by tomnora | Jun 21, 2019 | founder
This article is a quick note to answer the many inquiries I get about finding the perfect cofounder.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been casually looking for someone to work with, to develop and market a suite of mobile applications (iOS, Android) for the entertainment world. I’m describing this other person variously as a cofounder, partner, CTO, and collaborator.
The focus has been on someone with the right combination of technical experience/excellence, mutual chemistry, plus the right timing and inclination in their lives to do this.
I’ve asked around, talked to friends and even put a little ad in craigslist in Los Angeles. Through all this there have been many responses, some very positive, and some pretty weird. I realized what I’m doing is inadvertently conducting a social experiment here.
The explosion of mobile phones and mobile apps has created an almost visceral response when you mention mobile, or Droid, or especially iPhone, or iPad. Everyone wants to have a connection with it, whip out their smartphone, show you their aquarium screen saver.
You either have one or wish you did. When I was a child, it was having the newest Schwinn bike, in a cool color. $37.95. Or the latest hot record album. You either had them or wished you did.
Now it’s another computer device that you can carry with you, is “always on”, and can do almost everything (and plays the latest hot album). Suddenly waiting in line somewhere you can instantly become productive if you want, or play a game.
If you carry this one step further – actually being involved in developing and deploying mobile apps, it’s even more compelling. A higher level way to become part of the society and possibly make some money.
COFOUNDER FOCUS
The focus should be more on the functionality or enjoyment or how you’re improving the world, but it’s not – it’s more the idea of being part of this new baby-app world. The result is many apps and businesses that come and go quickly.
Over 2,200,000 iOS apps are deployed plus equal amounts of Android and others. Most are unused or have a short lifespan and very little revenue. It’s more of a hobby or personal challenge than a scalable business.
In looking for a co
founder, I’m searching for the combination that will allow us to build a long term growth company, scalable and adaptable over several years. I want to create long term jobs and products people will use. That’s not the sentiment of most CTO-types I talk to. They want Cash Now, to be paid for their work by the hour/project.
KEEP LOOKING
I see the economy has changed the focus to short term survival, not entrepreneurship (except in Silicon Valley). People believe they can learn app dev in 3-6 months and then create their own long term income, and they’re right on the mark in many cases.
Aside from revenue generation, mobile apps are needed for basic business existence in most areas. Almost all companies are retooling their public image while also increasing their ability to market real-time. The mobile phone/pad is becoming central to our lives, more than our computer in many cases.
I’m going to keep looking for a cofounder. I’ve been lucky enough to create a few new products in this world that stick, which creates the backbone of scalability, I’m having more fun in this new domains than ever before. If you know anyone, send them my way. @tomnora @cowlow
by tomnora | Sep 19, 2011 | CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Scalability, startup CEO
Responses to my Santa Fe Friends + Cali Friends + + letter. In chronological order.
So you and Rich Murray became friends? how long did he last at NMCC?LOL
peggy
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Hey Tom Baby!!! Im HERE!!!Patsy
Lets get together soon
Loved this message!
Thank you.
I have some good ones for you to meet.
Can you send more info on your social media (or otherwise) focus?
Peter
Tom,Thanks for the thoughtful note. We miss you and look forward to seeing you soon.The NM Green Chamber of Commerce wants a ‘buy local’ app. Does such a thing already exist?Would you be interested (or know someone) in creating it? Alex works with the chamber and I know the folks involved.
Don’t get shot out there.
Joe
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
yeah very good friends. he runs the poker game! Not long with Jarrett. He barely remembers him.
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show details Sep 16 (3 days ago)
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I missed the excitement of the real business world and the water.
I made amazing friends out there and enjoyed small town life very much, but needed to plug back in and wanted to launch a startup here.
New Mexico is a weak startup location – missing many parts and move too slowly. The best of both worlds is to have both, but I can only live in one place at a time.
Napa is probably similar to Santa Fe in many ways, I could see you living there. Hope all is well for you, have a glass of wine for me.
Tom: Congrats on your move, I wish you the best.
Enjoyed our discussions and adventures. Hope we can stay in touch and please let me know when you get back this way.
Best personal regards,
David
yeah just say when. lunches are pretty open. will you have a car?
T
Yes I’m interested, building up a strong little team here of app developers. Tell me whom to connect with.
Also interested in Teres Kids progress. Did u guys get funding yet?
I’m sure 9/11 was a thoughtful day for you. Take care.
Tom,Wow, what a great letter, what a great way to catch us all up on your move.
As someone who still hangs on to her LA area code, I love your new city and consider it still “my city” even though after seven or eight years here,
I have to admit I’m not living there anymore.
I’m going to be out there in early October to attend Indiecade…do you have a free couch?
You should see my paintings! I am making major progress!
I wish you all the possible best in your new environs and really do hope to stay in touch.
Note my new phone number and I cc’d you on my go-forward email address after I leave EPIC in January.
BE WELL!
Big hugs,
Stephanie
Good luck Tom, thanks for staying in touch.
Stephen Hadwin
Hi Tom. Thanks for your soulful update. Gotta get tough if you’re gonna stay in LA though! Just remember, compliment everyone on everything and you’ll fit right in. – JB
yes i’m back in the groove, moving faster, no mo “manana”, headed to Arrowhead today to catch up with OC friends.
Good luck, Tom. Let’s try to keep in touch.
I had a great weekend in San Francisco and I’m trying to figure out how to get back more often.
Need to start generating some income so I can afford a small apartment in the city.
Trying to figure out how to schedule a trip to India with my new partner in our social enterprise.
Anyway, give me a call when you get a chance. Enjoy the urban life.
Thanks for the official welcome – i’m stuck in town this weekend but could go next wkend if ur still painting. Are u painting walls or canvases?
Heather: Now that Tom is living in Los Angeles, it would be a real favor to my friend if you would drag him along to some events there so he
can get integrated into the social media and tech scene there.Stewart
wow. Life changes, the one thing we can always count on. Back in LA, must feel strange in some ways,
exciting in others. . . curious Tom, as we haven’t talked in awhile, what prompted the move? And, did you rent a u-haul?
I know you like Nascar and all, drive fast and all, but somehow you and Frieda in a u-haul? Nah. . .
I may be in LA to look at some projects there, so maybe we’ll connect.
Texas is unreal, even for me, but here I am.
Brazos y besos
Iim at district 13 right now u gotta check it out.
Gonna miss you! I had no idea that you left to the bigger city. I do get out there as my sister lives near you, in the West Hollywood area and my son, is enrolled at Claremont McKenna College.
So, I’ll be sure to give a call when in the area. Let me know when you are visiting NM and I’ll make a point of taking you for drinks.
Have fun and make a difference out there! Lillian
Hi Tom—
Wow I had no idea you were moving!!! We are definitely going to miss seeing you and hearing about all your entrepreneurial experiences at our events.
Best of luck in California and next time you are visiting in NM let me know. J
Take care! Shandra
Absolutely.
Tom, please feel free to email or call me. Social Media Week LA is happening right now and I believe there’s some events
(looking into it). If not this week, there’s a few good events every month. Would love to connect.Heather
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by tomnora | Jul 19, 2011 | founder, Scalability
From July 2011,,.
California. Most of my 25 year career has been in California; about half of those in Silicon Valley. I’ve been involved with several amazing companies throughout Northern and Southern Cal; I have expanded, launched, M&A’d, relaunched, liquidated, succeeded and failed, you name it.
I’ve also had the good fortune to operate and sometimes live in several other fledgling tech corridors – Cambridge, NYC, Portland, Boulder, Santa Fe, Austin, Dallas, SLC, Frankfurt, Paris. In every case these other places aspire to be a self sustaining baby Silicon Valley of their own – Silicon Alley, Silicon Prairie, Silicon Coast. But they don’t quite make it. Some come close, like New York or now Boulder but it’s still not quite the same.
The term Silicon Valley is now a misnomer – it has moved way beyond silicon and way beyond the original Santa Clara valley to spread all over California. The new hot spots are San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, the east bay, etc.
San Francisco
San Francisco has actually successfully co-opted the Silicon Valley magic and even surpassed it in some ways (Twitter, Salesforce.com); it’s again a very hot place to be right now and this will continue. Talk about scalability! If you plop your company here, great things could happen. It wasn’t always that way – in the 80’s and much of the 90’s San Fran was a sub-par runner up to SV, trying to catch up. Great PR and finance firms, but not many startups. Houses were cheaper, you couldn’t get good engineers, etc. That has all changed. Now companies have bidding wars for office space amid a major national recession.
There’s a magic and complex dynamic to the combination of things that make California so different. Just say the word and people take notice. There’s a seriousness, a buzz, confidence, reliability, completeness, professionalism. An assumption that you’ll more likely make it there.
Southern California
The “Silicon Basin” – – With the convergence of social media, the Internet, and digital entertainment, Southern California is now humming as a great startup region. In 2003 Electronic Arts actually moved their headquarters from Silicon Valley to Playa Vista, an crazy move at the time, and accelerated their growth as a result. Several smaller software groups, vfx studios and creative design labs are now benefitting from the movement south. Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and others are growing their employee base and presence in L.A. Venture Capital from Northern and Southern Cal is flowing into the L.A. basin. It has the key catalyst – several excellent universities spitting out young engineers and business people. It has a strong and growing angel investor base, tapping one of the largest concentrations of individual wealth in the world.
There are exceptions to the California phenomenon; several amazing companies have emanated from these other areas, always have, and many of these ecosystems are now of course self sustaining, but they’re not the same as California. Countless companies have moved there for this advantage, reference Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook. Good move. If you’re somewhere else, it’s because you’ve made a tradeoff, a compromise. I know as I’ve done it myself several times and I’m glad I did. I’ve rooted for other places to approach California’s ecosystem, but I know they’ll never come close.
If you want maximum scalability for your business, you should be in California. If you the best capital providers, the best people, the highest valuations, you gotta be in Cali. You could get more advantages from a couple of visits to a coffee shop in Palo Alto than spending a year in some other town. @tomnora @cowlow
by tomnora | Feb 3, 2011 | startup CEO
Orrick Startup Kit
by tomnora | Feb 1, 2011 | CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Revenue Growth
I had dinner recently with a former colleague and good friend, let’s call him Al, who has recently transitioned from CTO to CEO of an early stage company he founded; he’s struggling with every aspect of his new job. Al was originally the de-facto leader through his first funding round, then at the urging of many around him recruited an experienced CEO to “take it to the next level”. Potential investors, former bosses, and current shareholders felt this was a critical step in for them to invest more time or money. The common line was “You’re not a CEO”. The new CEO was performing well, hitting milestones, preparing new funding and building the business, but he and Al couldn’t get along.
So now Al is now back in charge. This happens often in the early stages, sometimes because the new CEO is a bad match, but that’s usually just an excuse. Usually the CEO leaves for good or bad reasons, or the founder can’t let go of control of the company. In this case it was the latter. Als investors and employees are quite unhappy and he’s not sleeping much.
In hearing his frustrations I figured out his main problem – he’s having serious problems making decisions and sticking with them, which is why he brought in a professional CEO in the first place. He has no reference point for many key decisions so lacks the confidence to execute decisions. His frustration is that this doesn’t happen to him in technical matters – he’s brilliant at those decisions. Technical leaders frequently underestimate the job of the CEO or business leader in a fledgling startup. They use the logic – hey, I’m extremely smart, so marketing, sales, and business development can’t be as hard as developing an entire software platform. This is a big mistake, and a common reason why startups never get out of the gate.
I’ve been the incoming CEO several times in early stage startups, taking over for the founder. This transition is difficult to pull off, but necessary for many companies to scale. Emotionally it’s very hard for a founder to “let go” and trust an outsider to care as much as he/she does about their baby. There are also others around the founder that can feel ownership and impede the new CEO – a spouse, other early employees, a displaced senior manager who thought he/she had a shot at the job. I’ve experienced all of these situations, but I’ve also had many good experiences where I did have sponsorship and support, and succeeded.
In Al’s case, he never really committed himself to stepping aside, even though he said the words. He admits that now. In his actions he inadvertently sabotaged his new partner, changing the CEOs decisions without discussion, etc. He felt that the new CEO was making “too many” decisions. He obviously wasn’t ready. I realize that he still isn’t ready.
The reason for our meeting was to see if I was interested in the job – he feels that our long term relationship would provide the foundation for a successful transition, but I know it wouldn’t work. I explained to him what CEO means to me – the final decision maker in a company, answerable to a real Board of Directors, of which the founder is a member but not the only member. The E in CEO stands for execution, making things happen, responsible for the results. The CEO must communicate clearly to everyone involved what he/she is doing, especially if taking over the reins from a founder, but should be supported by all as the final major decision maker. If that process works, the company works. Without that authority they become ineffective quickly and are only doing portions of the job, and can’t take full responsibility; then they leave and you have to start all over.
I explained to Al two reasons why I wouldn’t join his company: 1) With all due respect, I don’t feel that he’s any more ready to let go than he was a year ago, even though he respects my abilities and has comfortably worked for me before, and 2) the company is distressed now, unhappy employees, unhappy investors, delays in both the business and technical initiatives, messy equity stakes and a decrease in trust all around. Like I said, a Big Mistake. I told him his best chance is to try to learn how to be a CEO or merge his company as fast as possible. But this one is most likely kaput.
