By Joe Procopio

Joe Procopio

I’ve known Aaron Houghton for a while now, a few years, which is eons in startup time. He’s a solid guy who doesn’t get caught up in the headiness of success and doesn’t get distracted seven different ways trying to revolutionize… well, everything. And when you have a track record and means, it’s not hard to try to do that.

We sat down recently after the big shindig to celebrate the launch of American Underground, kind of notable since iContact, a company he founded with Ryan Allis, is one of the success stories of the renaissance here that made the realization of something like American Underground possible.

Loud Is Necessary

iContact is a startup, and a loud startup at that – a company that makes email marketing software and is growing rapidly both in size and in market share. It’s a hybrid B2B technology play that goes a bit beyond what you might think of standard email marketing. But the point is, it’s not producing some bio-engineered product that no one can pronounce. It’s got visibility.

Aaron isn’t a loud guy, but he believes in the loud. And it’s folks like these that will end up making or breaking the Triangle as a convincing competitive startup hub.

Durham vs. The World

One of the projects Aaron is working on now is directly related to the American Underground shindig that we had just left. DowntownDurhamStartups.com, as the name suggests, is a directory of all the downtown Durham startups and also includes nearby startups in Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and the surrounding cities and towns. When you take a look at it, you’ll see a vibrant array of companies, founders, and industries.

The other company is the one we spent more time talking about. StartUpWithMe.com looks, on the surface, like the gateway to his other project. You sign up, tell them a little bit about yourself, and through a series of questions, they determine if they have a partner for you to start your company with. If not, stay on the line, and sooner or later they’ll find the Woz to your Jobs, or vice versa.

So It’s Match.com For Entrepreneurs?

Sort of, but not really.

StartUpWithMe isn’t based on the matching of ideas. The inspiration behind it is based on the fact that on the way to starting a company, too little attention is paid to partnering and team, and that happens to be the most important factor in a startup’s initial and ongoing survival.

Investors and initial customers put the founders under microscope from very early in the sales cycle – usually, but not always, due to the fact that most of the time the product isn’t fully developed, but the team is complete.

Evaluation of ideaware is a risky business, so the next best thing to do is to size up the players. Ideas also tend to sound alike in the early stages, and differentiators are going to come from implementation and the imagination and ability of the idea handlers.

So It’s eHarmony For Entrepreneurs?

No. Come on now.

StartUpWithMe isn’t looking to match founders based on personality. Just because a terrific marketer and an awesome geek both happen to like long sunset walks on the beach doesn’t necessarily translate into Twitter valuations.

The match is founded on goals, style, and motivation. Things like that.

Are you a lifestyler or a money chaser?

Are you into pay or equity?

Are you tech savvy or business savvy?

Are You Vision or Strategy?

These are important factors. I find I work them into my own decision-making, not only with the people I hire/work with but the clients I take on/work for. When both of us are working towards the same thing, it’s a joy, it’s almost like not working at all. When our vision is divergent, it’s a chore, it’s a job.

And when you’re taking on the risk of founding a startup, chances are one of the reasons you’re doing so is because you’re not that 9-to-5 breed of cat.

Love is Art. Business is Science.

There’s an underlying scientific element that is driving Aaron to make this more than just an individual service, but an ecosystem service as well. These are the drivers that can identify and promote quality entrepreneurs and get them into the right position to succeed.

I can attest to that. Having just one right person in place makes all the difference between an idea that stays on paper and one that gets modeled and becomes reality. And if you can get a lead on this person without having to start and fail a dozen companies along the way because of an incompatible match, then this is a very valuable, and loud, thing.

Joe Procopio is the founder of Intrepid Company, a technical and management consulting firm (intrepidcompany.com) that has spun out publishing company/creative network Intrepid Media (intrepidmedia.com) and digital incubator ExitEvent (exitevent.com). Joe only wound up starting a company after a number of awkward dinners and several dozen delivered roses with apology notes attached. He can be reached at joe@intrepidcompany.com or twitter @jproco.

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