Build human connection first, company later

Let me get this out of the way: making something people want is hard, so damn hard.

Making something people want has nothing to do how book smart you are, which school you go, what pedigree is in your blood.

It has nothing to do with your product itself, regardless how beautiful it is, how many rounds of UX iterations you have gone through, what framework you development stack is.

It has nothing to do with how many hackathons you have won, or participated, how many incubators you are part of, hack, it doesn’t even have anything to do with what investors you have on board, in fact, it has nothing to do with the many millions of your investors’ money you’ve got.

(Picture credit: Zach Glassman, creator of passionpassport.com)

No, Instagram’s instant success is not because of its beautiful apps.

No, airbnb’s instant success is not because of its easy to use mobile apps.

No, Uber’s instant success is not because its wopping $49.5 million funding.

All these fanciness came after their instant success.

Further: startups who have instant investment, i.e. having money before having users, are more likely the result of instant media hype, it will eventually come back to the ground and restart a normal cycle like every other startups and creatures, history can’t be lying.

I bursted out these rant after looking closer at Instagram, hosting on airbnb for 2 years, after spending 18 months busy building 3 well designed web applications only to find none of them gained traction. Experiencing these unannounced failures, I’ve been struggling to look for an answer from within. I’ve started Yoga, meditation, I seeked out the labyrinth Jack Dorsey hinted hidden in the lands end, I walked countless hours in the presidio’s woods and in the fogs and low clouds lingering within and without, condensed waterdrop dripped from the old eucalyptus tree branches, onto my face, nonstop pacific wind blasting at my being, ever present presidio coyotes, the red tailed hawks are all seemingly playing cat mouse game with me: find her, find the answer, and find her, would you?

And I’ve been looking…

What do I lack? Why people don’t flock to the products I made? What drove people retweeting a few blog articles I wrote, but not majority of others?

Besides the herd effect in all of us: what it is that makes something desirable by people?

I woke up with these same questions this morning to an article written by Amber Rae, creator of boldacademy, titled WHY YOU SHOULD SCRAP THAT LADDER-CLIMBING PLAN AND GO BACKPACKING AROUND THE WORLD, INSTEAD.

In that article, she included stories from a few people who tirelessly chased after their dreams, one of them by the name Zach Glassman. Zach left his soul crushing job in search of his life purpose: a 10 months ordeal he documented with instagram. The overwhelming social interaction and “collaborative spirit was apparent”. He quickly gained large number of followers and almost every photo (he actually doesn’t have too many on his instagram account) receives abundant “likes”. The story telling led to unquestionable human connection.

Amber told Zach’s story well:

Within a few months, Zach left his job and embarked on a 10-month around-the-world trip which he dubbed “Passion Passport.” He met with the people who inspired his journey, photographing and journaling his adventures–all with the hopes of inspiring others to add more adventure to their lives. Within six months, thanks to Instagram and having a compelling story, he became a featured user and built a following of 50,000 people.

He then turned his journey into PassionPassport.com, where he promotes the transformative power of travel through touching stories, stunning images, and a project called The Bucket List Initiative. The Initiative gives prospective travelers the opportunity to win a chance to live out their travel dreams. Thanks to the perspective and space that travel provided him, he now has clear goals to attack and implement a number of growth ideas in mind for 2013.

If human connection is what people desire the most, should we build human connection first, company after?

Zach’s search for truth within resonated with millions people, that resonation built the human connection as soon as his soul searching journey began. Zach didn’t begin the 10 months journey to do startup: but at the end, passion passport is the natural outcome of such strong desire and act of soul searching.

People may ask: what about lean startup methodology? What about customer validation and development? What about business plan canvas? What about social currency?

But you see: human connection that Zach has built in the 10 month journey is the social currency and social proof any lean startup needs. Intentional or not, Zach’s approach is, in a sense, validating the existence of emotional vacuum and human needs in all of us: to feel inspired and hopeful, and maybe more.

Reading an article is not enough for me to find the answer as I’m continuing my own soul searching process. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be challenging, sometime seeing successful “overnight success” is going to shake my and many people’s determination to do things that matter to ourselves and make sense. But I’m happy that little by little, day by day, I am approaching to the rightness a step closer.