Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Russ Stromberg

Editor’s note:  Russ Stromberg worked in wireless technology for 15 years before founding Iota just a few months after he attended StartupDay 2009 last year.  Early-bird ticket sales for StartupDay 2010 end Friday.
 
The voices from StartupDay still ring at Iota, Inc.
 
Before founding Iotalast December, I turned to the start-up resources in Seattle to geteducated.  Attending StartupDay 2009 helped me prioritize the activitiesand philosophies to take on the challenge of a new business.  In shortthe speakers gave outstanding and sage advice.  A year later, theirguidance has proven to be right on point – exposing pitfalls to avoidand guiding us towards success.  If you are considering a start-up, Ihighly recommend that you attend StartupDay.  It will stick with you.

Here are some simple pieces of advice that have made a difference for us at Iota:

  • The founder of TeachStreet, Dave Schappell, laid it on the line that most people in the room would not take the leap to turn their idea into a business.  It wasn’t a challenge, he simply sounded out the life of late night hours, stealing time on holidays to work, and stretching money (or lack of it) farther than ever before.   He readied everyone in the room by giving them a 20/20 look ahead to the life of an entrepreneur. 
  • At least three speakers hit on the importance of focusing on delivering product and shipping it early.  The message was clear to not get caught up in getting the product right the first time.   Strongly inspired by the chorus of this advice, we delivered our first hardware prototype less than four months after opening the doors.  Now, we have a commercial device we can deliver for the Holiday season
  • Lastly, the perspectives on bootstrapping and fund raising were very educational. This is definitely the most difficult lesson to pass on. The speakers at StartupDay did a good job trying to prepare everyone. I would say until you go through it, it’s difficult to appreciate how the information they gave would come to pass. Yet, their warnings and suggestions prepared us well as we dealt with various investors and considered different funding options. I was not surprised.

StartupDaygave us a general recipe for getting our business going. Since then,we’ve worked with folks like William Carleton at McNaul Ebel, aStartupDay advisor, and we’ve utilized Seattle 2.0’s web site to connectto and follow other Seattle start-up resources.
 
Even today, I evoke the words of last year’s speakers at StartupDay tothe team. Getting solid guidance from this type of event will help you– again in words from StartupDay — set the DNA of your company earlyon.

 
Russ Stromberg
Russ Stromberg is the founder and CEO of Iota. Iota is a Seattle-based company that is bringing the power of nationalvoice and text to Android-based touch screen tablets and other mobileinternet devices. Iota’s core product, FLEX is a wearable GSM phoneproduct that connects tablets and other devices, via Bluetooth, to GSMnetworks around the world, including AT&T and T-Mobile.  RussStromberg founded Iota after 15 years in the wireless industry, mostrecently as a leader at T-Mobile in engineering and product development.
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