These days, Schmidt works for VISA designing front-end applications for mobile, web and all form factors, even gaming. “We help envision the way a consumer or business user will interact with the application, and then if we decide to go to market with it—if we actually launch it—then we’ll work very closely with the product and engineering teams to bring it to life and launch it.” To launch or not to launch It’s certainly a glorious part of California history, but is it still possible to launch and bootstrap a tech- oriented company in the manner that thousands of young technology wizards did in decades past? After all, the speed of change that surrounds technology can be mind-numbing and, by its very nature, tech always strives to upend the status quo and build something better. “Yes,” Schmidt says. “Excluding hardware, it is infinitely easier to build
tons of optionality for customers.” What’s considerably altered from the original is the actual path—the steps one needs to take—to found a tech startup in 2024, as compared with what was done in the ’70s. Schmidt and others believe that the key to a startup succeeding today is to put user experience first as a key differentiator, and then build the tech to support that user experience. “Again, it’s because, in this day and age, tech has become a commodity,” he says. Lessons learned The experience of thousands of tech entrepreneurs serves as a vital how-to manual for today’s startups. Good and bad, these lessons learned are a critical component of potential success. “In my experience, after targeting the user- experience factor, founders need to employ aggressive, relentless, grass-roots marketing to gain attention, grab customers and build engagement on their product.” Schmidt advises. “It will help them grow scale very fast, ideally doing it in a stealthy way before the competitors and incumbents identify them as a threat, to compete with or acquire them. It’s a tenuous balance to get this right and, frankly, it’s nearly impossible for the average person, which explains the ocean of failed startups.” Schmidt warns that pursuing a career as a digital startup founder in California or any other tech- centered locale isn’t for the faint of heart. “You need to work your butt to the bone, forget about work-life-balance, be strategically brilliant and, finally, lucky. And you need to do it believing against all odds that you will be successful where many others have failed.” Of course, with all the attendant caveats, hundreds of California tech entrepreneurs are putting everything on the line every day to start new companies—and many of them are succeeding. “It’s still the work of a very small team that can build and succeed in developing software,” Schmidt opines. “I really enjoy working with a bootstrap team. I think it has the best possible chance of success, where you’re not burdened with lots of people and politics. When there’s basically three to six people working on something, and they’re all extremely good at what they do in their respective areas, I still feel that it’s the most exciting and fulfilling thing that one can do.”
and launch a software product today than it was in,
say, the late ’90s and early 2000s, when companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon got started, precisely because of cloud computing and platform services.”
On the other hand, as he points out, it’s also infinitely more difficult to succeed commercially with a digital enterprise today. “Founder competition has ballooned, thanks to the lower barriers to entry, reduced costs of the infrastructure and the near infinite scalability offered by cloud services,” he explains. “Mind you, it’s still not easy and requires tons of knowledge, but it’s all relative by comparison. The founder’s challenge today is competing with the brand moat of many incumbents, and gaining traction in both the enterprise (B2B) and consumer spaces due to a new breed of competition creating
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IN YOUR CORNER ISSUE 17 | 2024
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