Starting a company is a ton of work, making anyone that offers a helping hand a godsend. But, I’ve found that friends will rarely offer help until you’ve been vulnerable.
If you’re uncertain about the path your on, it can be difficult to admit vulnerabilities. We tend put up walls when the difficult questions are asked, and we cloud the truth with vanity metrics.
It’s not until you accept the truth that your next step becomes clear and people are eager to offer a helping hand.
Either friends don’t know where you could use assistance or they feel you already have a good grasp on the area they’re experienced in. By opening up about difficulties you’re facing, you paint a clearer picture of how they can help you.
I felt alone, in a closed box, before I began discussing problems I was facing more openly. It felt as if no one was wanting to help, but in reality they just didn’t know how they could help.
Since talking more openly, I’ve had friends help in almost every facet of the business.
Rickey has helped in almost every single way from big picture strategy to designing specific features.
My brother, Cody, helped map out the initial machine learning models for post engagement prediction.
Ben explained the backend architecture they have for payment processing at his company, Lyft, which gave me ideas for Cloud Campaign’s analytics processing.
Oliver as a power user is our frontline QA and has helped catch many bugs.
Chuck helped with UX design.
My mom even helped with cold outreach and demos.
Courtland from Indie Hackers helped a ton on day 1 with landing page design and even product roadmap when we pivoted back in September.
Shivu from Curator’s Club inspired me to start building my personal brand behind the company.
My girlfriend’s Dad, Urban, has made many intros to future clients.
And there are many others that have helped in one way or another.
Vulnerability can lead to great things! Just be sure to recognize and thank the people that help you along the way.