I went to a startup event last night but all I got was blue balls
So it’s Christmas and I felt like getting out of the house and having a drink.
Having been a startup circuit recluse in the last few years, I signed up for Startup Grind’s evening with Andre Eikmeier of Vinomofo.
Vinomofo launched in April 2011 from a little garage in Adelaide and has since grown quickly and profitably to a run rate of over $50m revenue, 450,000 members and a team of over 100.
I was pumped. I had missed Andre’s presentation last year and by all accounts it was fantastic. Vinomofo has been a phenomenon here in Australia and I was keen to hear his story.
The reminder email duly came through in the afternoon:
“ Hi All,
Andre has just landed in Perth and we can’t wait to have a fun night tonight.
We kick off at 6pm for some networking and vino then Andre will be on at 7pm.
See you tonight at Flux (downstairs) at 191 St George Terrace Perth.
Also, Andre is happy to answer audience questions.
Simply go to slido.com and use #vinomofo
Cheers,
Brendan”
Turned up at about 6:30pm
Grabbed myself a beer.
Made some friends (i.e. forced myself onto anyone who made meaningful eye contact).
Andre came on and did not disappoint. Down-to-earth. Self-effacing. Insightful.
He spoke quite candidly for over an hour in a Q&A session with Brendan, who was able to draw upon his long friendship with Andre to extract the juicy bits that we all clambered for:
- The lack of a profitable business model in the early days.
- Founder self-doubt and how it impacted his family.
- Rapidly diminishing finances and the threat of having the plug pulled on his business.
- Making the jump from review site to deals site. Fantastic.
We all applauded enthusiastically at the end of the session.
The crowd, the speakers, featured attendees and the ‘startup-erati’ subsequently beat a hasty exit, save for a few hangers-on (like me).
This is when I always feel a little weird.
- Should I have connected with Andre? He seemed like a really genuine chap. (Of course, there would be natural synergies between a wines deals site and a stock photo business — wtf!)
- Should I have introduced myself to Brendan? Apart from having a few startup stories of his own, Brendan must know heaps of startup-erati as the Director for Startup Grind Sydney.
- Should I have forced myself on a few of the featured guests? The intros at the start of the evening sounded awfully impressive. Someone that sounded like he represented some group that had wads of financing or something.
- Were there anyone else in that room that I should’ve chatted to or connected with? Anyone. Doing anything interesting. With an ingenious hack. Or knew someone who might know someone that might have something to do with Stockphoto.com…
I felt I had worked myself into a lather of FOMO.
I was on a startup networking bender and I couldn’t stop.
One more business card. Please. Please. Just one more….just one….
I eventually went home.
Had a cold shower.
Gingerly popped into bed.
Couldn’t sleep.
After hours of…tossing (and turning).
Got up.
…and then spanked that Mailchimp (hard).
As much as I loved the startup talks, meetups and networking sessions,
No-one was going to be my Yoda.
And I didn’t need to look for more dead-ends to run down.
No-one was going to help me. No-one has the silver bullet.
I was going to have to go back to my little hole in the ground and figure it all out for myself (with my co-founders).
Share this article you will. (AMAZING that would be, hmmm?)
Background
I launched Stockphoto.com in 2013 with money I had saved. You can read more here:
