Two Startups, The Breakfast Club, and Pure Magic
I just got done attending a Mocavo & FullContact “Breakfast Club” at TechStars Boulder.
Cliff Shaw, Founder of Mocavo and fellow Foundry Group CEO, approached me a few months back. He thought it made sense to get our tech teams together for a long 4 hour breakfast and swap knowledge.
I thought it was a terrific idea.
After a few scheduling snafus, we were finally able to get together. TechStars Boulder let us use their conference room, and Cliff graciously ordered in a catered breakfast.
Over the course of several hours, we discussed databases (MySQL, NoSQL), infrastructure (Amazon or Self-Hosted), search algorithms, performance tuning, product ideas and development methodologies.
We discussed the merits of different vendors and the pros and cons of different approaches.
The conversation was frank, open and honest — basically what you’d expect from a bunch of pragmatic engineers.
Both companies pulled their teams away from their normal lives for a few hours. But I think it was super valuable for each engineering team to see things through a different lens, talk about what they’re building, and ideate about what their future holds.
You’re Not Alone
As a startup, sometimes you think you are all alone when faced with daunting scale challenges.
But that’s 100% wrong — you’re not alone. In fact, you’re not unique. Realizing this and leveraging your network for help, support or advice is the one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your startup.
That’s the true power of a robust startup community (and if you don’t know what this means, you can buy the book).
I encourage other companies to do the same. Find a peer startup company and have a breakfast, or brunch, or lunch. It’s an amazingly simple yet powerful thing you can do.
And Cliff — thanks again for breakfast — next time, FullContact will buy the beer 🙂