5 powerful lessons from 5 months in Silicon Valley

Photo credit: Patrick Nouhailler.

It’s been some years since the travel bug got the better of me. Ever since then, I’ve been traveling a lot. Unfortunately, anything that can go wrong has.

Don’t get me started with the travel woes. Delayed flights, missed connections, and lost baggage made me realize that nothing can ruin a well-planned trip more than a bad experience at the airport. One such time while reaching out to the airline to vent my frustrations, I stumbled across a dirty little secret.

You’ll be astonished to know this.

When your flight gets delayed by more than three hours (variable to source and destination country), the airline owes you a compensation. It can be as high as US$600. Millions of dollars go unclaimed every year. Did you know this? Well, they don’t advertise this anywhere.

Being techies, both my husband and I started looking for ways to put this money back in the people’s pockets. That’s when we came up with the idea of Instalocate, a travel assistant that notifies you about flight delays and the money airlines owe you. It is powered by artificial intelligence and can be accessed via Facebook Messenger.

We immediately started working on it and launched a quick prototype. The next logical step was to take it to the land of startups—Silicon Valley. I quickly enrolled myself in a course at Stanford University, packed my bags, and flew to San Francisco to make my dreams a reality.

Here we are five months later with some achievements under our belt: thousands of users, the best chatbot of the year award, and acceptance into Facebook’s FBstart program. This journey has been no less than a roller coaster, and I have had some great lessons. I would like to share my top five here.

Ideas are cheap, execution is everything

Haven’t we heard this a million times before? But when I came to Silicon Valley, I was very hesitant to share the details of my product. I was fearful that someone would steal my idea. Gradually, I learned the most valuable lesson: Don’t keep your ideas to yourself, talk to people about it.

Only after 200 coffees and spending hours at Cafe Coupa in Palo Alto could I refine my vision for our product. My advice is to go out there, meet as many people as you can, and pick one tip from each one.

My outlook on competition also completely changed. When we started talking to people about our app, the first question they would ask was, “Is there competition?” With a lump in my throat, I’d say, “Yes.” But their reply would always shock me. “Great, that means it’s validated.”

Here’s the catch. Generally, if we have to work on an idea, our first instinct is to see if someone is already doing it. If people are working on it, we get discouraged. In Silicon Valley, I’ve learned that not every successful business needs a unique idea. Rather, what you need is unique execution.

An entrepreneur should be a storyteller

Small experiments lead to bigger things

Metrics are important

Hire wisely