As part of the ongoing series of contributed blogs from Seedcamp’s 20 finalists, we hear today from Ryan Notz at Buildersite – an online, reputation-based community connecting tradesmen with homeowners.
I’ve had a busy week. In addition to catching up on things that had piled up during Seedcamp week, I’m coordinating half a dozen programmers and designers to get the new version of the site launched before Monday. Despite the busy-ness, I’m feeling great and have tons of energy. I’ll be working all weekend, so I’ll find out soon just how much energy I have…
The attention from the press has been great, and very exciting (and unexpected). I think buildersite will be reaping the benefits from that for a while yet.
I met with a VC yesterday who suddenly sprung one on me: “What are the 3 most important things you learned from Seedcamp?” I said: “First of all, tube strikes suck.” Having misplaced my prepared answers, I came up with something about the importance of product, smart money, and how to build a team. Those were choice nuggets, to be sure, but what did I really learn from Seedcamp?
The real gem, the revelation, is that entrepreneurs want to help each other and do help each other. We’re all human beings and the human-ness still shines through, despite the labels: ‘business’, ‘entrepreneur’, ‘capitalist’. Even the dreaded VCs want to help entrepreneurs, and sometimes it seems, for unselfish reasons.
All of this helped me connect with why I’m doing what I do: because I love it. I’ve always been that way, trying to do what I love, regardless of how much money I made or how difficult it was. Whenever I think too much about a big payout, I lose sight of who I am and why I’m doing this. Whenever I talk to the kind of people I met at Seedcamp, I remember everything.
