Startup Tips Archives - Page 39 of 66

A Founder’s Accelerator Tale: Surviving the Trough of Sorrow

Editor’s Note: With accelerator application season upon us, we know it can be hard to decide if accelerators are right for your company. With that in mind, we decided to give you an inside look at the workings of one of the top accelerators in the country.

If you’re just now finding your way into the startup accelerator series, check out the first part to catch up. Otherwise, if you’re already current, you know that our company was not in the best of shape after month one at the Brandery.

The beauty of accelerators is the community.

By the second month in the Brandery, most teams are settled in and trying to nail down their value propositions. For some this meant more product building, while for others it meant more conversations. Everyone was trying to take advantage of the classes and mentors, while still focusing on building their businesses late into the night.

It was during these long days and nights you realize the true advantage of being in an accelerator – sharing a room for 18 hours a day with some of the most diverse and intelligent people on the planet. Whether you had a question about javascript or financial models, someone could answer it. We traded advice like it was currency and pushed each other every day. It’s that type of environment that truly sets an accelerator apart from other conditions.

Month 2 is for getting organized & making hard choices…

For our team, the second month in the Brandery was going to require a major shift in thought and execution. We had to do a better job of facilitating responsibilities to one another. In order to do that, we had to decide who would work in what sections of the business. The harsh reality of “you’re bad at this, I’m good at that” and vice versa can be difficult, but ultimately necessary for any startup to get off the ground.

My co-founder Ryan is a task manager and great at making decisions with a set of given information, in other words, he’s incredibly objective. The result? We decided it was best for him to play product manager and manage customer interviews so we could quickly iterate.

My skills have always been dealing with people, situations, and relationships. My decision making is a bit more emotionally-based than Ryan’s. We both decided it made sense for me to take charge of the marketing and business development.

From there it was time to figure out how we’d move forward with our CTO. While Ryan was trying to get on the same page, there was an obvious communication gap that was making it difficult to progress. We spent a week soul searching and asking trusted friends for advice, but ultimately we knew we had to hit the restart button and made the tough choice to let go of our CTO.

…and finding our brand

The next step for Sqrl was to find an identity with the product itself. Thankfully, this is where the “Brand” in the Brandery came to the rescue. It was during a follow up meeting with our branding agency (provided as a part of the Brandery) that we found our niche.

Sqrl’s product vision to-date had admittedly been ambitious. We told others we wanted to be “mint.com meets base camp” for accountants to interface with their clients. If that sounds ridiculous it’s because it is. Every time we said it, we knew it wasn’t right. We were making the mistake of building for perceived benefits, without actually focusing on a clear and defined problem that needed to be solved.

In our second session with Gyro, they presented us with four new brand identities. One of which was a squirrel, provoking a “wtf?” moment from each of us. Yet when the Gyro team told us we sounded like a “digital hunter-gatherer” and asked, “Are you an application to facilitate conversation, or does your application allow for more meaningful conversation?” we knew we found what we were looking for.

The one constant with every customer interview we conducted was that accountants were losing huge amounts (20-25%) of their day to just tracking down information from their clients. The real problem had been right in front of us the entire time.

We all left that meeting with the same epiphany – not only did our singular focus become solving the “I need something but no one is giving it to me” problem, but the mood of our team changed (for the better) with it. We dropped our old name (Accrew) and picked up the Sqrl, an identity we could get behind.

Sqrl “the digital hunter and gatherer” built with “go getter technology.” It was genius. Now all we had to do was double-back on customer interviews and validate our new assumptions. Ryan immediately started building new mockups in Keynote, and I began trying to fulfill the new narrative with our current signups and potential customers.

Over the remaining weeks of month 2, Ryan and I did everything in our power to get the new hypothesis in front of every accountant possible. We tried to validate every piece of Ryan’s mockups until it was right to move on to the next steps of building again. The new CTO interviews may have been on hold, but our identity was in full swing.

Getting through the trough

Month 2 at the Brandery was a huge gutcheck for our team, but it proved every accelerator stereotype right. In the first month we tried to move too fast, and it almost proved fatal. We listened to more advice than we should have and couldn’t find an identity on our own terms. And last but not least, we focused far too much on building a product before validating A) the problem and B) the narrative of the proposed solution.

If you asked other teams I’m sure they’d tell you they experienced similar peaks and valleys. In the accelerator world, the “trough of sorrow” probably hits around the later stages of month 2. The question each founder had to asked ourselves? “What are you going to do about it?”

Craig Baldwin is a former accountant turned startup founder. He’s currently the CMO of Cincinnati-based startup Sqrl. Craig’s also a BBQ enthusiast, writer, and purveyor of delicious vintage cocktails. Follow him on Twitter @craignbaldwin

How A 1% Change Could Make or Break Your Startup

From Buffer Blog

In 2010, Dave Brailsford faced a tough job. NibzNotes25

No British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), that’s what Brailsford was asked to do.

His approach was simple.

Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as the “1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

They started by optimizing the things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training program, the ergonomics of the bike seat, and the weight of the tires.

But Brailsford and his team didn’t stop there. They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas that were overlooked by almost everyone else: discovering the pillow that offered the best sleep and taking it with them to hotels, testing for the most effective type of massage gel, and teaching riders the best way to wash their hands to avoid infection. They searched for 1 percent improvements everywhere.

5 Essential Leadership Lessons from a Working Mom

I have been an executive director for 10 years, a mom for three, and I have a lifetime of work ahead of me. Five key things have helped me get to where I am today and will continue to guide me in the future:

Use Your Gender to Your Advantage

Being the only woman in a room full of men makes you stand out, which makes it easier for people to take an interest in you and your cause. This can help you attract opportunities that the typical male CEO wouldn’t. As a woman, you can also serve as an example for other potential leaders and ultimately begin to change the gender ratio in leadership.

It is important to note that men and women run organizations differently; and that’s a good thing. Leaders can learn from each other. My male counterparts inspire me to be more aggressive, while they often look to me for my management skills. In my experience, a presence of both male and female leaders at the table is important. So embrace what you’re bringing to the table as a woman.

Be Resolute in Your Decision to Be a Working Mom

I recently had an emergency coffee break with my directors. We were commiserating about how, for working moms, things are either going really well or falling apart. One day you feel like you can do anything. The next, your kid is sick and crying, begging you not to go as you get in the car to leave for work. You feel like a terrible mother for leaving and a terrible ED for considering ditching your responsibilities. That is the roller coaster of being a working mom.

How do I cope? Some days are better than others. But the most important thing is to be resolute in your decision. You have to know in your heart, at your core, that working is the right decision for you. When your kid is crying as you leave for work, you better be absolutely certain about your choice. If you have doubts, it’s just too easy to rationalize staying home for your child. Accept that there will be trade-offs. I wanted to go to my daughter’s medal ceremony for gymnastics the other day, but I had to make an important call. At my core I remember that I am still a good mother, and I am still a good executive director. It’s a process of constant soul-searching, but I know I made the right decision.

Being a Mom Can Make You a Better Leader

If you don’t have a child to rush home to, you can afford to work 24/7. When you’re a mom, you have to get home at a certain time. You can’t work all night or all weekend, especially if you’re the primary caregiver. This forces you to be more efficient at work, cut out the unnecessary stuff and focus on the important things.

Being a mom also forces you to be more hands off at work, trust your team more and give them more freedom, which is ultimately good for everyone.

Embrace Your Strengths and Weaknesses

A lot of people talk about whether women, as leaders in the workplace, should be as aggressive as men. My advice: don’t be anything you’re not.

Personally, it’s not in my nature to be aggressive. Asking me to be aggressive is asking me to not be who I am. A mentor once told me to evolve, grow, and learn new skills, but not to fundamentally change who you are. In my case, I realized that in order to be more aggressive, I really needed to be less afraid of people saying no. I worked on becoming more comfortable asking people for money and ultimately became more aggressive in fundraising, but by no means did I become an aggressive person.

It is important to evaluate (and re-evaluate) your weaknesses and work on overcoming them. But make sure you make a plan tailored to who you are. If you’re just not an aggressive person, you won’t become a shark overnight. Figure out what new skills you can learn and ways you can adapt to changing circumstances to become more aggressive in a way that makes sense for you.

Most importantly, be strong – not necessarily strong-armed, but strong-standing in what you believe.

Trust Your Team (And If You Don’t, Get a New Team)

A lot of my female colleagues, myself included, struggle with control. Especially as a founder, I tend to want things done a certain way and don’t trust others to do things exactly how I want them done. I began decentralizing responsibilities out of necessity as GFG expanded. I realized that if I kept running both GFG’s operations and fundraising, we would flounder. So, over a year ago I hired our first COO. I needed to realize that I wasn’t good at everything. I looked for people who would complement my skills and compensate for my weaknesses.

When working with a team, keep your eye on the prize. Focus on the final product and don’t get nitpicky about the process. Everyone has different processes, but what matters is that you’re on the same page about the deliverable. You can’t micromanage every step of the way – you have to step back and trust your team. Trust me, it can be very liberating!

Melissa Kushner is the Founder & Executive Director of www.goodsforgood.org. She runs offices in New York City and Lilongwe, Malawi where her small team runs programs with big impact. goods for good supports over 70,000 orphans and children in need. goods for good provides goods and build businesses at community centers, Malawi’s grassroots and sustainable solution to the orphan crisis.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

10 Lies You’re Probably Telling Yourself

Oh, the lies that entrepreneurs tell themselves. Even when all signs point to the contrary, it can be very easy to make up excuses for why your business isn’t succeeding. Here are some of the worst lies that entrepreneurs tell themselves, and the (sometimes) hard truths:

The money will come eventually. You think that if your idea is top notch, if the product/service you’re offering solves a real problem, or if you have true passion and drive, that your company will succeed and eventually start making some real money. This is a fallacy. It’s easy when you’re busy growing your company to buy into this lie, but incredibly dangerous. It may be true that there is a pot of gold further down the road, but you can’t just count on it being there. You must plan for it.
If I price low enough, I can attract more business. This may be true in some sense. You may bring in more business if your prices are lower than your competition’s. But if your pricing isn’t covering your costs and allowing for the kind of margin you need to make a profit to at least live on, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. You need to figure out your gross profit (how much you need to cover fixed costs — from salary to materials to marketing). Based on this figure, you can calculate your gross profit margin and figure out how much you need to make in sales.
If something isn’t working, I can always change direction. Pivoting is an essential startup business practice. Knowing when to change direction, tweaking your offerings, and repositioning yourself in the marketplace are all good things. But this isn’t a magic bullet. You can’t just shift with the wind and expect things to work out. You need to base a direction change on number-driven data that guides and supports your plan. Before you change direction, you need to map out what steps you will take.
All I need to succeed is more volume. Quantity is a good marker for business success, but it’s not the only one. Increasing volume can lead to scaling issues. Instead of pursuing more customers, think about what other tactics you could take. How could you increase your dollar per customer? How can you save on costs per product? How can you increase customer satisfaction to ensure customer loyalty and increase the customer value over time? These metrics are just as important as volume.
I will only hire the best. Of course you want top-notch employees, but you may need to redefine who that is. Find out what positions can be outsourced to save on astronomical staffing costs. Top team members are expensive. Sometimes they are worth that cost, but remember that you can also hire for potential, rather than experience. Under-staffing is a good choice for many bootstrapped startups.
My time is best spent focusing on my industry. Not exactly. Of course you want to be on top of what’s going on in your industry, but if you want to see the big picture, get fresh perspectives, and make valuable connections, you need to look outside of your niche. Business partners outside of your area are sometimes the most valuable contacts you can have.
I’ve tried X and it doesn’t work so I’m done with it. Just because you’ve tried something before, doesn’t mean you can’t tweak it and try again. Sometimes small changes can have a big impact. For example, a colleague of mine who was VP of Marketing for a huge company had had little success with affiliate marketing. He was thinking of shutting down this marketing channel but, instead, decided to put some real money and time behind it. He hired someone solely responsible for managing the program. This one change made for astronomical increases in revenue for the company.
X has always worked for me in the past, so if I just keep doing it, I will be successful. Just because you’ve always done something a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the best way, the most efficient way, or the most cost-effective way. As an entrepreneur, you need to keep an open mind and always look for better solutions. Even if your way was the best way at some point, times change, markets change, economic conditions change, and the competitive landscape changes. Business is dynamic. You need to be too.
My passion for my company won’t allow me to fail. Wrong. Without determination and persistence — and a real love for what you’re doing — you won’t be able to see this thing through to the finish line. But passion, in and of itself, isn’t enough. You need to execute. A lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes.
My product/service is so great that my business can’t fail. We’d like to believe this fallacy, but unfortunately it’s not true. A great idea is important. If there’s a real market for your idea, then you’re already a couple of steps ahead in the game. But it’s not enough.

A dash of optimism is a good entrepreneurial characteristic. You’re going to face a lot of setbacks, so the ability to put on some rose-colored glasses to improve the view is understandable. But when you begin to repeat the same lies and make them your mantra, you’re preventing clarity, masking opportunities, and getting in the way of your growth. When you stop lying to yourself, you can start anew. That’s where real change lies: that’s the future of your company.

David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, an outsourced financial services firm that provides early-stage companies with day-to-day transactional accounting, CFO service, tax, and valuation services and support. He’s a financial expert and startup mentor whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best. Follow David @EarlyGrowthFS.

How to Know Your Strengths Before You Start

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Maybe you are just thinking of starting a business. Or perhaps you have already begun, but are quickly realizing you can’t do everything yourself. If either of these scenarios sounds familiar, I’d like to share with you a great approach I’ve discovered for soliciting honest opinions without stepping on any toes — and learning which weaknesses I need to address, stat.

Only the Strong Survive

Getting to know your strengths and weaknesses is easier said than done. Many of us think we’re great at certain things, whereas others would perceive us as being “C” or “D” students at best. So how do you get an accurate picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and why does it matter?

Accuracy in perception is important. Knowing where you excel will guide you through your goal-making process, and knowing where you are weak will steer you towards the right moments to ask for help. Plus, if you know where you are weak, you can also figure out where your money will help you the most. For example, hire an accountant or bookkeeper if you’re not great with numbers. Hire a writer if the world of words doesn’t tickle your fancy. This method can even be applied to choosing a partner or team members, both which are very important aspects of the business-planning process.

How to Conduct a “No Blame” Survey

Start your self-assessment by making a simple list of every business skill you can think you have. Then, add other skills that you think make a good leader/business owner. Add any additional questions you think would be helpful.

To get you started, these are a few questions I ask my team to answer at the end of individual projects:

Did I make you feel comfortable about making your own decisions pertaining to the tasks you were responsible for throughout the project?
What could I have done on this project to be a better leader?
What did you most appreciate about me as a leader throughout this project?
What’s one thing you think we could do differently as a team on the next project?
Now ask as many people as you dare to rate you in the same way through an anonymous survey. You can do this using an online surveying tool like SurveyMonkey, or use Forms in Google Drive.

Tell people not to put their name on it. This way, you won’t be offended by anyone’s opinion and they will feel safe to tell the whole truth. I’ll never forget a programmer’s expression when I asked him to fill out an anonymous survey about me so I could improve on my leadership and management skills. He laughed out loud and said, “Wow, you take this personal development stuff very seriously!” I do, and you should too.

Do not open any of the surveys until you’ve collected at least 10, and only ask people that know you or have worked with you directly.

Tip: Take a deep breath before you open them and keep an open mind about why you’re doing this: to become super-honest with yourself and to find teammates who can account for your weaknesses. I’ve personally had a few responses that left me wanting to scream, but I’m better for having received the honest feedback.

Knowing what you need to put energy into and where you can relax can mean the difference between a smooth ride and one full of potholes. Why not take the smooth road?

A Note for Survey Newbies

To find your range, look at all the results (except for your own) for one skill. Now write your lowest and highest score. That is your range. Ranges can tell you how much or little people agree about your results. If most everyone agrees (meaning a short range of numbers like 4-6), I would take that as good information and use it to your advantage.

To find your mean score (or “average”) you simply take all the results from one skill and add them together. After you get the total, write that number down. Now count how many survey respondents answered the question. You then divide the total score number by the total number of surveys filled out. This means if you scored 200 and 20 people filled out the survey, you scored a perfect 10! Your mean is helpful for finding an overall number, especially if the results are all over the graph.

There are many other ways to look at the information, but calculating the mean should give you a good overview of the answers you want. You will be ready to gain helpful insight for your business.

Now get out there, and ask away!

Natalie MacNeil is an Emmy Award-winning media entrepreneur, Founder of SheTakesOnTheWorld.com, and the bestselling author of She Takes on the World: A Guide to Being Your Own Boss, Working Happy, and Living on Purpose. SheTakesOnTheWorld.com was featured by Forbes on its list of “10 Best Sites for Women Entrepreneurs.”

Why The Lone Visionary is a Myth

From WSJ Accelerators

In the startup world, there are always brilliant designers without many leadership skills. To illustrate how this plays out, I’ll tell the story of a NibzNotes23 fictionalized character named James.

Everyone who knows James knows that he is a brilliant designer, including James. Especially James. Yet he is on his fifth startup and it, too, is heading toward failure. At this rate, the world may never benefit from his vision of the long-promised “smart home” with all of its systems automated, interconnected and accessible remotely from the internet.

After an introduction through a mutual friend, James dropped in to do some networking and – so I thought – to seek some advice. Early in our conversation he fervently asserted a credo I’ve heard from many an entrepreneur-designer: “If you want to have a major impact on the world, you must never compromise your vision,” he said. “Steve Jobs taught us that.”

How to Make Open Call Interviews Work for You

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Unlike formal, appointment-based interviews, the process of hosting an open call interview can be refreshingly fast. But with speed can come a certain level of uncertainty; open call interviews imply that anyone, of any varied background can walk through your doors and pitch themselves for a job they may have zero qualifications for.

So what is a founder to do? The answer is to learn how to properly manage the pros and cons of this process so that they not only work for the candidates, but for you, your schedule and the position at hand. Read on to discover 4 ways in which you can host an open call interview with a small business twist.

Pro: The Candidate Pool is Deep

Most open call interviews are just that; they list the job, the date, time and place of the interview and then open the floodgates. However, while it’s great to be introduced to a deep candidate pool, it may be too much to tread through the day of. Most people shy away from open call interviews for this very reason; it’s great to have a wide variety of candidates, but how many of them will actually be qualified?

Regain some control by posting the details of the job and requesting emailed information

BEFORE your reveal the date, time and location of the open call interview. You can put tests in place (i.e. Put “Kiwi” as the subject line) and immediately weed out those respondents that didn’t take to time to read and follow directions.

Keeping with the speed and convenience of open call interviews, perhaps request that people bring their resumes with them rather than attaching them for your lengthy review.

Instead, request email respondents to answer three easy questions in one simple sentence (i.e. “Why are you a fit for this job?”). With a quick scan you can still extend an open call invitation to numerous candidates; however you’ll have trimmed out those that are clearly not a fit right from the start.

Con: Time Is Limited

Open call interviews take place in a varied window of time (i.e. from 8am-10am). To help manage the influx of people coming in at varying times have a welcome packet prepared that people can fill out while they sit and wait for their turn. Use the packet to help cut through time constraints and get a jumpstart on the answers you’re looking for.

As time saving as these packets can be, it’s important to remember to keep the interview a two-way conversation. Let the packet serve as your guide by providing jumping off points for deeper, more thorough face-to-face discussions.

Pro: You Can Find Your New Hire By The Day’s End

The most exciting prospect of hosting an open call interview is the fact that by the end of the day, you may have found your next hire. He or she presented him/herself nicely, they answered the right questions and you have a good feeling about them…but hold on.

Just because you may feel like you have found your match, don’t rush the process of making a final hiring decision. Instead, offer your top candidates the chance to prove themselves with an individual, deadline-driven test. This test should be something they can do later a home and within a reasonable time frame. Pair the results with your feelings from the interview and you’ll be able to come to a more secure, thorough hiring decision.

Con: Options Are Overwhelming

The day of your open call interview will be a whirlwind. After interviewing multiple candidates for the same position it can be hard to keep all of the sorted detail straight.

One simple way to stay organized is to have three (unlabeled) No, Maybe and Yes piles to place those welcome packets in post-interview.

At the end of your open call you’ll have a pile of No’s to thank for their time, a Maybe pile that you’ll keep tabs on for the future, and a Yes pile to implement those individual tests. Staple any resumes you were handed to those packets for easy reference. Also, consider indiscreetly writing notes in a designated corner (i.e. Green eyes, flowered dress) as a way to help you match the faces with the evaluations later on.

Kelly Gregorio writes about small business topics while working at Advantage Capital Funds, a provider of merchant cash advances. You can read her daily business blog here.

The Case for Going Stealth

From Ben Yoskovitz

The tech industry is overly-obsessed with making noise, being self-congratulatory and too often, focused on the wrong things. We look at PR as a big win. We celebrate financings (although we also spill plenty of digital ink about not celebrating them too; and yet they’re common on tech news sites).

There’s a time and place for making noise about your startup, but you’ve gotta be clear on whether you’re doing it to feed your own ego and make yourself feel good, or if you’re doing it strategically for some understood and measurable benefit. Making noise can definitely help–but more often than not we do it for the former reasons and not the latter: we want to feel important, we want people to recognize our “accomplishments”.

5 Easy Steps to Define Your Sales Funnel

salesfunnel

Most business owners want to grow as quickly as possible. While there is no one-size-fits-all acceleration model, having a clearly defined sales funnel early can help. In fact, behind every decision our company makes today is the original white-boarded funnel from our early days.

The purchase funnel is essentially what the industry commonly refers to as a ‘customer journey’ – which starts with the moment when a customer first makes contact with your brand. It includes each subsequent step and eventually leads to an end goal, purchase and monetization. In general, this journey is composed of a process around awareness, education, trial, adoption, and sharing. Putting the customer first provides the focus and prioritization needed to move every company to the next level.

Here are five tips for defining your customer funnel for success:

Determine your industry funnel. The top of the funnel is where a customer first enters into your experience. I run a web company, Porch, so most people enter from other places online. The first step in determining your industry funnel is to look across the board and outline what valuable user actions (VUA) your competitors care about. For example, on Twitter, these actions might be creating an account, uploading a profile picture, tweeting, re-tweeting, creating a group – or other measurable representations of end-user engagement. This exercise will give you a general benchmark for what the industry competition is doing, so you can start prioritizing your business growth strategy.
Choose where to focus marketing efforts. You can wrap your business and marketing around a number of places in the funnel. The most common are the top and the bottom of the funnel, but they have different problems. For example, the top of our industry funnel is all about inspiration – beautiful pictures that attract and retain customers on the website. Inspiration has a lower customer acquisition cost and better engagement. But it’s also difficult to monetize. If you start marketing at the bottom of the funnel, you monetize more easily, but it is often a challenge to acquire customers inexpensively. Assess the tradeoffs and pick a starting point to focus your business on.
Minimize your risk. When you are building a business, you are bringing financial and Excel models to life. Focus on proving out the risks in your model first. This starting point will help clarify your thinking about where the challenges lie. For example, if you start at the bottom, focus on how you acquire consumers in a cost-effective way to create an arbitrage opportunity (where you can repeatedly acquire customers for less than the revenue you produce).
Limit upward movements. Move customers down the funnel and limit moving them back up. For example, if a consumer is almost through your funnel and about to transact, limit the noise around them on the page (advertisements, pop-ups) so they finish. You will have time to cross-link them later. Retaining a paid user is much more valuable than entertaining a free user. This philosophy needs to be intentionally built into your product. Focus on user experience and prioritize building feature sets that guide customers down the funnel at a raw level. Everything else is a nice-to-have.
Build defensible differentiators. After you pick your marketing poison and define your priorities, put the pedal to the metal. Build out features or strategies to ensure your key funnel positions are completely defensible through intellectual property. Figure out what you want to be the best at and optimize and test different consumer acquisition tactics that meet your business goals. This is where the fun starts!

In the long term, you should turn your funnel into a sphere – create circular revenue streams with emphasis on retention and viral coefficients. But that is only after you have nailed your funnel fundamentals.

Matt Ehrlichman is the CEO of Porch, where you can get inspired by the best home projects your neighbors have completed, see what any home project will cost, and find the best service professional your neighbors and friends recommend. Previous to Porch, Matt was a founder and CEO of Thriva (acquired by Active Network) and Chief Strategy Officer of Active Network (2011 IPO). Matt lives in Seattle, WA.

14 Pitch Pointers for New Entrepreneurs

Question: What’s your best piece of advice for a very young entrepreneur with little to no experience about to pitch their idea for the first time?

Pitch the Problem

“The worst thing you can do is pitch a solution for something no one cares about. Instead, home in on the problem you plan to solve, and who you are solving it for. ”

Wade Foster, Zapier

Research

“Thoroughly research the organization that you’re pitching to ensure your idea is in line with the company’s needs. Throughout this research, it’s also important to make sure you’re pitching the idea to someone who can actually do something with it.”

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

Get Ready to Be Told You’re Crazy

“The best possible response you can hope for when first pitching your idea is that people think you are crazy, that the idea won’t work and that you shouldn’t pursue it any further. That’s how all good ideas start. While there are plenty of horrible ideas that you actually SHOULD heed that advice for, the best ones tend to start that way.”

Todd Garland, BuySellAds

Believe

“If you don’t wholeheartedly believe in yourself and your idea, why would anyone else be expected to? Do your research and understand your market with confidence. Don’t let these sharks sense a taste of fear or uncertainty, otherwise they will chew you alive.”

Shahzil (Shaz) Amin, Blue Track Media

Pitch With Passion

“The absolute best piece of advice I could offer a young entrepreneur before a big pitch is to let his or her passion shine through. The excitement, drive, and motivation that drives young entrepreneurs is impossible to fake or replicate. Passion is contagious. No amount of money can buy passion. It trumps experience, and smart partners or investors will sense that excitement to succeed.”

Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

Earn Your Second Meeting With a Story

“One of the best business books I have read is “Made to Stick” by Dan and Chip Heath. They focus on the value of telling great stories — and teach readers how. Your goal in a first pitch is not to get money — it’s to earn a second meeting. The best way to gain interest is to leave your listeners with a compelling story that resonates with them long after you have left. ”

Aaron, Schwartz, Modify Watches

Go for It!

“Show your passion, detail it out as best you can — and then, listen to advice from experienced entrepreneurs. Often, eager young entrepreneurs pitch their ideas and think they’re the best things ever, so they don’t listen to any constructive criticism — and learn the hard way. That’s fine, but it’s better to listen and learn from other entrepreneurs who have already been there and done that. ”

Joe Barton, Barton Publishing

Be Receptive to Feedback

“In addition to the general nerves that accompany an idea pitch, the most frightening thought is the chance that your audience won’t like your idea. It can be tough to listen to criticism about your brainchild, but it is imperative that you filter the feedback in the most constructive way possible. If you do, the negative feedback will undoubtedly help you the most to build a stronger business.”

Charles Bogoian, Kenai Sports, LLC

Sell First, Then Pitch

“Even if you do not yet have a working product, try selling it to your target customer in person if possible. (Phone works too if you can’t in person). Sound crazy? Your potential prospect is going to give you very direct feedback on your pitch. Do they want to buy it? Why or why not? I believe the key to pitching an investor is understanding and clearly communicating your value proposition first.”

Sarah Schupp, UniversityParent

Ditch Those Slides

“TechStars taught me to start with the story. If you start with the Powerpoint, you’ll waste hours formatting slides (that you’ll likely delete later) and will box yourself into a half-baked story. Write your main value propositions on 10 notecards. Answer the standard questions about market size, revenues, and projections on another 10. Rearrange and combine the points to find your story. Voila!”

Heidi Allstop, Spill

Be Different

“Ultimately, most people won’t pay a bit of attention to the idea you are pitching. However, what they will pay very close attention to is you. The way to grab their attention and stand out from the crowd is simply to be different. Pitch in a way they’ve never seen before, even if the content is the same, and they will surely remember you.”

James Simpson, GoldFire Studios

Read Successful Blogs

“Read blogs from successful entrepreneurs who have written about raising money and pitching their ideas. I have written about raising our $2.7 million. I would not suggest reading business professors’ blogs. Instead, read about people in your business and in your space — people who go to pitches. Find someone who is recent and understands the experience and its challenges.” (Editor’s Note: Try these entrepreneur blogs.)

Jordan Fliegel, CoachUp

Relax

“Many young entrepreneurs feel very tense and second-guess themselves during pitches. You’ll be okay, even if you don’t land this investment. Relax and be confident; you will do so much better.”

Yosef Martin, Merchandize Liquidators LLC

Have the Answers

“Sit down with your team (or a friend), find any potential weak spots in your idea and figure out how to solve them. Investors always ask the “unexpected” question, so do your best to anticipate them in advance. The best feeling is walking away from your first pitch knowing that you had a good answer for everything they asked — and, as a bonus, it leaves a good impression.”

Benish Shah, Before the Label

How You Can Put a Dent in the Universe

From Bijan Sabet

We often hear about new products that promise to beat the current market leader by being the “blah blah blah on steroids” NibzNotes20

I’m not a big fan of this strategy

That doesn’t mean that the market leader isn’t vulnerable but it’s a question of the approach.

Apple didn’t put a hurt on Microsoft desktop business by a better version of macos. They put the hurt by nailing a new category altogether with the iPad.

By contrast Microsoft has adopted the “on steroid” strategy in many of their products.

The Surface tablet is an attempt to be an “iPad on steroids”. It has a keyboard, it shipped with a pro and consumer model. It can do split screen. The list goes on.

You know how well the Surface did.

Common Sense Advice for When You Fail

startupsign

From Chris Yeh

I ran across Startups Anonymous, and a post entitled, “We’re Shutting Down and I’m Scared” caught my eye: NibzNotes21
http://bit.ly/1gc2r95

For better or worse, I’ve either been through or participated in shutting many companies down, so I thought it would be fun and potentially useful to provide my blow-by-blow advice:

After over two years, backing from a well-known accelerator, nearly one million in funding and a decent amount of traction, we’re shutting down.
> Over half of all *VC* funded startups go belly up, so you’re definitely not alone.

I’m scared. I’m also sad, disappointed, ashamed, embarrassed & deflated. But mostly just scared.

> That’s natural. The way to get past the fear is to take action.

Nobody but my cofounder and I are aware we’re shutting down yet. It’s been a few days since we made the decision and I haven’t even gotten up the courage to tell my family.

37 Tips for Motivating Your Startup’s Employees

A good job is hard to find, but every entrepreneur knows a good employee is even harder to keep. As an entrepreneur, one must ensure his or her company is staffed with people who look forward to coming to work every day for more than a paycheck.

Through the years, I found that it was easy to keep employees motivated – all I had to do was provide them with a leader worth following and tasks worth fulfilling. But after almost seven years in business, I still find myself searching for new ways to maintain productivity while providing each individual with the drive they need to perform to the best of their ability.

Here’s how I do it:

Support new ideas. When employees come to you with an idea or a solution to a problem they believe is for the betterment of the company, it’s a sign that they care. Supporting new ideas and giving an individual the chance to ‘run with it’ is motivating, whether or not it works out in the end.
Empower each individual. Every single individual contributes to the bottom line. Empowering them to excel in their role, no matter how large or small, creates a sense of ownership that will lead to meeting and exceeding expectations.
Don’t let them become bored. I get bored easily, so I assume my employees also have a short attention span. Host a cupcake bake-off, plan a happy hour, start a push-up contest in the middle of the office on a Wednesday, or allow a different person to run the weekly meetings to break up the monotony.
Celebrate personal milestones. About seven years ago, as a company of fewer than 10 people, we celebrated each employee’s birthday, work anniversary, engagement, and even personal milestones. Today, as a company of over 100, we still celebrate these milestones. It never gets old.
Acknowledge professional achievement. Everyone wants to be recognized. The acknowledgement of a job well done coming from upper management or the owner of the company will mean more to an employee than you think.
Listen. This is probably the easiest thing you can do for an employee; yet, it can also be the most difficult. Carving out some time each day to listen to anything from concerns to ideas will not only make your employees happy, it will also provide you with much-needed insight on your business from the people who help keep it running.
Encourage friendly competition. A competitive environment is a productive environment. Encouraging employees to participate in competitions or challenges is healthy and may actually lead to increased camaraderie.
Allow pets at work. My two dogs come to the office every day, and all of my employees are welcome to bring their pets to work. Pets make people happy and bring a sense of companionship to the office.
Reward accomplishments. When a pat on the back or a high five just won’t do, monetary incentives always seem to hit the spot.
Create attainable goals. Setting goals are important, but ensuring they aren’t set too loftily by the employer or employee will help determine whether or not the goal is achieved come year-end evaluations.
Be clear with expectations. Don’t leave too much to be determined. Set clear expectations so you can plan for specific results.
Encourage individuality. Everyone is different. Encouraging individual personalities to shine through will not only help create a diverse and dynamic culture, it will also foster an open and accepting work environment. We have a lot of characters here at JBC – the more the merrier.
Be a leader worth following. This point falls in my lap alone. If my employees don’t perceive me as a worthy leader, how can I expect them to believe in our mission and help to achieve it?
Set an example. Or two or three. I can’t expect my employees to do anything that I wouldn’t do. I always ask myself if the expectations that I set for my employees are comparable to the expectations that I would set for myself.
Make things interesting. Shaking things up every now and then is a good way to break up the day-to-day routine of the work schedule.
Encourage learning new skills. Times are changing. Ensuring that every willing employee has the opportunity to learn a new skill or brush up on an old skill will benefit everyone involved.
Foster creativity. A creative environment is a thriving one. Encourage creativity and watch your business flourish as thinking outside of the box becomes the norm.
Give credit where credit is due. Although employees come to work to complete their appointed tasks, it’s still an accomplishment if they do it well. Recognize their hard work by shouting them out to the entire company.
Create a career path. Having an idea of what lies ahead is the ultimate motivation. Employees who have a path set before them that may lead to promotion can work towards a goal. This will lead to increased commitment to their current employer.
Start a tradition. Our annual Thanksgiving potluck is so greatly anticipated that some employees hold off on vacation to participate and attend the event with their work family. Every holiday season, we host a toy drive for a school in the Bronx. Employees from across the U.S. fly in to partake. Start a tradition and keep it going.
Get personal. This one is tricky because there is a fine line that cannot be crossed. However, showing concern and interest in the lives of each employee goes a long way.
Keep an open mind. I’m always open to new ideas and new methods. Anything new is worth exploration and consideration.
Encourage laughter. Laughter is contagious, so help spread the joy.
Embrace change. Fighting change is harder than embracing change. I have practiced this more recently in regards to social media and living in the digital age. I also encourage my employees to do the same.
Stir the pot. It’s not easy to keep things interesting every single day. Every now and then, stirring the pot can help to liven things up. We recently switched from every-other summer Fridays to weekly summer Fridays after a company-wide challenge set earlier in the year. Employees were so elated at the opportunity to start their summer weekends a day early that productivity has risen ever since.
Recognize strengths. Bringing out the best in people is a talent every entrepreneur should strive to master.
Be available. It’s easy to get sucked into a CEO schedule, but it’s just as easy to take a few minutes out of each day to talk to an employee who may not be on your calendar.
Manage everyone individually. Everyone is different, but some are so different that they may require a personalized management style. Knowing your employees on an individual basis is the only way to know how to manage them effectively.
Encourage ownership. The success of a business lies in ownership. When employees feel invested in a company, productivity increases.
Promote unity. As much as each employee needs to be able to stand on his own two feet, he must also be able to work in a team. Promoting unity will help achieve individual and team goals.
Have patience. Entrepreneurs tend only to be interested in results. Patience will prevent you from expecting too much too soon and will allow employees to complete tasks properly.
Be flexible. Things don’t always happen as planned; when employees see that you are open to going with the flow every once in a while, tensions ease up and productivity remains constant.
Offer incentives. Knowing ahead of time that there’s a $500 prize on the line or extra vacation days to be given away will make achieving goals that much more worthwhile.
Provide balance. A lively work environment promises a good time, but balance is just as important to maintain levels of productivity — and the sanity of coworkers.
Welcome new methods. The digital age is changing life as we know it. Embracing, rather than avoiding, new methods will ensure your business and employees stay ahead of the competition.
Cultivate a positive work environment. There is no place for negativity if success is to be achieved. A positive work environment is the result of positive leaders.
Give them a reason to come to work – every day. Showing up to work five days a week, ready to exceed expectations, requires a level of loyalty that can only be achieved if morale is high.

An employee who enjoys coming to work is a worthy investment.

Bryan J. Zaslow is a 38 year-old philanthropist, athlete, lawyer and serial entrepreneur residing in New York City. Bryan is the founder of a family of companies within JBCHoldings NY LLC inclusive of JBCStyle, JBCPlatform, JBCconnect, Project Soulmate, and recently acquired Janou Pakter.

Don’t Want to Fail? Get Naked

In my experience in studying and advising early-stage startups, it has become obvious that startups primarily fail because of inadvertent mistakes made by the founder(s). External forces are seldom the reason for the death of the startup. The success of the startup therefore primarily depends on the success of the founder.

How can you, as the founder, prevent slowly killing your startup? Get naked! Figuratively, of course…

Strip Assumptions

Do not assume anything. Anything you accept as truth must be backed by proof. Analytics should back all major decisions.

Strip Biases

Do not be biased. Biases are built into our psyche, so they are especially difficult to strip. Have an inner circle of friends, peers, advisors and mentors who can help you identify and remove biases.

Strip Failures

Forget your failures. Learning from failure is overrated. It is often better not to analyze major failures, move on, and let the lessons incubate naturally.

Stripping assumptions, biases and failures may seem obvious, but it is counter to most founders’ nature. Founders are superheroes; they are out to save the world. How can you be a superhero without the costume? The founder must consciously strip layers off of the costume. Otherwise, the startup will suffer a slow death.

But do not fret, you do not always have to be naked. After some experience, both success and failure, you can start putting layers of your costume back on (a developed assumption that is based on experience may prove true in most cases). With time, you will become the superhero you were always meant to be.

A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

Naveed Lalani is a product and business strategist advising early to mid-stage startups. Previously, Naveed was Chief Strategy Officer at DonorNation.org, and Co-Founder at Rally.org. Naveed gives back by advising the Thiel Fellowship and leading entrepreneurship initiatives at the Ismaili Professionals Network.