Manny Manzel, founder and CEO of the groundbreaking new social networking app Crossed, is revolutionizing the way people meet and form relationships with people online. Yet doing something completely new inevitably raises similarly novel challenges, so it should come as no surprise that launching this industry-disrupting app was fraught with difficulties that Manzel and his team were forced to overcome. At the same time, however, it also taught Manzel valuable lessons as a CEO.
Manzel’s first challenge
First and foremost, Manzel and his team faced the challenge of creating an advanced new geolocation technology to run their app. Since their platform helps people find others who visit the same physical locations, they needed to create a one-of-a-kind database.
“Our system needs to seamlessly handle vast volumes of real-time location data,” Manzel explains. “At the same time, it has to analyze this information and provide answers to complex spatial queries.”
To help people find others who go to the same places as them, the system couldn’t rely on a fixed location or even a radius when creating matches. Instead, Manzel and his team needed to develop a dynamic matching system that considered changes in proximity.
“We establish a 150-meter range around each user that updates every five seconds,” Manzel explains. “That perimeter serves as a moving net or window. When users’ paths overlap, the system suggests the potential connection.”
Creating a system that was capable of handling such an onslaught of data in real time was only the first challenge, however.
Manzel’s top challenges
“What if I told you every one of our users can have up to three different profiles?” Manzel says with a laugh. “That’s because they can choose to be active on one, two, or all of our three different modes — dating, friendship, or business.”
That’s also why Manzel and his team needed to create a system with sufficient processing power to seamlessly integrate multiple profiles per user with their real-time location data. If that sounds like an impressive feat, well, that’s because it is. However, this sophisticated geolocation wizardry once presented the app’s biggest weakness. How could the app follow people’s movements while simultaneously protecting their privacy?
“One of our most formidable hurdles was integrating real-time end-user location data while meeting stringent privacy regulations,” Manzel remembers. “A lot of effort went into gaining app store approval for our geolocation functionality.”
The team solved this problem by turning to some of the most rigorous privacy protocols in existence — those used by banks and financial institutions. In the process of navigating these challenges, Manzel learned several important lessons.
Manzel’s top lessons for new entrepreneurs
“When you’re working in technology, you have to brace yourself for countless error messages and code rewrites,” Manzel says with a wry smile. “In the end, we had to build our app over 20 times. That’s how hard it was to get to a stable version we could actually release.”
According to Manzel, every new and aspiring entrepreneur should understand that setbacks are certain for any new venture. “The path to success is rarely smooth,” he says. “Encountering obstacles is par for the course.”
While encountering obstacles might be “intrinsic to the entrepreneurial journey,” as Manzel puts it, he doesn’t believe entrepreneurs should take them to heart. “Your setbacks don’t define you,” he says. “In my experience, some entrepreneurs misinterpret them as an indication of incompetence or a lack of worthiness. That’s hard to emphasize how big of a mistake that is.”
In particular, Manzel warns new and aspiring entrepreneurs not to let difficulties derail their vision. “View them as temporary bumps in the road,” he says. “They don’t have to be insurmountable barriers.”
In addition, he suggests that setbacks themselves can present unexpected opportunities of their own. “Think of them as teachable moments,” Manzel says. “Use them to hone your concepts, correct course, and improve.”
Moreover, Manzel counsels entrepreneurs to consider their upside. “When you encounter a setback, usually it indicates that you’ve pushed yourself out of your comfort zone in some way,” he says. “That’s a good thing, so you can view them as a good sign. When you think of them that way, you can even use them to fortify your determination.”
Similarly, Manzel suggests that even outright failure shouldn’t be interpreted as a bad thing in business. “It’s a chance to evolve,” he explains. “If you embrace failure, then you get a chance to adjust your course. The important thing is to stay open to the lessons it has to teach you. That way, you can capitalize on the experience, try something different, and even find new ways to expand.”
A Visionary leader who embraces the chaos
Manzel provides a living example of a visionary leader who embraces the whole entrepreneurial journey, with all its ups and downs. “Welcome the chaos,” he says. “That’s how you can best succeed in the ever-changing world of tech entrepreneurship.”
