Category: Blogs

Don’t let anyone tell you that your market size is too small. It’s 2017, after all.

See, the thing is that there are only two kinds of markets: those that exist and those that don’t.

The internet allows you to build huge businesses off of niches. And enables you to scale beyond those niches, if that’s what you want to do.

Silicon Valley says you should lead with the traction. Everyone elsewhere encourages business plans.

Silicon Valley says you should build a prototype and iterate. Everyone elsewhere encourages “giving it your all” and “never give up.”

Silicon Valley says you should talk to your customers. Everyone elsewhere encourages sharing ideas at pitch competitions.

Seems to me — especially as I continue to drive around to new cities every week — that there’s a disconnect somewhere.

To someone from Silicon Valley, I’d say that it’s time to start spending more time in Middle America if you want to build a real business. To everyone elsewhere, I’d say that starting a business is cheaper (and easier) than you think.

If you’re looking for a little more proof that Lubbock’s entrepreneurial community is Texas’ best kept secret, here’s what their local PBS station captured from our three day tech tour stop.

Paul Singh & the Results Junkies Tech Tour visit Lubbock, TX | Inside Innovation

A look at Texas Tech’s Innovation Hub.

Everyone wants to “do” a startup. Few want to build a business.

Everyone talks about Silicon Valley. Few want to build their own community.

Everyone talks about making some money on the side. Few want to find an hour in their day to get started.

This is true of fitness, friendships and almost every other aspect of our lives.

It’s easier to talk about doing something than actually putting in the work to make it happen.

In my case, it’s popular thinking that I should be spending all my time in Silicon Valley and hanging out with people that are already working on the next thing. When I think about it, that would probably be the easier thing to do.

Instead, I choose to drive to smaller cities and live there for a week at a time. I choose to meet as many entrepreneurs and community leaders as I can. I choose to do these things because no one else does them regularly. And that’s why it’s important.

I’m convinced that Lubbock is Texas’ best kept secret.

I hate to admit this: When Anthony Presley first asked us to bring the tech tour to Lubbock, I had to find it on a map first — I had never heard of it. Up until then, I always thought of Austin, San Antonio, Dallas or Houston when I thought about entrepreneurial ecosystems in Texas.

We spent a week getting to know the entrepreneurs, the President of Texas Tech and over 250 other smart people throughout the community. And we found a city with nearly 250,000 people, a University with nearly 30,000 undergrads and a whole lot of money looking for deals. And tacos — really good tacos.

As with every other stop on the tech tour, we ask other investors and founders to join us. One of those investors is Ed Pizzarello (www.pizzainmotion.com) — he’s joined us in more than half of the cities we’ve visited over the past year and he asked to share some of his thoughts on Lubbock.

Take it away, Ed…

***

I really should stop being surprised when we show up in small towns and find successful companies.  And yet, as we head home from Lubbock I’m again impressed with the companies we discovered.

The very first session I walked into upon arriving was a group of students from Texas Tech who all had ideas for a company of their own.  Some were more fully-formed than others, with detailed business plans.  Interestingly, they were evenly divided between “hardware” and software.  I’m using the term hardware to define pretty much anything that’s not software or SaaS.

In fact, the highlight of that group was a young man with a completely new take on nail polish.  Without getting into all the details (some of it he’s keeping quiet until launch), it’s a very novel idea that I’ll be curious to see how much traction it gains.  This young man really did his homework, conducting almost 4,000 surveys with women on campus.  An innovative solution to being without an umbrella was another idea students were excited to present to us .  There’s plenty of promise amongst the entrepreneurs in the student body at Texas Tech.

What Else Did We See?

We met with a student who’s developing an app to connect restaurants with excess food to hungry customers.  Cheap Eats (www.cheapeatsapp.com) is rolling out with brute force in the Lubbock area right now.  When a restaurant has excess inventory they can offer it via a flash sale model to nearby customers.  Hungry college students are a key demographic here.  Their business model is to charge restaurants only when they’re able to sell excess inventory.

There’s a similar model in Europe (Too Good To Go) where restaurants put together mystery boxes of food for a heavily discounted price. 

If you’re in Texas, oil and gas is always on people’s minds.  We spent 20 minutes one evening at dinner discussing the practice of selling your home but maintaining the mineral rights to the land.  Fascinating.  Amplisine Labs is a robust Texas-based startup with experience in oil and gas. They’re automating parts of the exploration and drilling process to save money and increase safety.  Their core product, SitePro (www.sitepro.com), continues to see sizable increases in revenue.

Truno was another interesting team conquering the problem of automating grocery stores.  They’re past “start-up”, with over 9,000 grocery stores as clients and millions of dollars in revenue. But, there’s another 30,000+ grocery stores for them to conquer, and then that whole C-store market.  Truno touches virtually every element of a grocery store when they roll out a product, from the cash registers to the cameras that track which aisles customers spend the most time in.  In short, they’re a fast-growing company who impacts you every time you go to the grocery store. 

It Wouldn’t Be Texas Without Great Steak

I took a detour from the full group to sit with Tate From Raider Red Meats (www.raiderredmeats.com).  I love what they’re doing, and not just because I love a great steak.  They’re employing students at Texas Tech to source and sell steak, bacon, sausage and more.  These products are all sourced by the students who are part of the program.  Many of them go on to work in the meat industry after graduation.  They run a store on campus.  They also offer gift boxes and subscription packs for sale.  What a smart way to teach students about commerce while pursuing their degree.  I love real-world applications of knowledge in school.

Probably the most interesting company we ran into was Hand Held Nitrous (www.handheldnitrous.com).  They sell, wait for it, hand held nitrous oxide inhalers.  Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) plays a key role in the dentist office for many folks, including my kids.  Why not extend that to our pets as well?  The man behind the idea, Mark, is trying to make inroads into both the medical and veterinary space.  This company is a great example of investors helping push an idea forward.  Paul pushed Mark on being confident in rolling out the product to veterinary offices.  When I think about how many startups I see focused on our pets, I can’t help but think there’s a winner here.

West Texas Isn’t The Wilderness

Let’s face it, you’re not likely to wander into Lubbock from a neighboring town.  It’s bigger than you think, but still a “small town feel”.  You might expect the ideas coming out of Lubbock to be geared towards agriculture and oil/gas.  Some are, but many more are helping solve problems you see in your hometown. 

It’s just another example of how great ideas can start anywhere, not just Silicon Valley and New York.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we made an investment in a Lubbock start-up.  With plenty of community support, these guys are going places.

Everywhere we go, we meet people that are quick to explain all the hardships that come with starting and growing a business.

My initial response is always the same: “The alternative is that you could be working at a 9-to-5, sitting in a cubicle, doing work you don’t love, hoping your job doesn’t disappear and wondering when it’ll all be over. So, what was your question exactly?”

Doing your own thing is hard, I get it. But the alternative is boredom or worse.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t always mean swinging for the fences.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t always mean learning how to code.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t always mean quitting your job.

Entrepreneurship is about selling one thing to one person you don’t know. And then repeating it.

It can be an idea. It can be a service. It can be a product. It can be anything.

Entrepreneurship is about sales.

If you want to predict the future economic growth of any city, look at what resources are available for aspiring entrepreneurs and businesses with less than five employees.

A coworking space is a good sign. Most early stage startups and small businesses don’t need their own space. Most don’t need to be signing multi-year leases either.

A code school is a good sign. Because giving adults a pathway into technology is a good thing.

A weekly set of events open to the public is a good sign. Whether it’s a One Million Cups event, a monthly happy hour at the local coworking space or something else entirely — bringing like-minded people together on a regular basis is a good thing.

As the cost to start new companies continues to decline, cities — especially across the Midwest — should be constantly rethinking what their local entrepreneurs really need at the earliest stage of their company.

It surprises me to see so many cities — especially across the Midwest — still trying to lure large, existing companies to come open new offices. As if we’re still in the pre-Internet era of depending on huge factories or large offices to create the majority of our jobs.

But I get why they do it.

In the past, it was easy to measure the economic impact of a company by how many people it employed, how much money it made or how many square feet of physical space it occupied.

Then the internet came along.

The internet enabled people to make things that you couldn’t physically touch.

The internet enabled people to sell things to people anywhere on the planet.

The internet enabled companies to earn more revenue with fewer employees.

The internet enabled companies to grow as big as their global addressable market.

The internet enabled companies to do all of this from anywhere.

That’s why we can’t measure the economic impact of today’s tech-enabled companies — especially in smaller cities — using yesterday’s measuring stick.