Hung Truong: The Blog!

Startup Incubation Week 5 Update!

I’ve been in New York working on our startup for about 5 weeks now. So far the experience has been really enlightening. Between reading the Startup Genome Report, a handbook on Customer Development, listening to awesome lecturers talk about bizdev, pitching, pivoting, etc, I think I have a much better handle on what entrepreneurship really is.

So far, we’ve probably pivoted about 2 times, and we’re not even at the halfway point yet! The support from mentorships has been really helpful in understanding what startups really need to focus on to be successful. Without a market, there’s no company. Without the proper product to market fit, there’s no company. And if everything fits perfectly, you still need to be able to scale your service or product to meet demand!

Approaching a startup in a semi-scientific way is also very cool. Instead of looking at a startup as an ultra risky venture, you’re really looking for ways to prove hypotheses and make the thing as un-risky as possible while maximizing the potential upsides.

Bebarang is chugging along and I hope to provide an actual launch post some time soon (in private beta, of course).

Start Spreading The News… I’m Moving to NYC For The Summer!

So I’ve been relatively quiet on this piece of news for a while, but since I’m moving to New York in like, two days, I figure I should post something about it.

A few months ago, I joined up with Bebarang, a startup that’s graduated from the TechArb program at the University of Michigan and has been accepted into NYC SeedStart for the Summer of 2011. The simple pitch is that we’re trying to solve the problem of babies growing out of their clothes all the time. We’re still figuring out the details.

I am super excited (and lucky) to be part of another entrepreneurial incubator program. I gained a whole lot from the awesomeness of RPM10, and I hope the same will be true for NYC SeedStart. My partner, Allen, is super sharp and I think we’ll end up getting a lot of stuff done between the two of us.

Regardless if we exit at $100 billion (or settle for a $50 billion exit), I’m looking forward to living in a new city, getting to know the tech scene and building up a company once again. Stay tuned for updates about my summer in NY!

New iPhone Ringtone: Nyan Cat

I kinda got tired of the Guile ringtone on my iPhone, so I made a Nyan Cat one. You can have it too! Get it here.

Threadless Shirt Meme: Pianos That Aren’t

There are a few memes that are pretty regularly printed on Threadless. Stuff like pop culture references turned into puns, things with cute faces (which normally don’t have faces) and birds are among the popular subjects of Threadless shirts. I just noticed another one while browsing the site for shirts during the summer $12 sale (which has been extended to Friday): pianos that aren’t.

Item 1: The Choir of Antarctica

Item 2: Piano Skyline

Item 3: The Pianist

Are there any that I missed? Lemme know in the comments!

Delayed Gratification in Engineering and Entrepreneurship

I read a blog post about Engineers and Delayed Gratification a while ago from ex-Googler and ex-Microsoftie Ninane Wang that made me think. She says that new engineers (like straight from school) have a hard time adjusting to the real world because they expect to be rewarded immediately for their work. In the real world, you don’t see rewards for your work for months, or even years! Her solution is to have managers provide instant feedback to their reports so they get at least some acknowledgment of their work.

Since quitting Microsoft and setting out on my own (and even before that), I’ve had to trust that the stuff I am working on is meaningful and worthwhile. This is hard sometimes, especially if the thing I’m working on seems like a gamble. Having done the whole independent hacking thing for a while, I think I’ve built up the rolling reward cycle that Niniane mentions. Some days I’ll feel like I’m underachieving or working on something that no one will find useful. Then I’ll get a donation from someone for Instascriber (this actually happened!!!) or see another 5 star review for my Threadless app and get re-encouraged.

At the end of the day, I think what really separates the employees from the entrepreneurs is the willingness to be unsure about something and still do it. The uncertainty is much greater when you’re working on an unproven idea, business model, or whatever, but then so are the potential rewards, too. And even if you end up failing, you learn something and are better for it.

In some ways, delaying gratification even sort of makes sense. If you immediately were rewarded for doing something innovative, you might lose the passion (like Rocky did) and stop innovating so you can enjoy your riches. While I can’t say that delaying gratification indefinitely would be a good idea, accepting that there will be a delay is probably healthy.