Listen, Iterate, and Simplify: Karma Co-Founder Story
I’m Steven van Wel, the CoFounder and CEO of Karma. You might have met us at this year’s NY TechDay, but if not, Karma is a startup based here in New York, and we’re on a mission to to make WiFi so seamless and so simple, you never have to think about it.
It has been three years since I launched Karma, along with my cofounder, and we’ve learned a few things along the way which I’d like to share.
1) To Overcome Fear, Think Long Term.
Think long term...and I don’t mean 10 months, I mean 10 years. When you’re in the moment, it’s easy to confuse and sometimes sabotage a monumental decision with fear. In 2012, Karma joined the TechStars accelerator program in New York City. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m from Amsterdam...a bit far from Manhattan. At the time, my wife was three months pregnant and the thought of picking up and moving our lives across the world seemed terrifying and slightly idiotic. In the long run, the worst case scenario was to pack our bags, book a flight, get rid of our apartment, and go home.
Longterm thinking reduces risk for almost every decision. Ask yourself, “How much of an impact will this have 10 years from now?”
And my last point on this topic, if you aren’t comfortable with or open to changing your mind all the time, don’t become an entrepreneur. Which brings me to my next point...
2) It’s better to do something and fail than do nothing at all. Most actions can be reverted.
Let’s say you’re deciding to change your pricing model. The only way to find out if it will work is by doing it. Talking through different scenarios and manipulating prices in excel won’t give you the answer. When you change it and see a huge drop off in sales, it may feel catastrophic, but 9 times out of 10, actions can be reverted or tweaked. You can change it back knowing it didn’t work instead of guessing. Again, think big picture or else you’ll drown in what ifs.
A few of my favorite quotes.
“Everything fails, all the time." Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon.com
“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Henry Ford
3) My three favorite words: Listen, Iterate and Simplify.
This is our motto at Karma. Our first generation had a little plastic flap over the USB port. I hated it. My team hated it. Our customers hated it. So Karma Go, our second generation which ships in a few weeks, has no flap. It’s just an open USB port. We listened, we iterated, and we simplified. This can be applied to everything from building a company culture to creating a product. Work in the real world. It’s one of the best and only ways to learn how to relate to almost every type of person and know how to talk to them. As a teenager, I worked in both a bar and the ICU at a local hospital. Both jobs put me in situations that required me to talk to everyone about anything. This can’t be taught in school. The skills I learned from working at the bar and the hospital, has enabled me to speak confidently throughout my professional life, whether I'm talking to investors, potential hires, or customers. You have to be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. It's one of the most crucial skills for an entrepreneur and it isn't a line item on a resume. Both of my kids will work in a bar.
Note from the editor: Karma is a two time alum of NYTechDay. Karma empowers people with seamless internet connectivity.