The University of Virginia's Darden
Incubator program is having a very busy summer. It is the largest group since the program began - 18 companies!
Kyle Hawke, co-founder of
Whinot.com, is one of the participants in the program. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Kyle to find out life as a "start-up" -
1. Explain your business in term your mom would understand.
Whinot.com is a web platform that connects small business managers with freelance business consultants. We provide a process and the technology for a crowd of independent consultants to work together to solve the manager’s operational, marketing or organizational challenge. With this crowd-based approach to problem solving, the manager gets business solutions faster (because people are working in parallel) and cheaper (because of the pooled overhead expenses) than they can working one-on-one with a consultant.
2. Why did you decide to start a business?
I spent five years as a technology and supply chain consultant at Accenture. I took an interest in the success and motivations of large teams of unaffiliated individuals working together to develop open source software and other collaborative projects like Wikipedia. I started thinking about how to apply those same principles to the typical fee-based consulting model. From there, I developed the concept for Whinot. I tried to develop the concept at Accenture, unfortunately, there was no money and no time to get it off the ground. That’s when I decided to go back to school and start the business while at Darden.
3. How have you handled the funding issue?
To date, the business has been funded by self- and family. The next round of funding should come from client sales with some angel and/or venture capital.
4. What has been the biggest surprise in starting your company?
Starting a business is an emotional roller coaster. For a few hours, I will be on an emotional high after successfully passing a milestone and by the end of the same day I will reach a low for a totally unrelated reason.
5. Would you do anything differently?
Start selling earlier on in the process. It sounds strange, but the goal should be to have a contractual sale, or at least a handshake, before you start building the technology. This approach reduces the risk and time to market.
6. What was you basic strategy at launch and have you stuck with it?
Each day we waiver between being an “on-demand” consulting firm – matchmaking between businesses and clients – and a “crowd sourced” consulting firm – distributing one project to a community of consultants. The first approach is the easier, but more a saturated market, the second one is a game-changer.
7. What has been your biggest hurdle or stumbling block so far?
Simplifying the business model. A vision of where the business could go is always bleeding into the picture of where the business needs to start.
8. What has been your luckiest moment?
We have gotten the ‘big-break’ yet. More to come on that…
9. Where are you now with your business?
The Phase 1 web platform is up and running and there are over 100 consultants registered. We have submitted one client proposal and are actively pursuing our first client.
10. What does the future have in store?
We will be working with 17 other companies in the Incubator at Darden. We will start generating revenue in the next few months.
11. What is your best piece of advice for someone who is about to start a business?
Stop thinking; start doing. Rather than talking with your friends about your “idea,” put it into action. Start taking steps to get closer to generating revenue every day. And start selling before you even have a product or service to deliver.
12. What is the best thing about being an entrepreneur?
The challenge. The intrinsic motivation of knowing that you are directly responsible for whatever result you create.
The best of luck to Kyle and to the other 17 Darden Incubator companies as you move ahead with your businesses.
