Unfortunately, it takes learning the hard way to find this out for a couple of reasons:

• The media loves and glorifies the headstrong, stalwart leader for defying the common consensus and going it alone because they are made out to be some “visionary” or “prodigy” for finding the next thing. Starters tend to think that the more they get shot down the more they’re “defying the odds”. Go talk to Jeff Bezos, Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, and, just for shits and giggles, go ask Jason Calacanis what he thinks – these people are a much better barometer for your web or technology startup than Grandma, creepy Uncle Tony, and the hipster who frequents your local coffee shop couch.
• You realize that the common questions you receive aren’t asked by the smartest of angels, VCs, and advisors.  I hate getting asked “Do you have anything you can patent” or “what % of this market can you catch” or “how will you market your product” or “what if Google decides to do this”.  The answer to all of those is “I don’t know and I’m not going to waste time guessing”.  Really finding the answer to those things is done when you have a product and are able to measure the actual customer response
• People try to give you advice based on their own experience which, not surprisingly, isn’t at all applicable to what you’re doing.  If you’re building a SaaS web app for graphic designers and run across Andy Bernard, Andy Bernard will probably start talking about his sales cycle in a B2B setting for inkjet printers and reams of paper.  He may or may not try to tie it back to your business, almost assuredly unsuccesfully.  Andy Bernard is the wrong person to ask or solicit advice for about your business.

So, what can you do about this?  I’ve come up with a few guidelines that I’ve kept in my head about what I try to do to filter the advice coming in.  More importantly, you should be establishing criteria for the people you seek out to have coffee with, get to invest in your company, see your early product releases, etc.

• Avoid large market association.  Not only do people not understand your product in the first couple minutes, their previous college roommates will likely have no association either.  ”Ya that sounds cool, my roommate in college used to work with websites and he just bought a sweet Toyota Yaris with all the money he’s made.”.  Unless he’s done a SaaS business before, or built a product for graphic designers, or is a graphic designer, chances are his “expert” or “experienced” feedback is going to go in the garbage can along with what your “analyst” rich neighbor said as well.
• Previous success is not a bellwether for future success or awareness of their surroundings.  Steve Jobs ran Pixar and is running Apple like a banshee.  Put him in the context of Soy Bean farming and there is ZERO guarantee he’ll do well.  Your own experience and market familiarity is likely going to be more valuable than feedback from even the most successful people you’ll meet.
• Business veterans often miss huge opportunities.  I was reading an article on RWW about famous people ignoring advice given to them, and the common denominator seemed to be entrenchment having a positive correlation with rejection of revolutionary new ideas.  For my 23 years of being alive, things have yet to cool off on the “change” horizon with the internet – I don’t predict this to stop.  The better people to talk to are the people who have been in your market long enough to understand the driving core principles, but also can entertain earth shattering ideas that may flip the industry upside down.
• Stop asking stupid questions.  ”What should I do about problem X” isn’t going to get you a great response, neither is “What is the future of market Y?”.  I’ve found that advisors are like beta testers – they work much better when you tell them what you’re doing and solicit feedback.  ”I have this problem X, and I’m thinking we could solve it with A, B, or C” – having your 3 most thought-out possible solutions will open the floodgates for response because the context around your problem is embedded in what YOU as the owner are thinking would be good ways to solve it.
• Recognize the difference between and advisor and a cheerleader.  Some people are going to be overly excited about your product because they like you and want to see you succeed – your Mom and Grandma are good examples.  Anything you bring to them about what you’re building next or some cool new feature you developed will obviously make them go “honey this is wonderful!”.  Other entrepreneurs are most likely going to be cheerleaders; people you can talk to when you’re stressed and have a lonely job being at the top.  They’ve been through it before and their message of “there’s light at the end of the tunnel, keep pushing” is worth Gold when you’re in a slump or need some encouragement if things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped.  Advisors will be very honest with you if they think you’re making a mistake or aren’t seizing opportunities fast enough.  Don’t confuse cheerleaders with advisors just to feel better about your product.

Any suggestions or stories are more than welcome.  I’d like to see hear about what others are experiencing and how they’re keeping a good filter on.

This weekend was an absolute whirlwind of “data” points about our idea, the target market, team dynamics, future of the product – we talked about it all. We talked about it all with some of the brightest minds we’ve met to date. Raleigh isn’t necessarily a breeding ground for software startup people; you can imagine our fascination with the warm tech scene that Boulder had to offer. They just get it.

We talked to a lot of teams at techstars for a day. Outside of the event the conversation was all with techstars grads and other people in the area recommended to us by these previous grads – mentors and locals who are heavily involved in the startup process. Their feedback was candid and very much appropriate for our situation and our outlook moving forward.

Our conclusion? We need to pivot.  Whether we pivot some or pivot completely is still up in the air, but the writing on the wall as we saw it this weekend is more than enough evidence for us to do some due diligence to switch gears.  We’ll continue to surround ourselves with people much smarter than us and make the most informed decision before we go back to flying by the seat of our pants.

Big thanks to everyone at Techstars and in Boulder who helped us out – Next Big Sound (David, Alex, Samir, Eric), Micah Baldwin, Ben Brinckerhoff, Tom Higley, Jason Mendelson, Seth Levine, David Cohen, Nicole Glaros (congrats on the baby!), Rob LaFave, and everyone else we met in passing.  You all left a great impression on us and are solid recruiters for keeping Boulder alive and thriving.

Complete graphics overhaul coming up. No more of this blah blah blah boring server side coding to be done.  For the next three weeks we are focusing almost exclusively on making the app and the website look better. Photoshop + XHTML + CSS + jQuery (more commonly known as the Devil) all day every day. It’s interesting, the majority of the work that has to be done for this product will never be actually SEEN by the end user (tough cookies, Scott). On the same design note, we’re possibly taking on a co-founder this summer that will be focusing on design.

I keep thinking about a post by Dave Mcclure about the importance of design in consumer internet start ups. We really do need to put a lot more effort into making addicting user experiences if we want to be successful. I’m becoming more and more of a Dave fanboy as time goes on. I really like his writing style – very flow of conscious.

Final note: TechStars for a day. Holy bleeep.  Nuff said.

We’re still waiting on a lineup of who we are definitely going to visit. I’ll try to post an update when I get it.

Also, i’ll be doing the local tour here as part of a joint venture between NCSU and Southern Capitol Ventures (thanks to Jason Caplain for hosting the trip each semester). We’re set to hit canvas on demand, iContact, and a few more. These are always fun to do. Any time you see a founder’s eyes light up telling you their story, something powerful happens in the surfacing of emotions and harnessing of energy to add even more fuel to my business drive.

One of the most challenging quandrys that university student entrepreneurs face is the realization that they’ve more or less transcended what the university has to offer them. The academic content isn’t necessarily dry or inapplicable to all bottom-line-driven companies, it’s just that they don’t make classes specifically geared toward YOUR startup. If they offered a degree in Sound Around I would be there all day every paying attention and taking notes. The reality, however, is that generalized classes rarely provide knowledge directly applicable to obtaining our minimum viable product.

Here is where things get sticky. You, as an administrator, have a contract to uphold where you are bound by the university to correctly facilitate the pedogogical value in entrepreneurship teaching and mentorship. We are bound by our drive to get our company to a state where it is making both money and meaning in the world.  These two positions OFTEN have maligned objectives and goals.

From a student perspective here is my advice: if these types of students are enrolled in your entrepreneurship class, there is most likely nothing you can do to reign them in back to the class level. They are beyond the point of being driven by grades. As long as their behavior is not totally detrimental to the program just let them do their thing. There are other students that need the mentoring and attention.  Fighting a frivolous battle with driven entrepreneurs will take away significantly from the other 90% of the entrepreneurship students still finding their legs.  Additionally, working WITH students will ultimately help your university and the university system as a whole in its ability to bring talented individuals together to spawn the next google or facebook.

The university should be seen as a leverage point for entrepreneurs, not a hindrance to their overwhelming desire to start something great.

I spent probably 3 hours bouncing around between drawing and screwing around with html trying to do a mock-up for JUST THE LANDING PAGE. All I have to say is holy f*cking sh*t. Being less than proficient at both makes getting anything in the design realm done such a pain. So today I’ve made a pact with myself. I’m really going to jump head first into web design.

I might spend fifty to one hundred hours getting where I want with my web design skills. But in the long run, I’m going to save one thousand hours that are lost due to my #bigfail web design skills.

HTML and CSS aren’t really the problem. It’s photoshop. And learning how to integrate my HTML and CSS with the photoshop. Does anyone that does web design have any tips or tools they use that increase their productivity? Anyone use any great teaching tools that they would recommend? Open to any and all suggestions.

–EDIT–

Lol 50 to 100 hours to get pretty good at web design. Off by an order…or a magnitude? Probably a few of both #sadface.

In the meantime, I’m having a hard time concentrating and really doing some solid work while at my parent’s house! Looking back at my “Productivity Advice” post, I can see why I’m not doing so hot. So much stuff around: parents, brothers, TV, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the dog, the cat, the cat playing with the end of my phone charger, girlfriend stuff. I need me a cave. But where?

First, I love my new job at Transloc. The CEO is one of those guys that just “has it”, the subtle swagger that you couldn’t reproduce if you tried. I hope to have that one day. We were out to lunch and he was talking to me about the concept of a triple bottom line when it comes to your business’s worth and productivity. Pretty awesome stuff, but damn near impossible to find ideas that fit into all 3 categories. The concepts made me think a lot about my graduation speech (read below) theme and how I can adjust my approach to business opportunities for the future.

Second, some company just launched a product with the name “Mobile Stage”. This pisses me off on many levels, but there’s not much we can do about it except get a new name. We’ll keep all of this Mobile Stage stuff up for a while – at least until we settle on something else. If you have any ideas please feel free to share.

Third, I graduated college on Saturday. The ceremony was awesome, got to hang out with a bunch of my friends, and the day after graduation really wooped some reality into my otherwise scattered brain. Sunday was the first legitimate day of paying for 100% of my bills, and having literally nothing but my startup to work on. Productivity was decent – it must improve.

Fourth, I was the student speaker at my graduation. This turned out to be a pretty badass experience for me – writing a speech is not easy, and rewriting it from front to back 2 days before you’re delivering it isn’t necessarily the best idea. Public speaking is fun, I really enjoyed myself up there (500-600 people in attendance), and would do it again in a heartbeat. Video is embedded below.

Have a happy holidays, everyone. Take some time off to spend with the famset, and to relax and read a book.

For me at least, working out of the apartment is an oxymoron. The simple fact that I am in my apartment dramatically increases my likely hood to facebook, twitter, techcrunch, venture hacks, techmeme, msuster – both sides of the table, holy shit the list of distractions goes on and on forever. There’s nothing wrong with a little advice/culture seeking on the internet but if you read that all day, no one is going to build your company for you.

It’s like reading, computer, tv, etc. in bed. Your body gets used to doing things other than sleeping and so when it comes to time go to bed, you might have trouble falling to sleep. Replace sleep with work in the previous sentence and you have a nice little parallel to my life of doing work at my apartment.

But there’s hope. For me it’s the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program’s conference room on Centennial Campus. At this Pocket Stage (going through a name change – just trying that name on for size) Compound, I feel like shit needs to get done when I’m there. I feel like if I don’t do work when I’m there, a countdown should be running. But instead of a clock it’s my % equity in the company.

Advice: if you’re a college student / entrepreneur, find a work space you can call your own, it will help.

The worst thing about being an aspiring non-coding tech entrepreneur is the inability to help pre-launch. Sure, there’s customer development, setting up beta testing, keeping up with social media, etc. — but sitting around waiting for your MVP to be done is agonizing. Every day that passes is a day your competition gains traction because you (and your cooler/better product) aren’t there win the market.

Advice: If you’re an aspiring tech entrepreneur that isn’t too old of a dog yet (it’s hard to teach them new tricks), learn how to code in your spare time. It will open countless doors for you…or so it seems from my point of view.

Maybe the grass is always greener…what do I know anyways?

—edit—

Just making sure everyone knows, MVP stands for minimum viable product not most valuable player here.