THE DREAM IN ACTION

The ActionsTalk Story

When Blake and I started ActionsTalk back in early 2008 we were filled with the excitement that comes with a new venture. We hoped that ActionsTalk would become a valuable service for the “non hub” startup communities. We worked to bring deserved attention to startups who weren’t necessarily getting into the limelight because of their location. We worked at that for a long time. We succeeded at that for a while. We got onto the cover of the business section of the Milwaukee newspaper on the same day Barack was elected president and got huge publicity because of it. Our inboxes were flooded and things were looking up. We locked down some advertisers and AT was making money.

But in time the excitement dwindled and the direction changed. In time those changes lead to stresses on Blake and my relationship. And those stresses, since we were friends before business partners, lead to less excitement of making the business grow. I questioned, why I would want to grow something that seemed like it was harming a great friendship? So, the rate at which we worked and posted crawled and AT as a business died. ActionsTalk remains a great video blog with over 40 amazing entrepreneurial interviews, filled with content that I honestly believe any entrepreneur can learn and benefit from. In that sense it was a success, but no business that doesn’t get sold or continue to grow is a true success.

The changes in our business did introduce serious challenges on our relationship and in the end I think we both backed off because the challenges of a video blog business (a challenging and grinding business to be in) weren’t worth harming the friendship. Startups are tough and they WILL affect the dynamic of the founders relationship. Here are 5 ideas to keep in mind and things to focus on in order to understand and prepare for how a startup will affect a founding teams relationship.

1) Talk about the road map

In the case of ActionsTalk we set a goal of doing ActionsTalk interviews for a year. We reached that goal but it was never clear where, if anywhere, we would go after that. Needless to say, right about the year point, we slowed down. Build a road map, work though it from a product perspective, and from a personal life time-line perspective, and you’ll have a lot better chance of long term success.

2) Practice extremely open communication

Albert Wegner recently wrote a post about calling people out when quite during board meetings. He implied that even some startup founders wouldn’t express their real opinion during these meetings, and potentially he would find that founders completely disagree on direction! This is a big problem and any directional decision should be discussed with founders.

3) Keep emotion out of your business but in your friendship (possibly impossible)

This one is probably the toughest. At some point you’ll have to make a decision, what will come first the friendship or the business? There are so many stresses that come into running startup business that it’s going to be extremely tough. I do believe that you can run a business with a friend or family member but it takes a very special relationship and priorities do have to be discussed.

4) Focus on the larger goal

I worked on a project a few months back with my friend Allen. We decided to plan for about 2 weeks and raise money for one week and donate all of that money to building Libraries in Laos. He was traveling there at the time and I did all of the “social media” and out reach work state side. In 5 days we raised a few thousand dollars. Although a little stressful because of the fact that we didn’t actually hit our goal of $5000, our relationship was fine throughout. This may have been because of the shorter time period of the project, but I really do think that both his and my focus on the goal is what kept it so fun for both of us. As we checked our donations daily hourly it became more and more motivating. In the end it was a very successful project because of our ability to focus on the goal.

5) Don’t do it

Lastly, if you think that a friendship will not withstand the pressures of a startup, don’t do it. People are usually your friends because they are similar to you. Those are often the worst business partnerships anyway. The Ying and Yang relationships work better on the whole because you need those complimenting skills and challenging view points. Like I said before, a priority usually has to be chosen and if the friendship is the priority the project can often end poorly.

photo via flickr