The Startup Student

I tend to measure learning on three different scales. One is the general yearly scale (“I learned so much more in 2010 than I did in 2009”), another is the birthday scale (“I learned more in my 20th year than I did in my 19th year”). The last one is the time since an event, like Startup Weekend or the Tahoe Tech Talk.

Looking back over the last couple of weeks, I’m blown away by 2010 as a whole. So much has happened, from making an immense amount of new friends and establishing a great mentor network, to releasing My Reading List and Beeline RTD for the iOS, putting together a team, learning to trust them and realizing a hell of a lot of goals, I’ve done a lot.

Most of this has happened since Startup Weekend. Even more has happened since Tahoe. Inspiration is an all-the-time thing now and I couldn’t ask for more. I’m surrounded by inspiring, intelligent people who push me, make the think and challenge me.

The best things in life almost don’t happen. I’m a firm believer in that.

I’m very proud of 2010 and hope to continue 2011 with the momentum from last year. 

(Photo: Alicia Nijdam)

In 17 years of school I’ve learned a lot. I’ve forgetten a lot too, both intentionally and unintentionally. If you’re awake and astute and you care to do so, you can identify the patterns and learn to play the game. There are a few games you can learn to play in school like how to get good grades or how to become well-liked.

Each are about pattern recognition and unconventional thinking. Because in any system there are strong points and weak points of entry. 

Here are three ways to get better grades without trying any harder than you are right now:

Look presentable

You wouldn’t believe how much this makes a difference. Showing up to class showered and well-dressed can immediately make you stand out. When sweatpants are the norm, a pair of corduroys, khakis or a nice pair of jeans can go a long way.

When you look good, you feel good. When you participate in class, you suddenly have an air of confidence driving your thoughts. 

Showing up to class in a presentable fashion also makes a bold statement to the teacher. It shows that you’re put together and that you respect the institution of school. Personally, you could care less about any of that, but to instructors it puts you on a whole other level above your peers.

Take two groups of students giving the same presentation. One group wears button downs and nice jeans and the other group wears t-shirts and shorts. They present the same material. From my own observations, looking at other students in the class, they respect the group that dressed up more than they respect the group that didn’t. Audience participation was higher for the well-dressed group than the group that didn’t care.

You can figure out who got the better grade.

Respectfully disagree with the majority

Mark Twain said, “Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.” I find this to be true in classes as well. I’m not arguing that you should be a jerk and pick fights with your peers. 

But one way to get better grades is to determine what the majority view is in a discussion and ask yourself why that position is the most popular (is it a topic where it’s unpopular to take the opposite stance? Are people lazily agreeing with the first person to comment?). Find a rational alternative so that you can politely disagree and suddenly, in a class of yes men you suddenly stand out.

Most classes have portions of grading that have to do with class participation. Participating in class and disagreeing when the time is right is a great way to position yourself differently in a class. It could be the difference between a B+ and an A- or between a B and an A (depending on who’s grading you).

Spend time with your teachers outside of class

When I take notes in class I take a second set of notes in the margins. Those margin notes include words and ideas I want to look up, blog ideas that come out of that class, topics that the teacher briefly touches on but are outside of the class’s discussion and general thoughts that are loosely tied to the class subject but aren’t appropriate to bring up during class. Then I seek out my teachers outside of class, either after lecture or during their office hours to discuss some of the notes I left for myself in the margin.

These outside of the classroom meetings often lead off of the original topic and I have the unique opportunity to learn more about the teacher. They get to learn more about me too.

This tip holds especially true in classes of a larger size. If an instructor can differentiate you from 50 or 400 other people in the room, favoritism allows for opportunities like grade bumps in your favor. 

Conclusion

Stand out. Don’t be jerk but show that you’re a smart person. It will do more for you than most things you’ll actually get from the class.

I’m reposting this. I wrote this as a guest post for Josh Fraser’s blog, Online Aspect which he published yesterday. I really loved this post so I wanted to reblog it here. Visit Josh’s blog after you read this post, I really value his opinions and his points of view.

 Some software users are never satisfied. From my experiences dealing with the App Store, some users that leave feedback often expect the Holy Grail out of one particular app, regardless of development or technological constraints. People love to rant; they love to tell others about negative experiences. By ranting, we cope. We begin to make peace with a transgression, no matter the size.

Normally users have no place to leave their negative feedback other than on the App Store. The 1-5 star review system, at the end of the day, is broken because many people use 1 star reviews to get the attention of the developer so that their thoughts are heard, regardless of what they really thought of the app.

This leads to the sales of apps with small user bases being co-opted by a small set of unhappy customers who want their voices heard. For a small or medium sized app with few reviews, each single piece of feedback is important for the outside viewer or potential customer.

When I designed Beeline RTD (a transit app targeting commuters in Denver and Boulder, Colorado) I thought that it would be important to include a feature that allowed users to email the transportation authority, RTD, directly, to inform them of experiences both good and bad that might have occurred while riding pubic transportation.

I specifically wrote the copy for the Feedback section of Beeline so that users knew their thoughts were being sent to RTD and not to the developer. This wasn’t a trick. I created a Gmail account to share with RTD in hopes that they would check it. I hadn’t planned on visiting the account at all until one day my curiosity peaked.

In the past five months since Beeline’s release, the Feedback section of the app has turned from transportation feedback into app feedback. It has turned rants and suggestions from 1 or 2 star reviews into constructive emails with no App Store impact.

Here’s why it works:

Take 1 built-in support, add 1 part ability to rant and finally, 1 part instant gratification.

You’ve suddenly constructed a way for all users to have their voices heard without actually leaving the app. The friction of feedback is eliminated. Sure, if they’re pissed off enough they’ll go on the App Store and leave a review there as well. From what I’ve noticed, however, the simple act of typing their thoughts out in the app is enough to reduce inflammatory reviews significantly.

(Photo: Karri Huhtanen)

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past three years or so following in the paths of other people. I use direction and actions that others went through years before to show me the path that I should go down. While sometimes there is worthy advice in the paths that others have gone down, I think that a good portion of the time one should carve out their own path.

The problem here is that going your own way is tough and scares a lot of people off. I think that’s why entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. There is no direct course towards being a great entrepreneur though every path requires an incredible amount of hustle, hard work and some sacrifice.

Just because someone else was successful doing something doesn’t mean you will be. Take Foursquare. There are hundreds of Foursquare clones that exist right now. Checking-in is a big thing in mobile and has been for a few months. Besides Foursquare and Gowalla, how many check-in apps do you really use? (As I’ve written about here before, I’m not entirely sure of the value of either of those services but that’s outside the scope of this post).

There’s something to be said for being a late mover in a space but much less to be said for blind copying, hoping for an acquisition…or something.

Success in entrepreneurship isn’t about the computer you use or the code that you create your prototype with. It’s about execution, team, vision and, to some extent, your location.

It’s about you and what you do. How you create it all for yourself, not how someone before you created it for themselves.

(Photo: emdot)

This is part 3 of my 18 part series derived from 18 simple rules to live by.

I’m a champion at over-committing. Everything sounds so damn cool to me that I can’t say no. It’s a really bad thing when everything starts to pile up. No time to eat, no time to sit down, no time to go to the gym, no time for life.

In economics there’s a principle called the opportunity cost. An opportunity cost is simply defined as what you give up to do something else. If a factory can make 20 iPhones or 40 iPods and the profit margin is $30 and $20, respectively, the factory should make the iPods. In turn, they give up the opportunity to make iPhones or to make $600 in profit. Instead, the factory makes 40 iPods and $800 in profit.

Life presents infinite numbers of opportunity costs.

In the fall of 2009 I was interviewing for internships starting the following January. I had three offers from three great businesses. I was interested in each and all for different reasons. I would have loved to take on two of those, learn twice as much and gain twice as much experience. But in doing that I would have had to juggle school, the other internship, homework, friends and fun. 

It made no sense to accept two or more internships. One was enough. The next step was evaluating which did the most for me and my goals.

January came and I started at InspiringApps. During that semester, I was starting more new projects while juggling class, school, my internship, my editor position at the school paper and a whole lot more. Around March came my breaking point where I had to let a few people know that I couldn’t commit any longer to my position.

Over-committing hurts your credibility. It hurts your heart and your health due to stress. You may be doing a lot of cool things but doing a shitty job at a lot isn’t much better than doing nothing at all.

Chill out, commit yourself to a precious few things and do those well. Your life and your future will be better for it.

I write a lot about over-commitment here for two reasons. 1) To remind myself to chill out and learn to say no. And 2) to make sure that you don’t put yourself in the same stressful situations I have.

Do what you love, but not everything you love. Life is full of opportunity costs. You can’t avoid them. Sometimes they’re tough decisions to make. But they’re the right ones.

If you liked this post, you’ll love:

• How To: Say no
• Manage your commitments, don’t overload yourself
• The importance of having an entrepreneurial filter