Startup Usability Testing presentation from Cindy Alvarez. See a collection of usability resources from Carter Cleveland.

Lean Startup Usability Testing presentation from Meetup.com’s Andres Glusman. See a collection of usability resources from Carter Cleveland.

Last week, my partner Yaw Aning and I were preparing information to file our taxes. Like an old couple that’s been married so long they hardly notice the passing of time, we suddenly realized that very day was our one year anniversary for forming Pocket Tales.

(I’ll pause for gratuitous congratulations)

I didn’t attach any significance to the anniversary until I read a startup failure story about EventVue and how they tried a number of product “pivots” in an attempt to save their dying business.

In this scenario it sounds bad. It sounds like pivoting is a characteristic of failure - but that assumption is wrong.

Fred Wilson, the legendary VC blogger, once noted that 2/3 of the successful companies he’s invested in, had to make a hard pivot some time in their rise to success. Even EventVue says their mistakes included not pivoting sooner and not fully committing to the pivot.

And that story about EventVue is what reminded about something I’ve tried to sweep under the Pocket Tales rug. It suddenly gave a significance to the anniversary. Pocket Tales has pivoted 4 times in one year.

For those who don’t know, I’ll recount them for you:

December 2008 - We form “pocket tales” at Indianapolis Startup Weekend as a children’s eBook iPhone app. The only money spent is on a domain name.

February 2009 - We become “Pockettales” and try to sell a service helping self-published authors convert their printed books into iPhone apps. We spend half of our startup budget (roughly $10K) on development. With our connections at Author Solutions we think we have a quick path to making significant money.

August 2009 - Although Author Solutions says they’re definitely going to do something with the iPhone in the 4th quarter, we decide that the idea isn’t big enough to wait that long (our 20’s are fleeting). We decide to go after something bigger and more worth our time - creating a children’s ebook platform. We are bolstered by the positive response we receive at SproutBox. The old direction goes to http://www.booktoapp.com to die.

November 2009 - “Pocket Tales” has a severe identity crisis and it goes beyond how we capitalize and space the words. What are we? Are we selling eBooks? Are we a recommendation engine? Are we a reading game? We decide we’re all of them and start designing mockups. We spend a significant portion of our remaining budget.

January 2010 - We learn that the game aspect of our application is way more compelling than we thought. Teachers, parents, and kids all seem to love it. At the same time, they’re none too excited about eBooks, which is fine, because selling eBooks is riddled with obstacles (digital rights licensing anyone?) and building a game is fun. (I still believe one day we’ll sell eBooks)

Pivoting doesn’t mean we’re going to be successful, but if you remember the majority of successful startups pivot, which means pivoting is a valuable skill for any startup founder to have. If you look at the history of Pocket Tales, I think it’s hard to argue that we haven’t learned to pivot or that we’re incapable of fully committing to even a drastic change in the right direction. (Just don’t call us “flakey”)

One of my favorite short stories is “Porcelain and Pink” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story starts out with an introduction and a phrase I’ve memorized for some reason “Mistaken identity is the old rusty pivot upon which the plot turns.” I guess I memorized it because it gave me a less cliche way of referring to a cliche.

One of the greatest cliches in the life of startups is startups pivot. Next time you feel like the world is asking you to do the impossible and predict your startup’s future (like how much money you’re going to need to raise in 24 months), give them your best answer, and then focus more of your energy on convincing them of your ability to pivot.

Most smart people will trust that more than your ability to predict how many employees you’ll need two years from now for a business that isn’t even making money yet.

Here’s a great tactic for getting press. I’m sure this isn’t the only tool you’ll want to have in your belt but it’s a good place to start.

“Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!” by Dave McClure

What is it: A very THOROUGH framework for marketing a consumer internet product
Who needs it: Founders of consumer internet products
When you’re going to need this: Writing your business plan and executing your marketing strategy (that means, you need this to plan, and you’re going to need to revisit it to execute)

Great advice for internet startups on how to use metrics to make REAL decisions.

I rarely think of entrepreneurs as inventors, which is a shift in perception compared to just 20 years ago. I suppose it has something to do with how much innovation today comes from a semi-intangible realm - the realm of software, the internet, and information - compared to the more tangible realm of lightbulbs and bifocals. Edison and Franklin were thought of as inventors first and entrepreneurs second, if they were thought of entrepreneurs at all.

Furthermore, Society’s prototypical inventor is the person who assembled the product that ended up in the hands of customers. No one thinks of the “business” person behind the scenes who established the company, set up the team, raised the capital, etc as an inventor.

Here’s a test for you - Have you ever thought of Sam Walton, Ted Turner, or Mary Kay Ash as inventors? I didn’t think so.

Let’s change our vocabulary for a minute. Look at it this way -

Sam Walton is an inventor. He invented the big retail company.

Ted Turner is an inventor. He invented the modern media company.

Mary Kay Ash is an inventor. She invented a new kind of direct sales company.

Why is changing the language such a big deal? Because we’re more willing to accept failure as part of the inventor’s path to success than we are the entrepreneur’s.

Oh I know everyone talks about how most startups fail and you have to be willing to accept failing over and over again, but there is a huge psychological gap in the subtlety of looking at what you’re building as a new invention vs. a new business.

Edison’s famous quote which by now has become a cliche - “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - sums up how we perceive inventors. On the other hand, if Mary Kay Cosmetics hadn’t worked, would we have painted Ash as succeeding in finding one way to sell cosmetics that won’t work?

No. We would have just said she failed.

The reason this mental exercise has become important to me is because Pocket Tales hasn’t progressed as planned. Our actual path hasn’t even resembled Plan B, Plan C, or even Plan D. Additionally, the “failures” aren’t coming from likely places. It’s not that we’ve put a product out into the world and it got rejected. We haven’t gotten that far yet. If we had, it’d be easy to see the parallels between building a lightbulb that “failed” and needing to take it back to the shop and try again, or “iterate.” That type of failure is perfectly understandable and socially acceptable.

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Memorable quotes from the interview:

“One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.” And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me.”

“I keep my eye out for someone who has achieved a lot, so they’ve been a great athlete or on a great team, but then something didn’t go quite right, and they’re still very hungry and want to be C.E.O. of something. I like to bet on people, especially those who have taken risks and failed in some way, because they have more real-world experience. And they’re humble.”