Founder Interview #5 - Spencer Schoeben

Spencer Schoeben (@netspencer) is a young entrepreneur and student living in California. He’s currently working on his startup Seven.

Q: What was your first startup and how old were you?
I believe that, as a teenager, it is my time to explore the world and try out all sorts of opportunities. I don’t believe it is the time to focus exclusively on a startup. Teenagers simply cannot put the amount of energy and effort into a startup that it needs in order to succeed. At least, I sure can’t. Many teenagers work on projects during high school that they call startups. I guess I’m just not willing to call my experiences startups. But I’ve definitely had my fair share of projects.

I first started teaching myself to code when I was in fifth grade. I started by making basic websites but then started creating web applications. My first major project was Twitloc (twitloc.net). My brother and I were fascinated by location and thought people should be able to attach location to tweets just like they could attach pictures using Twitpic. Twitter then launched its own location services and Twitloc was basically irrelevant.

Q: How have you used your first experiences to improve your future work?
With every project I work on, I am developing my skills, fine tuning my insights, and becoming a better entrepreneur. In the obvious ways, working on Twitloc (and my other early projects) has helped me improve my coding skills. To truly learn to be a good devloper, you have to build things. You can’t just read books and take classes on how to program. By building Twitloc, I taught myself how to use Codeingither (a PHP framework), got an opporutinut to work with the Twitter API, and learned good design practices.

However, what I most cherish about my first experiences are much more than just a raw set of skills. I’ve always loved building things, and by building Twitloc, I got a sense of the amount of joy building and shipping a product brings. It’s a feeling that you truly cannot fully understand until you experience it. I also developed a work ethic and set of principles that have guided my decisions in future projects.

When I first started working on Twitloc with my brother, neither one of us really knew what we were doing. As a result, we made things up as we went along; we ignored conventional thought about how to run a business or build a project of the nature we were building. This has taught me that creativity and originality come from ignoring everyone else. Sometimes, you have to just trust your gut, follow your intuition and risk buing wrong. I’ve learned that doing so is the only way to create something that really adds value. You have to be your own person, and thus you have to make your own decisions without the influence of others. Intuition is the best inspiration.

Q: Do you see your age as an advantage or disadvantage?
Objectively, I believe age is irrelevent. The most important ingredients to success are passion, drive, motivation, and determinism — all factors that are age independent. I think older people are more likely to have all of those traits because they’ve had more time to learn, but that’s not to say its impossible for a young person to also have those traits. So, in order to succeed, age is neither an advantage or a disadvantage.

However, being young does have it’s pros and cons. I often go to events and find myself to be the youngest person there. This helps me stand out. It makes me inherently unique and gives me an advantage. Though, being young also means there are many people out there who won’t take you seriously. It definitely sucks when people don’t beleive in you. But the only thing that really matters is that you believe in yourself, which you can do at any age.

Q: What are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on Seven (seven.io) with Sully Taylor. We haven’t announced much yet.

Q: What is your vision for Seven?
Technology has the power to connect us, empower us and enrich our lives, but it often does the opposite. Seven is all about building simple products that solve problems and then get out of the way. We want to augment people’s existing real world lives, instead of filling their lives with unneccesary distractions.

Q: How do you manage your school life and your “business” life?
I think this goes back to my original point about working on startups in high school. I don’t take my startup that seriously because, in the end, I’m a student, not a full time entrepreneur. It’s just a learning experience. I might succeed and build something great that people around the world use, but that isn’t my goal. My goal is to learn.

Whenever I have free time, I try to work a little bit on Seven. Even during school, I sometimes day dream about Seven’s vision — so I’m always working in that sense. But the actual development work that goes into Seven comes second to my school work. I do it whenever I have time.

Q: You’re extremely inspirational on Twitter (and I’m sure in other areas as well), is that something that has come natural to you?
My tweets are always very honest. I share my thoughts and insights as they pop into my head. People often say I have a great intution which may or may not be true. Whenever something obvious occurs to me, I often try to look below the surface and uncover greater meaning.

Q: What’s one idea that you wish you would have come up with before someone else?
Kickstarter. I absolutely love everything about it.

Q: What advice have you been given that has stuck with you the most?
“Be open with your ambition. No one can help you realize your dreams if you dream in silence.” — Shervin Pishevar

Q: What entrepreneur do you look up to the most?
I’m probably going to have to say Steve Jobs. Lately, Steve Jobs has become hugely popular. And saying he’s my favorite entrepreneur risks sounding cliché. But I really, really connect with him. He was my neighbor. I walked my dog past his house every day. There’s something magical about having your hero live so close to you, and realizing that they are a normal person too.

Other than Steve Jobs, most of my inspiration comes from outside of the tech sector. I’m facinated by fashion and believe that fashion designers are some of the best entrepreneurs — they’re wildly creative, they know how to make things people want, and they know how to sell. I also look towards entepreneurs like John D. Rockefeller, Eli Whitney and others from that time period. These guys were truly innovative with how they ran their businesses. I find that so many entrpereneurs today only focus on building a good product (which is imporant), and don’t think much about other things.

Q: Where do you see both yourself and your business in 10 years?
I hope to be a whole lot smarter in ten years. And I hope to be part of a company that I am incredibly passionate about. Probably not the same company I am working on now, but hopefully a company with the same guiding vision.

Q: What advice would you give to a young aspiring entrepreneur?
Be completely, absolutely, 100% honest with yourself and who you are. Discover your inner talents, and passions and use those as your inspiration. Don’t focus so much on what other people are doing. Just do what you love. And if there’s someting you aren’t good at, just accept it — you can either choose to learn it or move on to focus on what you are good at.

Q: What are some of your hobbies/interests outside of startups and business?
I have lots of hobbies outside of business and startups. In my mind, business is just a tool to allow someone to make a difference in the world. What kind of business they choose to start should be based on what they are interested in. Having divere interests is very important. I often consider my diverse set of interests one of my biggest assets.

I love all aspects of design — fashion, product design, typography. I also love psychology, and philosophy. I find that bringing these passions together enables all sorts of possibilities. Whenever I build something, I think about design, of course, but also think about the psychology and philsophy behind the product.

Oh, and I love to cook — I guess I just like making things, both products and food.