Coaching your business from its teen phase to adulthood
Ask anyone who’s worked at more than one startup and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: Young companies start to go off the rails once they hit 50 employees. I call this the “teenager” startup phase, and I’ve been there several times, both as an employee and an executive.
What does this look like?
Employee one through 10: At a certain point, the original employees stop learning new people’s names. They won’t come right out and say it but they start to resent having to show yet another noob how to do the same simple things. …
Save the big announcements for big deals
If you want to give your new business a decent shot at success, you need to build traction — clear, measurable evidence that people are interested in what your company is offering. And that won’t happen on Day One.
So why do startups make big, splashy announcements the day they launch? Because that’s the way it’s been done for ages. But that strategy can actually do more harm than good.
When no one knows who you are or what you do, you need to buck conventional wisdom and launch quietly, without fanfare. It took me almost 20 years and a…
Let’s talk about how much you should charge customers for something when you’re not totally sure what that thing is yet.
A startup has to get its pricing right or the product will be dead at launch. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of hard and fast rules for pricing a brand new product. It’s an individual exercise, and the right answers are specific to your market, your company, and the as-yet-unknown value of the product to your customers.
Throw in the uncertainty surrounding a minimum viable product, and the pricing process usually generates more questions than answers. I…
The more revenue you have coming in, the better the chances you can raise (and not waste) investor funds
At startups, the difference between survival and running out of runway always comes down to taking our eyes off revenue.
We don’t want to do this, and we certainly don’t do it on purpose. But when we’re in the middle of the startup run, it’s pretty easy to fall into a trap of wasting time on feel-good tasks that feel like progress but don’t bring in any money.
No entrepreneur is immune to this trap, myself included. It’s part of the drive that makes the successful entrepreneurs successful.
I’ve founded, worked at, and advised a ton of startups, and each…
Four tried-and-true sales approaches that are making a comeback in the digital age
There has never been a better time to start a business. These days, almost anyone can quickly set up an infrastructure that can automate most or all of the business functions around marketing, producing, and even delivering a product.
There’s just one area that hasn’t caught up yet. Even with all the advancements in technology that have brought about automated marketing solutions, no-code software development platforms, and point-and-click fulfillment options, there’s no magic bullet out there that will sell your product for you.
So even though it’s never been easier to start a business, it’s still just as difficult, if…
Teaching Startup lets you eavesdrop on the answers other entrepreneurs are getting
One of my favorite Teaching Startup members sent us a nice, out-of-the-blue email this week, telling us how much she liked “lurking” in Teaching Startup to get answers to pressing questions her peers were asking.
I had never thought of it as “lurking” before, but as soon as she said it, it made total sense.
Learning entrepreneurship in the classroom
I’m a hands-on learner, as are most entrepreneurs. I’ve never been a fan of classroom learning in general, but I understand why it’s important.
I’ve been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in the classroom for an entrepreneurship program at a well-known business school. I’ve had multiple dialogues with…
If you’re going to innovate, you’re going to upset a few people
Before we get into this, I’m going to first clarify that you should do everything in your power to satisfy every single one of your customers.
It’s hard to argue against making customers happy, but I’m going to do it anyway, because living by the rule that the customer is always right is a dangerous game when you’re trying to innovate.
I’m not talking about Henry Ford pushing forward with the automobile while his customers allegedly clamored for faster horses. I’m asking you to decide whether you’re willing to bet everything on your solution.
Why you should seek out and embrace negative feedback
I get negative customer feedback quite…
If you want to make money with tech, you need to start selling benefits, not features
Take a few minutes to think about what you’re selling. The tech behind your product is probably pretty slick. But you’re probably selling that technology, and that needs to change.
Understanding tech is both a blessing and a curse. Company leaders who have a solid grasp of what’s fueling their product — whether it’s software, hardware, hard science like chemistry, or soft science like psychology— these folks can get a concept working and into MVP quickly. But they also tend to fall into the sales trap more often than others.
It happens to new and veteran entrepreneurs and leaders alike…
Teaching Startup is supporting the middle ground of entrepreneurship
I’ve written two startup advice posts a week since January 2019, all in an effort to help make more and better entrepreneurs. That’s over 250 posts, close to half-a-million words, on concrete concepts that are valuable to both experienced and inexperienced founders.
These posts are (for the most part) free, and I’ve received hundreds of emails and other communications letting me know that the posts made a difference. It’s why I do it. But let’s face it. None of those posts contained magic words to turn a garage-based startup into a unicorn. I know this.
I’m also a formal startup…
Five questions you need to answer before starting a new project
There’s no worse feeling for an entrepreneur than pushing a brilliant idea all the way though execution and then launching that new product or feature to dead silence.
But oddly enough, we entrepreneurs tend to do this a lot. In fact, I just did it again myself. Even after building over a dozen startups over a couple decades, I still dive right into this trap headfirst.
Ask anyone who creates new things for a living and they’ll tell you that the key to success is to underpromise and overdeliver. This is almost always true, because you’ll never go broke surpassing…
