. I just had spent three weeks in painstakingly detailed thought over coffee mugs. Even after we decided on the mugs, there was still color, type of ceramic and copy to consider.

Needless to say, I never thought that this would be a part of my job description or my life. Coffee mugs.

But, it worked! After the time I spent on it, our mugs were a raging success. Everyone took one home — some more. In fact, the conference used them to serve the morning coffee in. It wasn’t glamorous or fun, but — success!

Another example from my recent experiences is dealing with lawyers and accountants. We’re growing and so we need a great professional team backing us as we go about our business. In evaluating which firm I’d like to represent us on both lines, I did a lot of research. There were weeks of evaluations, reference-checking and meetings before we made a final decision and retained a firm. I’m not going to lie: it sucked. It really did. I’d rather be programming or talking to clients, but instead I was stuck driving around town talking to prospective firms — awful!

After we selected a law firm, I then had to work with them on getting our contracts squared away. For a few weeks, I was reading up to 100 pages of legal documents. It’s dense. There was a lot of googling involved (I learned a new word: usufructuary). It wasn’t fun in the slightest — I’d liken it to pure torture.

But we needed. It had to be done. It wasn’t glamorous or fun. In the end, however, I’m glad I did. We now have an awesome team backing our plays. It’s freed me up to think less about our finances and legality and focus on our clients, projects and future. It feels good to know we’ve got competent professionals behind us.

On a more technical front, I’ve recently been evaluating different cloud computing platforms for us to deploy on. There was a lot of testing, talking to support and researching. I read a lot of reviews online about the different providers we were looking at. I’m not a sysadmin by any stretch — I’m an engineer. A lot of that stuff is hard and boring to me. But we need a good platform to deploy our apps on. Our clients count on us to provide a solid service, and for that to happen we need a good cloud platform. It needed to be done, but man is it tough to get through.

This represents a really good lesson for all of us entrepreneurs: sure, it’s what I am, but the thing I need to remember is that it’s also a career — a job. With it comes responsibilities and tasks that might not be all that glamorous or cool. But it doesn’t matter — it still needs to get done.

Last week I talked about failure and how it relates to entrepreneurship. It’s worth a read if you’re new to the whole entrepreneur gig or if you have to work with or are close with one of us (admittedly, we’re a little neurotic).

To summarize, though (because I know we’re all busy): failure is not only a part of life but also a necessary ingredient for success. Additionally, failure can actually be freeing. If you’ve failed, you have nothing to lose — pick yourself up and try, try again.

Today I want to talk about something that’s fatal for a lot of entrepreneurs: a lack of focus.

I’ve seen a lot of talented and competent entrepreneurs burn out or fail because of a lack of focus. They try to do too much and spread themselves too thin. No one wins when this happens.

I’ve been guiltier than anyone else I know when it comes to focus. I have a lot of confidence in my abilities, so I get involved in a lot of different things. What happens is that I eventually burn out completely.

A year ago, I had a full-time job, was working on an engineering degree full-time and was working on three startups. For a while, it was all working well and everything was great. My boss loved me, I was making decent grades, and I was making progress in my startups. Not soon after everything changed. I was routinely late on projects, I was carrying a low GPA and my startups were lacking because I wasn’t carrying my own weight.

It wasn’t just a professional problem, either. I was having trouble giving due attention to the important people in my life and was falling into a very unhealthy lifestyle of fast food, no exercise and little sleep.

There was a problem. A big one, too. People were counting on me and I was failing hard. So I stopped. I wrote out a list of priorities. I focused and cut what I didn’t need.

I realized that my priorities were firstly for those I love and secondly for what I love — entrepreneurship.

Once I prioritized, I had to make difficult decisions. I quit my job and started a new one that paid less but had better hours and was better located. I sacrificed money in order to spend more time with those I love and doing what I love. In the end, what I realized (thankfully at a young age) is that it’s not all about money. You kind of cheapen your success if you burn all those you care about in the process.

I also focused on my startups. I’m down to just one now — NewAperio. By doing so, our company has taken off. We’re faced with more success than I could have imagined at this point. The amazing team I have working with me and our awesome clients are certainly an ingredient to this success, but more so is focus.

I’m really not the only one who has this issue. Two of my former cofounders faced the same problem. They’re now off to other ventures and are immensely successful in those. They picked one and are rocking hardcore on those.

Another friend of mine recently told me that he had been honored with a nomination to a very prestigious position. It’d have him traveling a lot, away from home and his company. It’d give him amazing exposure and he’d be talking with a lot of entrepreneurs from all over — a real passion of his.

After a lot of thought, he told me he decided to turn down the nomination. It was a little shocking — I thought he was a perfect fit for the position. But then he told me why: focus. He wanted to focus building entrepreneurship in our city, he wanted to focus on building his company — he wanted to focus on what’s important right now for him.

No one can know what he’ll be missing out on, but I know he’ll ultimately be happier focusing on the things he wants to do here and now.

In this business, there are a lot of pitfalls. We’re faced with countless problems, setbacks and failures. But of everything we face, the most dangerous is ourselves. Focus is a key ingredient to success — without it, you’ll never get anywhere.

Focus leads to success and, more importantly, happiness.

But focus doesn’t just apply to yourself. It also applies to your business — to your product and service offerings. The only way to understand how to focus your business is to be clear about your mission. What are you trying to do?

“Winning” by Jack Welch has a great chapter on mission statements. It’s not about writing great PR copy — it’s about figuring out exactly what your company is about and communicating that effectively to everyone in the company. You can’t be a successful company if there are people within it that don’t understand the mission. The whole company has to be moving forward in the same direction to truly be an effective company.

At NewAperio, our mission is to help our clients realize their passion. What we mean by that is we want to help our clients turn their startup idea into a real product or help a big company move into mobile and communicate better with their clients. We also want to enrich and edify the community around us. We do that by helping things like Creative Louisiana get off the ground and participating in community education — Evan wrote about his experiences and we have more coming in the next few months.

But we had to focus. We don’t take every client — we only take those we think we can help. We don’t participate in every venture pitched to us — only the ones we think fit in our mission. We don’t hire everyone we interview — only those that can help us move our mission forward.

Don’t fall into the trap that saying “no” is bad. If anything it’s good. But, as with everything, is best in moderation. Start in your mind with a no and let yourself be convinced. “No, Logan, this isn’t a good deal.” But it helps push our mission forward, we have the resources, and we can truly help — “Yes, we’re going to do this.”

It’s all about focus. A focused company is a successful company.

There are a lot of things no one really tells you about entrepreneurship. It’s a tough road, really, with a lot of ups and downs and unexpected roadblocks. It’s absolutely exhilarating, but there’s really no way anyone can prepare you for what’s ahead.

I’ve learned a lot in the past few years as I’ve embarked on this road and had to encounter the many issues that ensue. Some of them I knew would be ahead from seasoned entrepreneurs, some of them I expected but was never told about, and some of them that even the best of us can’t see.

I’ve got a few in mind, but this is definitely a series of posts. I’m not sure how many are posts are in this series or how long it’ll take me to complete it, but I think this information is valuable and worth sharing.

The first topic I’d like to discuss is failure.

Failure is something no one really wants to talk about. It’s success that everyone seeks and the best stories come from those that have made it.

But the dirty little secret about failure is that it’s absolutely necessary. Without it, success couldn’t exist. It’s as much a part of entrepreneurship, and, indeed, life, as success is.

Take for example Steve Jobs. Had he not been kicked out of Apple, he wouldn’t have started NeXT. NeXT was a pioneer of technology and the company which, through acquisition, ultimately lead to his triumphant return to Apple. In fact, Jobs credits the failure of being fired from Apple to his later success:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

One more thing: if he had been at Apple, he never would have changed Pixar into the film company we know and love today. Without it, we wouldn’t have the revolutionary CGI movies that Pixar made, such as “Toy Story”.

Of course, Jobs has had monumental success in his life — both before and after his climactic failure. But he’s not the exception. If you ever have the ear of a seasoned entrepreneur, ask them about their failures. Those stories are far more interesting than their successes and you’ll learn a lot more from them. And do! The best advice I’ve ever received has been from people who have failed, learned from it and told others. In fact, they’re almost always more willing to tell their failure stories than their success stories. Why?—because they’re learning exercises.

Look, the path of entrepreneurship has a lot of failures. It’s almost impossible that you won’t, at some point, fail. Some will be small, some will be large and public and humiliating. But with all of them, you have to take it as an opportunity. Yes, you failed — get back up, look at what happened, and learn. Everything with entrepreneurship is on-the-job, and the best training is failure. Learn from your mistakes so you don’t make them again. The important thing isn’t not failing, it’s learning from those failures.

Now, I’d like to talk about one of my failures.

We were working on a project some time ago. It was our first major contract and although the budget was small, it was a huge step forward for us. We were so excited to begin working on it that we jumped the gun — we started the project before the contract was signed.

In the end, the worst thing that could have happened did: the contract was never signed. The client ran out of money and we were dead in the water. We lost several thousand dollars on development cost and it put us in a tough spot. I had screwed up big time.

But I moved forward. I learned from my mistakes and now I double-check that we have a solid contract before we begin working (extra tip: it’s never too early to get a good lawyer—and get a good one).

Luckily, it wasn’t all a bust. We developed some really cool technology on that project that we’ve been able to reuse on several others.

As a wise man once told me: “The deal is trash until you get the cash.”

In the end, failure is inexorable. And, really, you shouldn’t go about trying to avoid failure at all cost. Instead, focus on doing the best you possibly can and when you make a mistake, learn from it and move forward. Take the time to analyze the situation—though not overly so—and learn. Learn, learn, learn. You’ll be smarter and better equipped for the future.

Welcome to our blog. We’ve worked hard on getting this out and we’re excited about sharing our thoughts on entrepreneurship and web and mobile app development in the future. We hope you’ll like what we write!