Driving to Austin or taking the plane (10 days vs. 3 hours)?
There are three major aspects to be aware of in order to develop a great product and build a company.
- Founders market fit
- Product market fit
- Ability to manage growth
Most of the people have heard about the product market fit and that managing rapid growth is difficult, but what is founders market fit?
When you start a company, you don’t earn a lot of money in the beginning and you might not even know what the final product will look like. You spend most of your time working and there will be times when you ask yourself: “why am I doing all of this?”
You have to like your product, your users and the outcome. But there is just one thing that stays for sure during your journey as a StartUp: Your Co-Founders. You have to love the people with whom you are walking side by side with. However, the team also needs to fit the mission it wants to accomplish to be successful on the market. That is the simple explanation of the founders market fit.
Having this in mind we asked ourselves how to build a great product, improve our skills as entrepreneurs and our team in the most efficient way.
We stayed in San Francisco for a while. In order to get to SXSW we then had to choose between taking a 3 hours flight or a 10 day journey. We chose the 10 day journey and decided to drive 3.500 kilometers down to Austin in a caravan.
We discussed our plan with others and most of the people said: “Guys, you need to focus now, build your product, iterate, get it done, fast” etc. and you know what? They are all right. Of course we should do that. Getting things done is extremely important, but getting the right things done is even more important.
It is true that the working conditions on the road are far from perfect. You can imagine that the internet conncection are not that great in the desert of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.
However, being in a caravan for 10 days you learn more about the people you work with than in months of sharing a table at work. Therefore getting to know each other in a very private atmosphere makes sense. In addition, it’s important to unwind and get a fresh mind for the next steps of the product and of course also to prepare for SXSW.
On top of that we invited our girlfriends to join us. “Why?”, you might ask, “wouldn’t that be counterproductive in terms of distraction.” Well yes, of course it’s a whole different story. However, what we figured out within the last year and months is that private life sacrifices a lot. For us bubble it! is a large family and it is important to us that the people we care about understand what we do, why we do it and with whom we are spending most of our time.
Furthermore, there is another reason why we chose to be entrepreneurs and taking the risks that come along with it. We want to be independent and able to make our own decisions. We worked in national parks, at the seaside facing the ocean, at lakes, in the desert and on the road. Because we wanted to and because we currently have the flexibility to do it. We visited incredible places and had a great time that we will remember for years. In business terms: We believe the investment will pay off big time in the future. We know each others personalities even better, we had the time to reload our batteries and at the same time we were productive and able to plan the next steps of the venture.
A trip like that needs to have the right timing. After a long time without any break from work and with no major traction that would keep us busy in terms of operations, the timing was perfect for us. To sum it up: If you are in the early days of your business and you have the choice between a roadtrip or taking the plane, our advice would be: Roadtrip 
