FratApps.com – Lessons Learned (Part 1)
This is the first post in a three part series of what I learned along the way when building out FratApps. For those of you who don’t know, FratApps is a web application my friends and I built during my Junior and Senior years in college. It aimed to help fraternities efficiently manage tasks among their members.
Although, FratApps didn’t achieve success, the process of developing a fully functional web app from the ground up provided a learning experience that was unmatched by anything taught in the classroom. With that in mind, below I’ve provided 7 tips and lessons learned while building FratApps:
1. Have a Vision
Being able to see what “could be” is important because it gives you something to work towards. In my case, I had a vision of not only solving my fraternity’s problem but also learn about other fraternity’s on campus to see if they had the same challenges. By doing this, I had a bigger idea in mind that I could work towards and create milestones to reach that vision.
2. Passion Trumps Everything
Believing in what you are doing is a common tip most successful entrepreneurs tell you and it is completely true. There were multiple times where I wanted to quit but every time I was walking to class I couldn’t think about anything else — that’s passion. The ability to keep that high level of motivation and energy to help people (for me, my fraternity brothers) will ultimately help you succeed. This should be true regardless about how much money you can potentially make or how famous you will become. Do it for the right reasons.
Look at Mark Zuckerberg, he still lives a very modest life and in a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook’s COO), noted that he hardly changed throughout the years. Also, when you see him speak you know that he genuinely believes in his mission and is passionate about what he is doing.
3. Just Do It
Everyone can have ideas but if you don’t start to execute on those ideas they won’t see
the light of day. For me, starting to prototype sketches in my notebook helped me flesh out the core idea behind FratApps. What also helped was to start on a problem that is small and manageable, then learn from your users and iterate. I still remember staying up late one night thinking about the idea and at 3am jumped out of my bed to check to see if “fratapps.com” was available — to my surprise it was!
4. Build a Team
Find at least one other person to work with because when building a startup bouncing ideas around a co-founder is key. Find a partner who has a complimentary skill set to yours.
Be able think about the culture you want to have in your team as well. Its hard to change culture and other dynamics of a team when you grow.
5. Make Sacrifices
There were times on Friday and Saturday nights where I would not go out with my friends and instead work on building the front-end of FratApps. Being able to make sacrifices is the way of the game. For me, time management was imperative because I was going to school full time, participating in activities, and also trying to build a startup.
Don’t regret these decisions because after all it was your choice all along.
6. Talk to Other Entrepreneurs
Connecting with Seattle entrepreneurs became one of the most vital resources to me when learning about how to build a startup. Here are some resources from my previous blog post. Those that I spoke with gave candid advice on my ideas and overall perspective on what to look out for. In my next blog post I will thank those who have helped shaped my views, gave me their advice, and supported my efforts.
7. Re-evaluate What You Are Doing
Every once in awhile I would reflect on what I was doing and whether it was the best use of my time. This helped me because I could see progression of work I was doing and didn’t want to get carried away into something that wasn’t promising. It also helps to reinforce why you working on a startup that is consuming so much of your time. Going through this process helped motivate myself to strive for success.
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This post was published on November 11, 2011.