In this episode, we talk through the importance of momentum, and how the metaphor of boat speed is so relevant to early stage start-ups.

The post was triggered by a number of key milestones that have helped us build a ton of momentum and buzz around NYC (well, not ALL around NYC, but we’re working hard!), including:

1. Identification of our CTO, Francis Hwang
2. Incorporation
3. Winning “Top Pitch” at the Founder Institute NYC

Things are really looking great, and I would be excited to hear your ideas about building boat speed.

Transcription:
I am Adam Neary, and this is “Confessions of Startup CEO.” This is episode 6 and it is all about boat speed.

Now it has been a couple of weeks since our last post. I don’t like to normally go that long between episodes so I apologize. A tremendous amount has happened between now and then, which is one of the reasons why we haven’t had time to put a new video up. We are excited to announce that we incorporated and that the business that we are launching is called Profitably, Inc. More available at profitably.com. Even as of the last post we didn’t have a lot of information about my blog about how to get more information on whom you should contact if you want to learn more about what you are up to. Now you can go to profitably.com and we have little teasers site in there in the new version of it is coming out you know in a matter of weeks.

So things are really picking up speed for us. In addition to our incorporation we are able to find our CTO hire which is the most important hire we have been thinking about recently. I am excited to announce Francis Hwang has joined our team. You know really excited to have him on board. He is one of the best known Ruby developers in New York and came with gushing and glowing recommendations from everyone I talked to in the development community. So we’re very excited and we have also got a lot of investor attention. Recently pitched at the graduation of the Founder Institute, went for the New York session. If you don’t know about the Founder Institute check them out…very interesting. We just had our graduation and final pitch sessions and was pleased to be voted top pitch. We actually tied with one other person, Eddie Kim, of Simple PR. Between the two of us you know voted the best pitch and very excited, little bit of no strings attached cash, and more importantly a lot of investor attention.

So we have been getting a lot of attention recently from people who are interested in getting involved in our seed round. So I want to let you guys know that all that’s going on and we actually got some customers to sign on as well since we have last spoken.

So what does this all have to do with boat speed?

It is a common kind of metaphor that you know boats are very difficult to get moving fast. They are heavy and they sit on water. Once you are able to get a boat up to a larger speed, it is very easy to tack and turn the boat and so I think that really is a great metaphor for the way small business are run and how they are developed. You are constantly having conversations and you are constantly interacting with customers and investors, potential employers, and hires and partners. Through those conversations the ideas involve and what you know or thought you know or knew, continues to change. The important thing is you know if you are gathering people around you and gathering enthusiasm you get a big group of people there excited about what you are up to. It is very easy to pivot and it is very easy to change directions but the most difficult thing is building that momentum and getting things off the ground.

So we are very open. We are not very secretive of what we are up to. We are trying to help small businesses operate more profitably. We have our pitch on the web right now and we are going to record a new version of it now that we have kind of grown a little bit and the ideas evolved. New versions of pitching coming out in the next two episodes but I urge if you are starting your own small business right now to be thinking about boat speed and I urge you if you are in a small business and want to help us grow our boat speed, reach out to us right now. We want to help you run more profitably and we are already getting started. We have already lot of people excited and I am sure a lot of thing is changing but I am excited that boat speed is there and I would love to hear your thoughts about the ways that we can build momentum and who we should be getting involved in the process because we are having a lot of fun.

Thanks!