2013 Fellow Mike Wilner grew up in Baltimore and attended Washington & Lee University where he studied Math and Business, played two seasons of Varsity Basketball (led the team in fouls-per-minute…seriously), and held it down as the Treasurer of his fraternity. After spending his fellowship at Detroit startup BoostUp wearing every figurative “hat” you can imagine, he’s now teamed up with another VFA Fellow, Taylor Sandali, to launch Compass— a service that connects small businesses with technology resources and expertise.
Name: Mike Wilner
School: Washington & Lee University ’13
Fellow Class: 2013
City: Detroit
Where you worked with VFA: BoostUp
Where are you now? Working part time for a company called SocialProof while continuing to build my company, Compass
About 8 months into our VFA fellowship, Taylor Sundali and I encountered a problem we wanted to solve: we wanted to hold an event in Detroit, but realized how difficult it was to accurately gauge how many people would actually attend a social gathering since traditional RSVP’s don’t hold the weight they used to. So, we sought to create an app for event organizing that used a crowdsourced method, in which invitees play a larger role in the event’s fruition, resulting in a stronger sense of commitment. We called it Gather.
For the next few months, we started working together on some lean experiments to learn more about the problem we were trying to solve. Then, we did a lean experiment that worked exactly as we intended, and we effortlessly organized a pop-up social gathering with over 40 people.
This was a great step for us, and we figured we had enough product insight to create a product that people could use, and we were pumped.
Then at my sisters graduation the next week, my parents, both of which are small business owners, sat me down for 30 minutes to talk through some of the digital marketing aspects of their businesses. They asked questions about social media, web design, suspect advice they’d received from self-proclaimed experts, and more.
In about a half hour, I was able to correct some poor advice they were given, gave them a clear direction with the things that were worth their time, and offered to create a website for my dad with Squarespace, which took me a few hours. All of the advice and services I provided for my parents were things that I’d taken for granted–I’d never thought of these things as proprietary, marketable skills.
Then I thought, what if we could get more people like me (digital natives/VFA Fellows) to provide some of these services for underserved small businesses whose most valuable resources are time and money?
When I got back to Detroit, Taylor and I had a meeting. I explained this idea to him, he came up with the name Compass, and we decided to begin working on Compass instead of Gather.
Coincidentally, the VFA Innovation Fund was right around the corner, which prompted another decision. While some of our friends knew we had been working on Gather, it was still a private side project. A crowdfunding campaign, however, would be very public. We would have to put our idea out there for everyone to see–something I’d never done before.
It was not an easy decision to commit to the innovation fund. Looking back, that decision was not a big deal, but at the time, it felt like the biggest risk I’d taken in a while. Fortunately, Taylor, a few fellows, the VFA team, and my family helped me work through my apprehensions and helped me realize it was a risk worth taking.
So we jumped in with both feet to the innovation fund with nothing but an idea. In the two weeks that followed, we created a logo, a brand, a script for our crowdfunding video, the video itself, a website, and a crowdfunding campaign.
In the 5 weeks of the crowdfunding campaign, we were forced to sell our services to small businesses before we even knew how we would fulfill them: logo creation, website creation, and running google adwords campaigns.
We were able to raise $7,213. More importantly, through our countless conversations with small businesses, friends, family, and anyone else who would listen, we validate our idea even more, realized that we needed to focus on just one service to start (websites), and acquired our first customers.
Since then, we’ve created 10 websites for our customers, learned the ins and outs of the digital marketing landscape, have been accepted into the VFA Accelerator, spoken to VCs, and have discovered some juicy insights that makes Taylor and I really excited to go all-in on Compass.
It’s been a great journey already, and aside from the Compass-specific lessons I’ve learned, the journey has taught me a few valuable lessons that I’ll take with me no matter what the situation is:
It’s important to understand sunk costs.
It would have been a huge mistake to continue with Gather despite the the opportunity that presented itself with Compass. Instead, we just thought about what the right next move was. We deemed Gather a sunk costs, extracted all of the value we could out of it, and moved on with Compass. In our first six months with Compass, we made assumptions and spent a lot of time working on things that were completely wrong. It’s been really valuable to not get too attached to the work we’ve put into certain things, as it’s allowed us to iterate, learn, and improve rapidly.
The idea and team are important, but how the team works together is even more important.
One of the valuable things we extracted from Gather was the way Taylor and I learned how to work together. We were able to hit the ground running, using some of the same workflows and processes that we’d developed with Gather. While most of Gather was a sunk costs, we carried our teamwork along with some other lessons we learned, over to Compass.
You can learn to work together with someone.
At first, Taylor and I were apprehensive about working together because we thought our skillsets were too identical. However, through transparent peer-feedback sessions and not being afraid to talk candidly about it, we’ve learned ways that we’re very different, and have learned how to compliment each other extremely well.
Big risks are not made at once–they’re made over series of smaller, manageable risks.
The thought of going full-time on Compass doesn’t seem like a huge risk right now–it just makes sense. That’s because the risk involved in taking such a leap has been distributed over series of smaller risks over the past few months–the innovation fund, calling customers, charging customers for services that we were still figuring out, and more. Huge leaps of faith are usually glorified in the media, but often if you look closer, you’ll see smaller risks that are taken because they make sense at the time.
If you surround yourself with good people that are aligned with your values, they’ll help point you in the right direction.
When I wasn’t sure about the innovation fund, I was surrounded by people who had aligned values and understood a lot about me. When I turned to them for guidance, they set me straight.
Building your idea publicly is a great way to quickly materialize an idea.
When Taylor and I decided to work on Compass, it would have taken a lot longer to get it off the ground if we were building it privately, on our own time. Instead, the crowdfunding campaign had deadlines, and forced us to make things ready for public eye.
You only have to be ready for tomorrow.
Taylor and I have grown tremendously over the past 6 months. When Compass was just an idea, I didn’t feel ready to sell partnerships, convince small businesses to trust us with their online presence, or pitch VCs, yet here I am. Still, despite our personal growth over the past 6 months, I think about things that we’re going to have to do in the next 12 months (raise capital, build a team, manage dozens of projects at once), and I don’t feel 100% ready, but that’s ok. We just need to be ready for tomorrow, then the next day, and then the next day. If we continue to be humble, learn as much as we can, and meet the next day’s challenges, we’ll be ready for those daunting things when we wake up to them.
“Learning by doing” only works if you pay attention to what you’re learning. While Taylor and I have been moving fast through this journey, we take time to digest what we’re learning, which typically happens through posts like these. Reflecting on what you’re learning and noticing how you’re growing is really important for young, inexperienced founders like ourselves. As Compass grows, we need to grow with it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, Compass won’t be built in a day, and we as founders will not be built in a day.