How Startups Can Get Answers Without Spending a Fortune

Teaching Startup is advice and answers as a product

I’ve spent the last 20+ years as an entrepreneur. Along the way, I’ve been on a mission to make entrepreneurship more understandable, accessible, and affordable for more entrepreneurs. In the 2010s, I founded and eventually sold a company called ExitEvent that got close to achieving that mission.

But now I think I’ve nailed the mission.

Teaching Startup, my new product based around a Q&A newsletter for serious entrepreneurs, got some amazing and unsolicited feedback last week. I’m going to highlight some of that feedback to show how answers as an affordable product can work for every entrepreneur.

I’ve yet to be a founder, but I’ve worked on my fair share of startups. Teaching Startup has provided tons of value to me over the past 7 months. It’s like “How I Built This” but around concepts instead of companies. Here are my top 3 reasons I love it:

1. It’s frequent. I get excited when I see it drop in my inbox. Seeing Teaching Startup serves as a reminder that I need to prioritize and find time to work on getting better, not just working harder at the same level. It’s a gentle reminder to make sure I’m doing this.

Work on getting better, not just working harder. It took me 10+ years to realize that all the advice I was getting about how startup success meant giving 110% and outworking everyone else was, well, kinda bullshit.

2. It’s actionable. Most blogs, business magazines, etc. leave me asking “yeah, but how do you actually do that thing that returns that result?” In contrast, Teaching Startup describes how the sausage is made and not in an academic sense, but from someone who has made sausage.

From someone who has made sausage. Myself and the folks I’ve chosen to provide answers to the questions asked by members are folks who are living startup every day. Thus, we’re going to be honest, we’re going to speak from experience, and we’re going to give you stuff that’s actionable.

3. It’s like mentoring. I’m a huge proponent of mentoring and won’t claim Teaching Startup replaces that, but it adds value in the same way. It uses storytelling to…