Posts tagged startup advice
the michael galpert experience
Be Well, Do Good.
Follow @msgElepath’s Blog: A couple articles we wrote
Kyle Bragger just posted an article on Medium about how working insane numbers of hours is not just unhealthy, but unproductive:
Nowadays, I’m working 4-day weeks, and doing no more than an hour or two of intense work at a time. I take a lot of walks. I’ve lost weight. I’m happier. My wife is happier. I’m more present. And most importantly: I’m doing the best work of my life. (continue reading)
And last night, PandoDaily posted my article about how the standard narrative of company acquisitions doesn’t address what is lost:
An entrepreneur is someone who, almost artistically, designs a living entity which embodies the values, beliefs, and ambitions of the creator. It’s impossible for a larger entity to swallow a smaller one without completely reshaping it. (continue reading)
Please enjoy!
Kyle Bragger + Jake Lodwick dropped some knowledge on the internets in the past 24 hours.
I highly recommend you read both posts more than once.
If you don’t like shoveling, then don’t work at a startup.
If you like “managing stuff,” then don’t work at a startup.
You build or you sell. There’s nothing else to do.
35 Gut Checks When Founding Your First Company
Awhile back Jordan Cooper put together his own version of a Meyers Brigg test for anyone who his thinking of starting a company from experience working with entrepreneurs.
I highly recommend giving it a review
If Your Startup is Like the New York Jets
According to marksbirch :
Then there is no hope. Zero. Zilch. Just end it immediately. Fire the staff, apologize to your users, return whatever money is left to investors, move back in with your parents, and whimper to yourself for the next several weeks.
The points that Mark makes are great!
- Have a Plan and Stick to It
- Put Product Ahead of Publicity
- You Live and Die by Culture
- Team Versus Superstars
Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down
Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 203, Ray Bradbury (via rickwebb)
Reid Hoffman said something similar about startups/optimism/confidence:
“in order to jump off a cliff, you kind of have to believe you can assemble a plane on the way down.”
(via rickwebb)
Om gave a talk awhile back about hardships of building a startup today vs a decade ago.
You can watch the 13 minute video or scan through the 28 slides.
Well worth it.
… it’s often easier to sell a product that intensely appeals to a narrow market than one that loosely appeals to a broad one. Early in his career, he proved this point while selling educational software.
He discovered that parents making purchasing decisions wanted to know that the product was perfect for THEIR kid. That left his marketing slogan at the time, “Perfect for ages 8-80” dead in the water. To combat this, Gross tested a product called “Jump Start for Kindergarten” and market only to 5-year olds. This product made $5 million in its first year and lead to a franchise for each grade. When originally proposed, the idea was shot down by every sales, marketing, and finance executive at the company as being too narrow. The end result, which came to be only through testing, was the most successful product in company history.
The takeaway lesson is that a more focused product sells better. Tangentially, he said that startups can often use focus as a secret weapon to outmaneuver larger companies. Gross’ closing advice on the subject was: “Focus is always better, even if it’s the wrong focus.”
First the soft stuff: Trust yourself. If you are passionate about your idea you can do more than you ever imagined. There is no secret to success; you simply start with a vision and then it is about problem solving, breaking everything down into smaller pieces, getting it done, and remaining tenacious even when the uphill pursuit becomes steeper. Nothing is more rewarding!
Now for tactical: It might seem daunting to get started, but it doesn’t need to be perfect from the start. Test your idea in its minimum viable form. Our first site was super basic, we packed every box ourselves and walked them all to the post office. We were able to let it evolve over time instead of solving everything on day one.
Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, co-founders of Birchbox, giving the scoop at goop about starting your own business. (via idonethis) [updated to include full quote]
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HEART HAYLEY + KATIA
(via idonethis)
Make your choices, live the life you want and stop complaining.
siberianfruit: Startup CEOs, stop acting like victims.
This is the closing line of a beautiful post that I enjoyed reading
Information Arbitrage: Message to founders: Always ask for "the order"
Great advice from Roger aka informationarbitrage:
- Be confident. You rock; you really do. The fact that you are starting something and devoting your life to it is freaking awesome. This alone should give you the confidence and esteem to ask for help with head held high. The worst thing that someone can say is no. And if they do? Screw them - and move on to the next one.
- Be focused. You have to know what you are asking for. Being confident while being unfocused in your ask is really annoying and will ultimately lead to failure. If you’ve gone through the trouble to set up an ask, make it time well-spent for all parties. Do you homework and know what you want. Confidence + focus is a recipe for success.
- Be tough. Getting kicked around and rejected is part of any great mission. It means what you’re doing is either really stupid or orthogonal to conventional thought (read: a potential home run). Given that you rock, I’m going to assume it is a differentiated but dissonant idea which will require a very refined pitch to communicate and convince smart, cynical people (be they potential employees, investors or customers). No is a perfectly reasonable answer: just make sure that you are getting textured rejections in order that you can learn and use that information for subsequent meetings.
- Be persistent. Staying in touch with those to whom you’ve pitched, where they are potential “yesses” in the future but need to see more and better thinking/product/proof, often yields tremendous results. Saying what you’re going to do and then doing it is a boon for fund-raising at every stage. Use that confidence, clarity and toughness to fuel the persistence necessary to win over high-value people as your company evolves.
Listen to your customers, not your competitors.
- Joel Spolsky via startupquote
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You need to understand your competition but not let them dictate your business.
The most frustrating part is that it is difficult to get into a rhythm in your work when you have no real understanding of the next steps you need to take. There’s no opportunity for flow if both outcome and process are foreign experiences. There’s just a lot of poking around and mystery and inadvertent negligence.
Varsity Bookmarking: My Job Pt.1 — I have no idea what I’m doing
One of best descriptions of start-up life I’ve ever read (via betaworks)
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Try not to worry about what the future holds because in the end, every passing moment is an opportunity to create your future.
(via hiten)
What I realized over the years is that it’s just as hard to build a small business as to build a big one, so you might as well try to build a big one.
So stop listening to your customers and start watching what they do. Actions have always spoken louder than words. Who knows, the actions of your users may very well be telling you something more powerful about what your business can become than what their, or your, words ever will.
As always read the full post
