Ask HN: Deaf wannabe entrepreneur faces networking issues. How to work with it?

As an employer, it wasn't too bad. He telecommuted, so, most conversations were over ICQ. However, at times dealing through Florida Relay was troublesome. He did go to Linux and PHP user groups from time to time, but, mostly to meet people for contact later. He was a T9 SMS rocket. At times, communicating very complex thoughts when we were face to face ended up with me typing in a terminal window or writing on a legal pad. We didn't meet face to face frequently, and I did learn some ASL - only to find out that he didn't know ASL. He got into his late 30s-early 40s without ever using ASL and it didn't seem to bother him.

Interviewing him face to face was a little difficult, but, I brought pen and paper as I had dealt with deaf clients in the past while consulting. I had a prepared offer letter with me - just needed to fill in the amount.

We communicated quite a bit over ICQ about non work-related issues and he never really seemed to want to change much. He just wanted to work in a small office or out of his home, collect a paycheck, play xbox/ps3 and that was that.

So, the fact that you want to do something puts you a step ahead in the game. Many people, deaf or not, don't like groups. In fact, I would bet a large proportion of the readers here resist groups except with very like-minded people. I think ambition outweighs shyness. The desire to succeed will push you to do things that you might feel are initially uncomfortable, but, after a while, you'll adapt.

To make an idea a reality, it should be no different between us. You need to design your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), potentially code it, get people interested and using it. On the Internet, most communication with clients isn't verbal. Working in a pairs environment or finding a partner that will work with you might be a little more challenging, but, I would suspect you should really have that much difficulty. I know plenty of people that intensely dislike talking on the phone and prefer instant messaging, email, IRC, etc.

At the point it comes time to pitch your idea to get further funding, you will probably hit a roadblock that will be much more difficult. With Florida Relay, it was very difficult to detect passion - and by passion I mean the belief in an idea, the excitement of discovering a new solution, etc. Investors use verbal cues to detect how well you understand an idea or how well you'll be able to adapt to change or how much you believe in the idea. A translator just might not convey that as well which means your idea probably needs to be more technically sophisticated, documented, or thought out.

I don't really think you'll run into too many issues that any other reader here isn't going to encounter. Get your idea together, write a skeleton document, figure out what it takes to get from point A to B, develop an MVP yourself or with someone else, launch it, figure out where to go from there.

I'm rarely the pitch recipient, but I'd be interested to know how people would respond if you carried a video of your pitch on your phone. Sure, you'd have to iterate it a lot, and that's trickier with a video, but it might enable you to deliver the initial message clearly.

The other idea that comes to mind is . . . what about an interpreter? Could you go to events with a friend (or, ideally, a cofounder) who you can communicate with, who can then relay that information effectively?

For interacting with people I have come to realize that I instinctively use signals form the persons lip movement. I cannot lip read from that signal alone, but it helps me to disambiguate what one is saying if I can see their mouth move. A side effect is that if I am not wearing my glasses I will have difficulty following you.

For one on one I can manage relatively well by situating myself advantageously. But for groups, interviews and telephone calls it becomes harder. I also have to know what language you are using. If I guess that wrong, and even if you are using a language I know, I can hardly make out what you are saying. This has put me in odd circumstances: someone starts speaking to me in my native language, when I expect that person to be speaking in English. In such situations I am usually fairly lost.

I built my company with a partner who I'd only met in person once before we started the company. We'd worked together online for seven years, though, and knew each other very well.

Sure, networking has value, and it's important during the fundraising process...but if your skills are strong in other areas, focus on those. Let your partner do the networking, if you aren't comfortable with it.

Also, don't let the networking urge get too strong. Building a great product is the single most important aspect of starting a company, so don't get distracted by what you're not good at; do what you do better than anyone, and you can find someone to work with who is great at the other stuff.

* Participate in the online versions of the networking groups first... Get people to know your personality, who you are, and the fact that you're deaf

* Wear a namebadge at events so that people can put your face with your name and you won't just be some random

* Ask any "Formal" networking events if they could invite a SL interpreter to come, and try to get some sort of video coverage of any talks so that other hearing impaired people can watch them online

* "Buddy Up" with someone with better hearing so they can network with you, introduce you, and if nescessary, explain you need a bit extra help with participation

* Take a small computing device so, if you can't read lips, you can still read typed answers

I'm sorry if any of these are patronizing, as I said, I've never been in that situation before. FWIW, I think buddying up is probably the most helpful idea.

Best of luck, and if you're in Brisbane, Australia, I'd be more then willing to come hang out with another programmer, regardless of how their IO ports work.

The most effective networking I've done has been via discussion forums like webmasterworld and via email lists. It's also way more time efficient.

If you are worried that you lack a core skill or lack funding and need to network to find a co-founder or investor, just be straight with the folks you are communicating with - tell them you're deaf and you'd rather communicate via text mediums like IM, email, etc.

If you have a skill set that is core to starting a company, put it to work and good partners or investors will find you as they see how talented you are.

Learning sign language is not hard, so if you do find a great co-founder and you need to work in person, you'll probably find they'll put in the effort to learn ASL. Us geeks enjoy learning new languages.

Best of luck.

For me, my handicap is something of a "test" for other people: A lot of people don't understand and won't accommodate. They get discarded fast. I have come to view this as a kind of time saver. :-)

Good luck.

I recently was interviewed by a co-founder of a startup for an internship position. He lives in San Francisco, I'm on the East Coast. We used Skype and he was very nice, very open to instant messaging. To code, we used an EtherPad clone. But it's difficult to convey your passion like this, because there are two inputs: video and text. It's hard to appear passionate visually while you're typing, so there's a kind of disconnect.

How I handle phones: I ask them if they can text, email, or instant message instead. Never did teleconferences, but they sound like a nightmare. For in-person stuff, my college provides me access services for free. I practiced like hell with approaching people, understanding spoken language with the cochlear implant (got it three years ago), and speaking accurately, so conversations are no longer the sweat-inducing terrors they used to be. It turns out that most people didn't care I was deaf.

Consider a VP (video phone). Acts just like a phone, but a middle-person interprets both ends of the conversation. Naturally, there is a lag between translations. Be sure to let them know.

If you have any personal questions don't hesitate to contact me (see profile). You aren't alone. If you hadn't made this thread, I would have myself when I make a startup.

You've already got a good start by just being on HN. That's how I ended up in my current situation working for a startup.

I've worked for other companies big and small. Nobody really cares that you're deaf, although I can imagine it'd be difficult when you're trying to get an elevator pitch across. Haven't had to do that yet. You naturally figure out methods of communicating with people, especially on a one-one basis, as you start working with them more. Group situations have always (and probably always will) suck for me, though.

As for teleconferences, we have video relay here in the US so I've used that. Probably just as painful for me as everyone else in the conference, though.

It's a good thing that so much is done over IM/email/IRC these days, that makes things a lot easier for folks like us. Good luck.

I've come to the conclusion that I need a cofounder to pitch my ideas/MVP. It is a bit painful because I love presenting, I've been told I'm a natural. I have no problems pitching my idea, I can speak articulately. The problem comes whenever someone from the audience has a question. I can't hear the question. The workaround is to have them IM the question to me from their laptops but that can be as frustrating as Relay as the conversation isn't really very freeflowing.

I also hate groups. I hate socials and parties where I barely know the people there, I'm mostly standing in a group unable to follow the conversation and they end up being really boring. As you can imagine, meetups where I do not know _anybody_ are much worse. But the bottom line is, you need to adopt a different strategy. You need to build up contacts and use email/IM to pitch your idea instead of pitching on the spot. Collect visiting cards/emails.

Also remember being deaf, you have a big social network that you can tap in. I developed a MVP for delivering public announcements to phones in textual form (developed a webapp, Android app etc) and through the HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of Florida) I managed to get a meeting with executives from Continental Airlines. At the meeting, my professor at graduate school did the pitching and his pitch was incredible, I just couldn't have done it as well as he. About 80% of my communication with the professor was via email, I met with him face-to-face about just 8-10 times in the 7 month period the project was running (when I had to demo something). All the ideas and progress reports we did it through email. So it all comes down to finding the right cofounder (my professor would check his email every 15 minutes and preferred email to phone and face-to-face meetings with everyone).

It's still difficult for me to understand conversations in groups and ongoing environments. What I usually end up doing is the simplest approach: I say up-front that I have hearing problems and that it would really help me if people tried to speak in turns. I also try to choose my battlegrounds -- a secluded room as opposed to the middle of a busy coffee shop. The idea is that I give myself every possible advantage.

If that fails, I ask people to write something down, or to repeat themselves.

I'm pretty good at pitching ideas and leading discussion when I can leverage the environment like that. Phones are pretty much impossible for me to use, though, unless I'm in a very quiet environment. Some of that could probably be alleviated by practice, but a lot of it, I'm afraid, is just due to environmental noise/noise on the line/noise in their background/no lips. Teleconferencing is a bit better, if only because there's usually a chat option to clarify things that get mixed up in audio.

Whatever you do, though, don't give up. People can be remarkably accommodating if you tell them up-front what your problems are; don't let the one surly guy ruin your day.

I'm a native English speaker and learned Mandarin Chinese for a while (tones and all) and am still learning Japanese (6 years now). I currently live and work in Japan, using Japanese every day, and dealing with strange accents in English. It was a challenge at first, but I held my ground and now I've been here for four years.

So you can do it too.

I am also profoundly deaf, as a result of bacterial meningitis shortly before my fifth birthday.

That said, I have less of an entrepreneurial bent than you do, in that I work in a consulting/professional services role for a small company rather than starting my own. I'd like to start my own someday but I have some of the same concerns that you do, and I'm not sure how to address them either. :)

Groups are very difficult for me. This is partly because they tend to break down into a bunch of conversations that are really hard for me to follow, so I tend to be afraid to jump in and really say anything since I worry it will be off-topic -- so I generally don't speak much in groups unless someone asks me a specific question. Doesn't help that I tend to be really introverted in general, too.

As far as phones go, when I interviewed with my current company they were cool about doing the initial "phone" screen via IM, so that hasn't been a problem. We use IM heavily for internal communications anyway so it's not a big deal for me, and most of our external clients use it as well. We've used Campfire in the past in lieu of teleconferences, or at worst my project manager/account exec will be on the conference and relay any critical information I need to be aware of.

Anyway, if any of the deaf folks here would like someone to shoot the breeze with or whatever, feel free to drop me a line (email's in my profile, please mention HN in the subject line) -- I'd like to have more people in my circle of acquaintances who are in a similar situation as me and understand some of the unique issues (like teleconferences) that we have to deal with.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is what I used sporadically throughout college to understand those professors with a particularly heavy accent, and consists of a person in the audience typing out the audience questions on a laptop or transcribing machine. You hold a pager-like device which the typing is transmitted to. There's a slight delay while they type, but I found CART transcribers on a whole to be quite a bit better than Relay transcribers, in terms of speed. The downside is that it is expensive, $100-$200/hr here in the States, so it's only viable for important presentations. I was lucky in that my university had an accessibility program and covered this expense for me.

For phone calls (not so much busy conference calls, too slow), IF you are confident in your speaking voice and want to be able to convey the emotions behind your words, see if you have Voice Carry Over (VCO) available to you. This variation on relay is a 3-way call between you and the person you want to talk to, with the relay operator on the line as a non-speaking party. They will type the speech of the other party out for you, and you can speak for yourself.

long time lurker here, but now felt compelled to open an account and post.

Your post hits very close to home to me. I'm deaf on my left ear, nearly deaf on my right ear after being born hard of hearing and having a series of hearing losses during my childhood and teenage years. I can't phone, can't understand anything on TV, podcasts etc. but can converse quite well in one-to-one talks and very small groups of 2-3 people. I don't know any sign language. I have massive problems in noisy environments or really large groups. Accents are also difficult. Lip reading and a hearing aid helps. Luckily I've had amazing parents who made sure that I received a good education and can speak and write very well. I also like presenting and speaking in front of large groups. Unfortunately too many deaf people have really weak spelling and oral speaking skills.

Networking has long been something that I dread and tend to avoid. I am a young German marketing consultant (freelancing mostly for other consulting groups and startups) and - as yourself - a wannabe entrepreneur. So networking is a must. I constantly have to find new clients, new projects, new trends and markets to tap into. My biggest problem is that phone calls don't work. I ask for IM or video chats via Skype instead. It's still a massive problem when the other person doesn't know about your disability yet or when you're dealing with a conservative client (typically people in larger companies). Phone calls are an issue which I have not yet fully solved.

Some advice:

* I hate approaching people as the environment is often noisy and it's akward to explain that you're deaf or hard of hearing. When attending conferences or meetups ask for the list of attendees beforehand. Try to set up meetings and plan your pitch. Most people will be understanding and you have a list of people you can connect with. Wear nametags always. Have really minimalistic business cards ready with only your name, your company and your e-mail address and your skype/IM handle. Turn down meetups where you know it will be extremely noisy or where there is background music playing. Ask attendees for personal meetings the evening before or day after instead.

* Get yourself an iPad or another tablet where you can demonstrate your product for other people to see. Have it with you always.

* Obviously: Ask for IM or Skype video chat instead of phone calls. Better yet: Set up your own secured Jabber chat server for technically inclined clients or contacts and if possible a secured chat site, too.

* Have an incredible elevator pitch ready for IM, e-mail etc.

* (I know it sucks) On your website - should you have one - always say you're deaf or hard of hearing. It establishes trust and causes people not to be surprised when you decline phone calls.

* Ask other people to introduce you and if necessary explain that you're deaf/hard of hearing. Use other people, even your parents. Don't be too proud for this but always explain why it is important for you and what you gain by it.

* Create a blog where you demonstrate knowledge of tech, markets etc. This makes it easier to evaluate your skills without contacting you. Same goes for social networking.

* If you have a product, a popular website or a lot of people trying to contact you use a virtual call center which collects and answers questions, contacts and mails/IMs everything to you.

* Be incredibly persistent. It's very easy to get discouraged when getting a bunch of new contacts and each one requests a phone call. I set myself a goal to get ten new contacts per month to a face-to-face meeting or an IM chat and reward myself when hitting the goal.

* The best though would be to work in large companies or in a larger team. Solo freelancing or starting a company yourself without being able to phone is incredible hard if not downright impossible (I tried it myself). Ultimately you need people who handle phone calls for you and who assist you in handling issues with clients. It really takes a lot of weight off your plate. The only reason why I...

In any case, good luck.

* Know your strengths and weaknesses. I see a lot of great ideas on this thread to help with communication in groups, with new people, etc. But the main point is to learn where your weaknesses are, and address them specifically. There is such great technology around today. Figure out what your specific problems are, and look for solutions. Sorenson video relay for calling, or the myriad of IM based ones. Google voice for voicemail transcription (not perfect, but usually very helpful, and better than it being unlistened to). Campfire or other IM's for project planning. Quick demos/demo video available on your smartphone or tablet (Picture/video worth 1k words right?) Technology should be your bread and butter, leverage it to help ease social pain points.

* Have a good co-founder. As PG states (http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html) you should almost always have another co-founder. If this person is hearing, great, they can more easily integrate in different social situations. If not, GOTO 1 (but also have the other benefits that PG lists).

* Have a great product, and believe in it. A good MvP should tell a lot more about your skills and vision than anything else.

* Put yourself out there. The easiest way to fail is to not try at all. Investors are looking for good products and teams. Being deaf doesn't interfere with that at all.

You could organize it to be in a private IRC at a certain date and moderate the discussion. IMs could be used for people who want to breakout and have private conversations. It doesn't have to be limited to those who can't attend a physical meetup, but maybe at first just to test the waters.

This post was really inspiring, thanks for having the courage to ask the question. So many people will find excuses not to do something and it's so invigorating to see people who, literally, stop at nothing to succeed.

Best of luck to you!