Do What You Love is a series that showcases the entrepreneurs behind emerging companies. In this edition, we sat with Firehawk Creative’s co-founders John Petersen and David Lesches.
In previous jobs, both John and David reached tipping points that pushed them to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Firehawk Creative launched in 2013 as a development shop focused on helping others take their ideas from concepts to successful businesses. John and David take pride in being a two-person team, placing an emphasis on client satisfaction over company growth. Here’s how they got started, what makes them different, and some things they dislike about working in tech:
What was the tipping point for you? What made you quit?
John: I take notes on lots of things, and I was going back through an old notebook from four years ago with some goals I had written down. One had a question, “What do you do and why are you doing it”? I answered: “I love helping people figure out their finances.” Looking back, working in finance wasn’t what I loved doing at all.
The NJ Tech Meetup was actually the first tech meetup that I ever went to. I saw a couple companies from TechStars, and one of them built this really cool product in three months. That was a game changer for me, seeing the impact it had made in such a short amount of time. At that moment, I knew I had to get into that space.
David: I used to code for an events company, but quickly realized that the work wasn’t challenging enough. John and I actually worked in the same building, and he mentioned he was going to get in the development shop scene and I was completely in because you’re never bored in that world. You change projects every month and that was so appealing to me.
There are a lot of development shops out there—what makes Firehawk Creative different?
John: We’ve had positions with other development shops and understand how they work and why they exist. Ultimately, we found that we can deliver the best product as a two-person team. One of our biggest strengths is looking at a problem and figuring out a way to execute it because we’ve done it so many times before.
It sounds like you measure success a little differently than some.
John: Yes, it’s about client satisfaction. When people are investing their time, money, effort, and life into something, we want to offer honest feedback to help them and to build out a quality project.
Do you think it’s beneficial to have worked with someone before starting a company together?
John: It’s so crucial. It’s one of the biggest problems I see with people trying to get into the startup space. You see people who need a tech founder and give away half the company to someone they met at a meetup because they know how to code. You can’t expect to work well with someone on a project for 10 years if you jumped into doing business together after one meeting at a coffee shop.
With David, we worked together at the same company for a year before jumping into this new company. If we had gone in together right away, it might not have been the same fit.
With a two-person team, how important is it to able to disagree? Do you guys often see things differently?
John: We debate all the time, and we’re brutally honest — with clients, people we meet, and ourselves. We’ll sit there and straight up say: “This sucks”. It’s good because we’re always pushing for the highest quality in our work. If you’re not honest with your own team, it won’t show up in the final product.
You mentioned that you’re “brutally honest” with people before taking on projects — do people ever react to that negatively?
David: I don’t think people respond negatively, but there are some people who listen and some people who are just deaf. A lot of people just refuse to listen.
John: We’ve talked to investors who say some of their peers take the easy road out and tell people who are pitching to them — “It’s a good idea but come back to me when there’s more traction”. That’s usually code for “I’m not interested at all in your idea, but I don’t want this to be uncomfortable.”
To me, if people are looking to you for guidance and you’re not giving it to them because you don’t want to have a difficult conversation—it’s not right way to do it.
You’ve been in the tech space awhile. Is there anything you dislike about it?
David: I’ll start. This is my favorite rant. I think many entrepreneurs take the MVP concept too far in the wrong places. I think it’s important to hit the core functionality of your product, but you can’t sacrifice design and user experience. Good design invokes trust out of the user. If it looks good, you trust the website with your data. Too many entrepreneurs are cutting corners because of the MVP mindset and it’s negatively affecting UI/UX.
John: Can I steal his? (laughs)
For me, I see too many people get attached to their idea and it puts them in a difficult spot. Any successful company you look at today isn’t doing exactly what they said they were going to do when they started. You have to be open to feedback and be willing to make changes.