the best reason I've ever had for
starting a startup is that you can't not
do it you have to see a need you have to
have something if some itch that you
know this needs to exist in the world
and if you don't build it no one's going
to build it and you can't go into it for
the money you can't go into it because
you want to work for yourself because
you end up working for everyone else you
just need to go into it with that goal
so I think the most important skills a
start-up founder can have is really you
have to be formidable and the way you
think about that is there's going to be
days that you feel like you're on top of
the world and there's going to be days
where every ounce of your being wants to
just quit and go get a nice cushy job
get your catered lunches and they're
nice desks and everything else and stop
this whole dumb startup thing and you
have to be able to fight through that
it's not your gun and you're going to
screw up there's going to be times where
you have a lot of problems you have a
lot of things happen that go wrong
whether it's your fault or whether it's
someone else's fault things are going to
go wrong and you have to get through
that you have to be able to handle that
and a lot of people can you will make
all of the mistakes you want to make
mistakes you'll make all of the mistakes
as a start-up founder especially is the
first time startup founder which most
people are most people don't have the
resiliency to do this two or three times
so you're going to mess things up I've
messed up everything so a long time ago
back when codable was just an app we had
you know we had this game and we would
make money by selling in an app purchase
which was additional levels and at the
time it was just me and my co-founder
and we wanted to ship an update before
Christmas and the App Store closes down
for like three weeks over Christmas and
it's the biggest volume sales part of
the year for a lot of apps because I was
getting the new iPads so we shipped an
update and in that update I messed up
the code and everything was unlocked for
everybody so the only source of revenue
we had people couldn't buy so I tried to
submit an update to fix the problem and
they wouldn't expedite the request so
the App Store ended up shutting down so
for the most of the month of December I
we couldn't make any money
that was kind of kind of screwed that
one up pretty bad but we survived you
know I think I think one of the other
biggest mistakes I've made is not hiring
people quick enough that that is hard
very hard I think most people don't
understand how hard it is they think on
paper yeah if they're messing up hyrum
but it's harder when you have a small
company when you fire that person
there's going to be a big impact on what
you can produce what you can do but
usually when you start thinking that to
yourself you you need to do it pretty
quickly I think the thing I love most
about startup life is I'm getting to
build something I'm a builder it's Who I
am in my nature everything I do I want
to build and I'm building a company
which is pretty close to the top of the
list of things you can build and I'm
impacting millions of kids around the
world and I'll look at you know walk
into the office and I'll see all these
people working on something that didn't
exist a few years ago and we get
pictures from kids all the time or
teachers pictures of kids all the time
and that's amazing to me it never gets
old it's really awesome I think you know
that's if we weren't making such a big
difference in the world I do not think I
could have put up with all the garbage
that I had for the past five years I
like the phrase it it that's the cost of
making a difference it'd be a lot easier
to start something else but working in
education you've got to pay the price to
make a difference