One factor that as a startupist you can’t help escaping is dealing with the size of your ego. It’s not that your ego wasn’t around before, but starting up is definitely a catalyst for its surfacing. There are plenty of reasons for it. You need to make many judgment calls during a single day. You need to fight off inferiority complexes triggered by watching the bigger players and their success. You need to motivate your team (and yourself) continuously and you have got to sell your vision to everyone almost every single minute.

No matter how successful you become, every time something happens to others your ego gets involved. You envy your friend next door for having raised $10M and when YOU get the $10M investment you envy your other friends’ big contract, or exit. You get pissed with a swift move from a bigger competitor that just blew off your business pitch. You feel sour after seeing the VC that turned you down 3 months ago investing in another company in your space. As romantic as it may sometimes seem, starting up involves dealing with rejection, a lot of rejection, much more than in any ordinary job.

It is commonly believed that for an entrepreneur, a big ego is not only a plus but a virtue. One of my friends who is also a partner in a leading Israeli VC has even admitted that they are somewhat looking for a big ego when they scout new ventures. A founder with a big ego (and big balls) can fight this rejection off while claiming an ability to beat Microsoft or Google - all with a confident face. You can’t become big if you don’t think you’re huge, right?

Wrong. As a matter of fact, the more I grow the more my belief is strengthened. The more you let go of you ego the better your chances are to succeed. Big balls have very little to do with big ego. Big balls mean you have faith in your ability to succeed. Big ego means you need an artificial layer to protect you from your own fears.

It’s safe to say every executive I have worked for had an above average ego. Some were good executives and some were bad executives, but none of them benefited from their big ego. It often caused them to never admit an obvious mistake or from taking good advice from people of lower rank but better judgment. When I look at my own career, my ego failed me much more than it helped me for the exact same reasons. It contributed to a wrong perception of reality and to Hubris. Any friction I ever had with a former boss had my ego involved. Professional and personal integrity are great points of character, but we very often disguise our big ass ego by abusing them.

I work with a group of talented individuals at Hooqs.com. All my colleagues are better than I am in at least one aspect of the start up game. The more I tuck in ego in the better I get. The more I listen to my ego, the more I have to regret. Straight and simple.

Getting a start up to a point of success involves a lot of faith, leadership, good perception of reality, resilience, setting personal example and a lot of self hyped confidence. This is called leadership, which in my book does not carry a big ego. You can tell everyone that you can beat Microsoft and that Bill Gates will work for you as a product manager, but it’s a load of crap. The only big shot names you will be able to hire at an early stage for the sake of their name are big shot egos with an agenda you don’t need. Chances are you’ll develop a great gallery of names, a bag of contradicting philosophies and a shitload of political issues to deal with. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire supreme talent, you should, but here again your key to hiring real talent is with your ability to tuck in your ego and to let that talent contribute.

How does that blend with building billion dollar companies? My philosophy is that you can’t plan a billion dollar company. If you build a fantastic company it may eventually become one, but you need to build an excellent company before you even dream of it. The desire to foresee and fore-plan billion dollar companies is an original sin. It’s like trying to predict the future at the expense of decisions in the present. In the early stage, you need to focus on building a good product that people will be happy to use and pay for. You need to execute on a good marketing plan that encapsulates a good perception of reality. You need to make difficult compromises everyday and you mustn’t be deterred. If you do all that well you’ll build a good growing company. 

My ego is not going anywhere, but I am going to do my best to confine it. Confidence, faith, devotion - absolutely. But the border line with just plain ego is very easy to miss.

      

OK, so the hysteria has somewhat calmed down. The reviewers are indeed mostly raving, but I can’t help being puzzled. The iPhone is supposed to change the industry, yet it uses yesterday’s technology.

1. EDGE is a different name for horrible browsing experience. The only equivalent I can think of is a scooter engine trying to pull a Rolls Royce.

2. Side-loading only? you mean I need to connect my phone to the PC again? wasn’t it all about mobility?

3. Camera without zooming? Are we back in 2003 and nobody told me?

Hats off the Apple and Jobs. Their marketing strategy belongs in the MBA hall of fame. I am sure the iPhone will be a great phone, eventually. Right now it’s a good looking iPod that gets you stuck with one mobile operator for 2 years.

      

Ok, so the hot news are cooliing off and we all had a chance to check out Mobile YouTube by now. It’s time to call the Jury back in and get an interim verdict. My first impression of the service was awesome. It looked good, worked well on my 3G Nokia E61. Sure, the content is handpicked and handicapped, but it’s still a good start. The main issue I had with it was with the fact it’s still not working well on too many operators and devices.

Itay Gissin discussed Mobile YouTube in our HooQs blog this morning and tried to understand whether it’s just a mobile version of the “Internet YouTube” or the other way around - a new “YouTube approach” to mobile media.  His conclusion, with which I agree, is that it’s a bit of both.

Starting with the good news. The most refreshing element of the new service is that it is Internet based and operator independent. In other words, it gives on deck portals a well deserved kick in the butt:

“Good news - No client needed, just come and get it with any Internet 3G phone! That’s exactly what this industry needed for a long time - an Internet giant meaning business & leveraging the Web’s open model on the mobile industry. Most other Internet content players view the operators as the “plug number” in their broken revenue model, trying to sell OPC (Other People’s Content) in traditional content models, overlooking the end-consumer reluctance to pay premium for content mobility.“

These are indeed great news and such that will help drive the industry much faster. After all, everyone looks at Google and YouTube when it comes to taking risks these days. Operators have realized by now they need to channel Internet content and not reinvent it, and such a move from such a significant player definetely helps drive the point. There are a couple of hard core issues though.

The first one is availability. Mobile YouTube is streaming based, a decision that can be probably attributed to legal caution. The video files are transcoded to 3GP format which means no iPhone, Windows Mobile or Blackberry. Streaming video is not a trivial end user feature and is still dependent on operator practices, proper device configuration and overall device support. Sticking to streaming video means that roughly 2 out of 3 potential 3G users are out of the game, without them even understanding why. The 3GP format is less of an issue and I expect YouTube to cover those other formats soon enough.

The second issue is the content itself. On the Internet, YouTube is a key media website, fitting well in the rich user environment. On mobile, users need better reasons to enter, not to say stick to a mobile portal. Mobile video is a different experience than Internet video. It involves more difficult navigation and has a price tag associated with it. The secret sauce of a successful mobile portal is made up of easy access and versatile content - variable sources, credible news, mobile use cases and so forth. YouTube is a part of that, but cannot cover the basic need by itself. As Itay summarizes:

“When I am on my mobile, I normally have a minute. Maybe two. The only way I will choose to go on the internet is if I know I am 2-3 clicks away from something that will Hook me up, and will be unique & forward-worthy. For that to happen, content sources will have to be much more varied than a YouTube. A community system will have to be working for me - Scouring the web, fetching content, filtering it for mobile consumption, connecting me with peers’ content, and more.”

Couldn’t agree more.

      

Remember I promised that I would keep DeGardener clean from work stuff?

I lied.

The official HooQs blog is up. Take a look!  My latest post is about the LG Prada and the iPhone going head to head. Try getting it on your mobile and tell me what you think.

      

My day job has become my all-around-the-day job lately as you can tell from the lack of recent writing.  Well, the reason why is now out in beta!

HooQs is a user centric web to mobile service. You can search, create, save and share internet media with mobile phones.  Your personal media is aggregated in channels which we call HooQs. HooQs can be saved, managed, sent to mobile phones around the world and of course, enjoyed. Registration is optional, however as a user you get your own internet rich media portal tailored to your own personal taste.

Since the whole idea is to get personal, my own favorite HooQs at the moment are Paris Hilton in Jail, Vintage TV Commercials, Best of Monty Python and Computer Game Nostalgia.  My full HooQ board can be found here.

So get HooQed but be gentle, Beta means Beta! We do promise to do our best to continuously improve and personally I would more than welcome your feedback and comments! 

HooQs is best used on a 3G phone.