What sparked your startup journey?

Finding quality candidates and then shepherding them through the interview process was something I did not particularly enjoy. I loved working in my business, and only when I was particularly overwhelmed would I actively start recruiting. But what changed for me was the realisation that I would have to go through a lot of below average employees, before I found someone who truly above average for our needs. And as soon as that clicked, I started to understand that finding great team members wasn't that hard—I was just doing the wrong thing. Here's what I found to be the best way to find quality candidates: Always be hiring Finding someone great is easy, if you’re not desperate to hire someone instantly. Great candidates are usually are not looking for a job, and especially when you are hiring. So it makes sense to keep job applications open and keep interviewing candidates as well. You can easily pass this along the burden of regular interviews to your team. Your team members can vet the candidates before you do the final round Not finding the right candidates is one of the biggest problems that currently keeps business leaders awake at night. Finding them can be easier if you're looking for them all the time instead of just when you need them. Don't dig a well when you're thirsty. Anticipate that you'll lose a little time weeding through candidates that are not perfect , but you'll be better suited to expand when the factors are right for your business. When you have a few hires in the pipeline, you'll be in a better place to handle the next surge in your business. Continuous hiring - for the growth in your business, or the churn in your team. I found that collecting videos from your applicants is the best thing you can do to find the best candidate to actually interview. The problem is what your hires don't know how to upload a video to youtube, or don't care enough. You've got to make it easy for them. To solve this exact problem, I started Hirevire.com my two person startup last August. Hirevire let's you setup a page with questions one time (less than 10 mins) and candidates keep sending you video responses that you can check in your downtime. Candidates can answer on their phones, no software to install. You can even connect your Indeed or ZipRecruiter jobs posts so you can understand a lot more than what the CV tells you.

Looking through the trash at my day job at MoMA. 10 years later my company was on the Inc's Fastest growing list x3 I was a struggling Artist trying to make my way in the Art World when I found some prototypes for a product MoMA was developing that had magnets inside. I broke open the plastic parts to extract the magnets and as I placed them on my desk they hit a critical mass and all magnetized together into a straight line. I thought, Wow what if I could make jewelry that was only held together with magnets. This was pre-kickstarter and pre-Alibaba, I finally got a box of magnets custom made after about a year of faxing manufacturers and invented the "Bandoleer Magnetic Bracelet" I made a video of different "magic" tricks I would perform at trade shows to get buyers attention and posted it as my 1st Ever Video on YouTube in November 2006, by December it was the #1 Video on YouTube. I sold more jewelry in 3 months than I would have made in 5 years at my day job. I've been designing and inventing products and all sorts of things for 20+ years. I'm about to bring out a new product in the Fall that I'm very excited about a Modular Wallet that I hope will be a game changer. BE MIGHTY!

I wanted to make my own mistakes.

It's really a good question. As far as I remember, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. But, I chosen to work for companies due to lack of business knowledge, experience and capital. My inspiration came when I read the book "Start with WHY". I prepared my 5-why which was something like this: Below are my 5 reasons as to WHY I wanted to be an entrepreneur all along. It may help you decipher and decide your reasons: First: I was always dealing with technology at the forefront, and in the background, I was keenly following the substantial influence of the media in shaping the world. I could see the advent of technology-driven media convergence. I was certain there would be ample opportunities to explore and become a chief player in the converged media domain. Second: With the easy availability of smartphones, high-speed internet, and seamless connectivity solutions, the new media paradigm was emerging rapidly. While existing players were busy maximizing their profit, and fulfilling their commitments to investors and other stakeholders, I thought of becoming a challenger to capture the emerging opportunity. Third: For over 18 years, I built technologies, launched businesses, and successfully executed mega marketing plans. Those learnings, expertise, and experiences, helped me to fly out of the comforting nest and create more, achieve more, and offer more. I was convinced that there could not be anything other than taking the plunge to capture this opportunity. Fourth: Becoming successful at anything requires an understanding of market realities, knowing well the kind of risk you are going to face, and having a network of people who can connect your opportunity to the market. I was ready with all these three factors favourably tuned up at my side. Fifth: Most of my past endeavours made me garner significant outcomes starting from scratch, and building things up, bit-by-bit. I wanted to challenge the usual – be a disruptor, create mystery, and be part of creating history rather than follow the norm. And, I can tell you that the journey has been so exciting and fulfilling. I hope some of you resonate with my story.

The starting point for me was when I heard from colleagues that they wanted to do a startup about presentation design. I immediately liked the idea because it was my personal pain :)

A combination of dream chasing and business success, like always!

The spark for my startup journey was a combination of passion, a problem that needed solving, and the desire to make a positive impact in the world.

I decided I was going to be an entrepreneur since I was 14 because that was the only way to make serious money. Back at that time in my home country the jobs paid very low. Umm.. That was 28 years ago.

It all started with a casual help I did to my CEO @omnath who also happened to be my college mate without expecting anything. I wrote some piece of UI texts for him for free. That was it. Ever since then, the ride has been quite wild and there was no looking back. We built our own community platform that has 100K+ users. That's when we realized there are businesses and creators finding it hard to build and run their own communities. So we started focusing on giving community forum solutions that would ease their journey in running their community in their own branding without writing a single line of code.

It may simply be a good product idea.

Done with the shitty bosses, they were seniors with no leadership skills. That pushed me to pursue something of my own....

Staying close with everyone that matters.

Hey, I did not find the right solution / tools for problems which I faced during the development process. There were some components but outdated or with limitations which did not allowed to implement some custom features.

I didn't have any money when I was 15. And no one wanted to hire me, so I had no choice.

I found the cohesion of my idea among people. Plus developing your own product, seeing the people need your product is a drive) But the challenge for me is a marketing, since I am a programmer)

Our startup journey was sparked by a shared passion for education and a deep belief in its transformative power. We saw the immense potential of technology to revolutionize learning and wanted to create a platform that would make high-quality education accessible to all. Inspired by the desire to bridge the gap between learners and educators, we embarked on this journey to empower individuals to acquire knowledge and skills in an engaging and convenient manner. Our goal is to unlock the doors to lifelong learning and contribute to a more equitable and prosperous future for everyone.

The reason for my startup? well, I would say it's based on a hostel problem I encountered when I first got into college; and funny enough, my co-founder had also experienced the problem and then he suggested an idea on how to solve the problem and now we're both brainstorming on what to build and show to people.

General frustration from the regular office work culture

I'm building an AI-powered tool to translate and dub your received foreign-language video and audio messages in your preferred language. It's kinda similar to YouTube's new dub tool, but for video/audio messages, like Loom or CleanShot X videos. As a digital marketer who's not a native English speaker, I often get video messages from users and partners giving me feedback on the product, but due to the language barrier, I can't fully understand them. For example, I recently got a 20-minute screen recording from an experienced front-end developer who gave me really detailed and valuable feedback on a product and the landing page, from the value proposition to differentiates, to landing page execution. Every detail he pointed out is worth a ton to me. However, since the speaking speed is a bit too quick for me to understand, I still can't get what he said in some parts even if I replayed them many times. That brings me to the idea of building a tool to translate and dub the video and audio messages you received in the language you're most comfortable with. Eliminate the language barriers to effective communication, and leave no room for misunderstanding or missing out on any key details that matter to you. Feel free to check my product TransTalks here: https://mmntm.me/transtalks