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…
A random review will get you exactly what you pay for, or worse
I’ve dedicated a chunk of the last 10 years of my career to helping entrepreneurs both new and experienced get a better handle on their business. So I want to make sure you know that this post isn’t about me; it’s about helping you.
When random entrepreneurs ask me for help, I do my best, but physical, temporal, and legal limitations kind of put me in a box. …
Here’s a novel way to keep the questions coming
“Well, why the hell do they do that?”
That question, more often than not, is the singular spark that produces more successful entrepreneurs than any other. It’s the result of looking at the status quo, seeing a better solution, and then putting in the time and effort to make that solution viable.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that the best entrepreneurs not only keep asking questions, but they keep finding ways to ask new questions. …
Distractions kill transactions
There’s a single source of truth that determines the success or failure of your business. If you’re not generating the revenue numbers you need to extend your runway, hit your goals, and develop traction, then failure is a foregone conclusion.
Far too often in my 20+ years growing new companies, I see leaders obsess over every detail of their business except the one thing causing the actual problem.
Why does this happen?
Because a broken sales process is a silent killer. Flaws in your sales strategy will quietly linger and fester, systematically eating away at the health of your business…
Competitive protection is more than just keeping secrets and filing for patents
If you build a great product or service, but one that can potentially be copied, how do you protect it?
That question came in through my channels last week with no context and no background information. Thankfully, with 20+ years experience building companies on sweat and intellectual property, I don’t need either.
The short answer is: A truly great product or service idea is one that can never be copied, because its success or failure all depends on how well the company executes the idea.
The longer and less-bullshit answer is far more complex and nuanced. …
Help is out there, so why isn’t it being accessed?
Today’s entrepreneur has an unprecedented number of options to get the help, advice, and answers they need to start their own companies, build innovative products, and make a positive economic impact on their communities.
So why aren’t they getting it?
The answer might surprise you.
“We have excess capacity”
Earlier this week I had a call with an entrepreneur halfway around the world who was in the same space as me and facing the same problems.
He, like me, had already had a decent amount of prior success. …
Why do startups run out of money? Here’s the most preventable way.
Most entrepreneurs are fueled by vision. They love to build. They have at least an aptitude for sales. And they’re hyper-focused on growth. Chances are, if you’re an entrepreneur, and all those things describe you, you’re in a good spot. There’s also a high probability that if you’re weak in any one of those areas, you found someone to fill those gaps.
You know what area entrepreneurs always skip? Handling the money. Not the let’s-go-make-a-lot-of it part. They love that. They hate the nuts-and-bolts part. The part that has math and spreadsheets and forms you fill out in triplicate.
So…
