Startup Tips Archives - Page 40 of 66

13 Jobs Aspiring Entrepreneurs Should Consider

Question: What’s one suggestion you’d give an aspiring entrepreneur in terms of prior work experience? Should they freelance? Work at a startup first? Go corporate? All of the above?

Work at a Startup First

“I think it is most beneficial to work at a startup first. You will get to see the ins and outs of how a new business operates from all levels. You can gain valuable insight as to what works and what doesn’t work. This would closely mimic starting your own company. “

JEFF TESTERMAN BROKERHUNTER.com

Commit to What You Want to Do

“Many people will tell you that if you have never done something before, you will never be able to do it. They are giving you this advice because they don’t know a way it can be done. Entrepreneurs are the ones who find a way or make the way. Sure, freelancing or working at a startup or corporation is great, but you should get clear on what you want, and go after it like your life depends on it. “

LOUIS LAUTMAN Supreme Outsourcing Follow @louislautman

Get Work Experience

“One of the biggest things that would have helped me with my business is having prior work experience with an established company. I would have examined their day-to-day and multiple departments to see what different parts are needed for a successful business. I learned later that a successful business requires more than revenues coming in or out — it requires a stable foundation.”

SHAHZIL (SHAZ) AMIN Blue Track Media

Freelance

“If you’re thinking about starting your own company, freelancing is the first step! First of all, a one-person business IS a business — many freelancers fail because they aren’t thinking entrepreneurially. I maxed out my solo freelance business before I moved on to building my team. It taught me the basics of business: making clients happy and managing cash flow. “

LAURA ROEDER LKR Social Media Follow @lkr

Build Your Tool Kit, No Matter Where You Go

“Entrepreneurs need to be proficient with customer service, product development, strategy, finance, team-building and, well, everything. Thus, any work experience is incredibly valuable. As a management consultant, I learned how to communicate clearly, work on a team and work hard. Every role in every industry will teach you — just pay attention to the success stories and develop your skills.”

AARON SCHWARTZ Modify Watches Follow @ModifyWatches

Take the Plunge

“Dive in. Being an entrepreneur means constantly meeting new and unexpected challenges head-on. You’re the master of your own destiny and must learn to overcome all obstacles. Take the plunge, and you’ll hopefully rise to the top. “

NICOLAS GREMION Free-eBooks.net

Just Don’t Lose Your Spirit

“Prior work experience can be helpful. Working at a startup can be great experience, but be careful signing contracts, as a non-compete may limit your options after working there. Freelancing can bind you to similar restraints, but you’ll gain good experience. Going corporate can also be beneficial to learn how the best of the best companies run things. Just don’t lose your entrepreneurial spirit!”

JOE BARTON Barton Publishing

Start Corporate

“There is a lot of value in spending some time at a big corporation. You will be trained by industry experts and get a glimpse of what makes a big corporation successful. I spent some time at an investment bank prior to founding my company, and I consider the experience invaluable.”

JOSH WEISS Bluegala

Learn an Industry

“It is really important to have experience in the workplace first, but not a lot of work. Go to grad school, gain some experience and learn some skills in the industry. When raising money, it is not enough to have a great idea. Most people will want someone with experience who can control the business. The CEO needs to be hireable for the business. Experience is important. “

JORDAN FLIEGEL CoachUp

Learn From Others’ Mistakes and Experiences

“Work with a successful entrepreneur first so you learn from his or her experience. Once you are confident that you have learned all that you can, then it’s time to leave and start off on your own or jump to another startup. “

JOHN HALL Influence & Co.

Shut Up and Start Up

“There’s no role or course that can teach you enough of what you need to know when you’re starting up on your own. What you will learn from starting up will be far more than any entrepreneurship books and startup jobs put together. If you want to start your own company, just do it. Do not wait for the tide to come and sweep you away when you’re standing miles away from the shore.”

RAHUL VARSHNEYA Arkenea LLC

Know the Industry

“Working in a corporation gives you good connections, but it also limits your understanding to a world where funds are not an issue, and problem solving a business issue without a large budget is often unnecessary. The key is working in the industry you want to be in — that’s where startups are often born. Your experiences show you what that industry needs, and you can create it for them. “

BENISH SHAH Before the Label

Get on a Founding Team

“For the best bang for your buck, I wouldn’t just work at a startup, but work on a founding team. Being the first to fifth hire will enable you to learn basically what it takes to run a company, from top to bottom. Those first hires have to wear many hats, and you can learn how to be an entrepreneur on other people’s time and money.”

LIAM MARTIN Staff.com

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.

How Casual is Too Casual for Entrepreneurs?

I love dressing informally, maybe too much. My wife frequently reprimands me for dressing down. I recently met with a US Senator in slacks and a collar shirt (which I thought was being respectfully dressy!) and he wryly cracked that I looked awfully comfortable. I sometime teach my HBS class in jeans (please don’t tell the dean).

But lately, I have been wondering if entrepreneurs have taken informality too far. I don’t mean dress code. I don’t care how they dress. I mean their thinking and approach.

You probably see it all the time – hipster entrepreneurs with the cool affect walking into meetings carrying nothing but their smart phone. When asked to present their story, they ramble informally without a cogent direction. When a substantive discussion ensues, and good ideas and follow-up items are generated, they take no notes. And when the meeting wraps up, there are no action items that are reviewed, no closure regarding next steps.

– See more at: http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2014/02/have-entrepreneurs-become-too-informal.html#sthash.Lilw7HsU.dpuf

Entrepreneurship Lessons from the Front Lines

2013 was one of the hardest years of my life. It wasn’t the hardest but it was challenging. The hardest, was 1 year as a kid when my dad got Parkinson’s, my mom got sick, NibzNotes17 my mom’s best friend died, and the grandparent who helped raise me withered away like ash with cancer right in front of my eyes.

That’s a different kind of hard. This year was not hard in that way. I’ve been humbled more times than years I’ll live and I’ve been fortunate just as many times. This image of Forrest Gump seems to incapsulate my life countless times this year.

I meet someone I don’t know. They’re telling me nice things and I’m confused about what I’m doing there and I just have to pee. I realize I drank too much water and then look over and realize that’s a Clinton at the other table and everyone seems to have a story that starts with MIT, Harvard, or Stanford. This is life in 2013. It was a weird one.

How One Phrase Can Change Your Business Completely

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My first job out of college was an inside sales associate position, in which I was tasked with cold-calling busy professionals all day and kindly explaining to them why they

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should spend their company’s money on a service they truly didn’t need.

To say I was unqualified was a gross understatement (and should have been evident in my interview, when I casually mentioned I enjoyed ordering food online because I’m scared of the phone).

For those who don’t know, sales is a sink or swim position. You either hit your quota and keep your job, or you don’t. For me, not even the Coast Guard could have kept me afloat in my first couple months on the job. I sucked. While the cohort I was hired with excelled, I floundered. I couldn’t keep someone on the phone for more than 15 seconds.

Knowing the end was near, I asked (well, begged) our top performing sales guy for help. I probably looked pathetic enough that he said okay. And it was then that he explained to me a secret to business that totally changed my career (not to mention saved my job).

How Long Does it Take to Start Up? 20 Minutes.

What cool new products are you using?

We all ask this question. It’s a common conversation starter, especially in the startup community. I’m particularly fond of this topic—I enjoy geeking out about NibzNotes15 products, writing design deconstructions, and swapping discoveries with smart folks. But these conversations provide more than just entertainment value: They are also a great learning opportunity. Understanding the subtleties of good and bad products is critical for product builders. As Paul Buchheit says, you must “live in the future” to shape it. Playing with early, innovative products can provide a competitive advantage.

This was the basis for Product Hunt. Here’s how we prototyped it.

The Idea in its Simplest Form

The concept was simple: to build a community for product people to share, discover, and discuss new and interesting products. But when I came up with the idea, I lamented the amount of work needed to build a first version of Product Hunt. Even a basic Ruby on Rails app would take me weeks to build. Although confident in my idea, I didn’t really know if anyone else would use a service like this. I wasn’t about to spend dozens of my nights and weekends building something no one cared about. How could I bring it to market sooner to test my hypothesis?

Do You Have This ONE Thing Every Startup Needs?

From First Round Review

Justin Rosenstein wasn’t sure what had happened. One of his company’s highest performing engineers seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for the work. “He had gone from super dedicated to detached,” says the co-founder of Asana, an app that powers teamwork without email. “Something wasn’t right. He seemed to be in an existential funk.”

So he took him for a walk and asked one simple question: “What’s wrong?” NibzNotes12

At first, the engineer couldn’t pinpoint the source of his malaise. Then he said, “I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I wonder, should I even be writing software?” Rosenstein was struck. Sure, the company had grown, but what had changed?

Instead of reciting a normal pep talk, he started asking questions. “When you go back to your desk, what’s the next line of code you’ll write?” he asked. The engineer explained he was repairing a chunk of old code. “Why?” Rosenstein asked. And with every answer he asked again, “Why?” Finally the engineer said, “It will make the site faster, which will let people communicate with their teammates more quickly.”

This was the breakthrough. “So it will allow more people to accomplish their goals?” Rosenstein asked. “I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it was just like, okay, he was ready to get back to work.”

He had stumbled upon that one, critical missing ingredient — an ingredient that Rosenstein and Asana’s leadership have accepted as key to their success: Clarity.

The Secret to Changing the Future

From Chris Devore

Last week I spoke on a panel at a World Financial Symposium event in Seattle. I arrived a little early and was rewarded with a great talk by Brian David Johnson, a

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“futurist” at Intel.

Johnson had interesting things to say about both the process of “futurecasting” and a few of his specific predictions, but the idea that stuck with me was his closer (I took a photo of the slide to make sure I got it right):

Q: How do we change the future?

A: Change the story people tell themselves about the future they will live in.

This deceptively simple statement captures a fundamental truth about leadership — whether as a parent, as a manager, or as a community advocate:

Consistent, positive actions spring from a coherent sense of identity — a self-reinforcing set of internal narratives about how people like this behave in circumstances like that.

How Long Does It Take–Really–To Know if You MIGHT Succeed?

5 Ways Tech Entrepreneurship is Impacting Politics

From Tawheed Kader

It takes 3 years. NibzNotes14

The end of 2013 marks roughly the three-year mark for my company. As I reflect on where we are today, from initial product, to an advisory round, to seed funding and then to raising our Series A in December 2013, one thing that I’ve always perceived from came true: it takes roughly 3 years for you to truly figure out if what you’re working on can be a business.

Once you hit that 3-year mark, and you’ve figured out a way to stay alive, some magical things do happen. Now, just to be clear, after the first 3, it’ll take you 2 to 7 more years after that to make it a wildly successful business; that is if you want to come along for the ride. But at least you feel just a tad bit like this guy.

3 Ways to “Hack” Your Product-Based Startup

How do you hack offline as rapidly and as effectively as you hack online?

Web startups can iterate a product and get it back on the market in a matter of seconds. But as product companies, we’re faced with manufacturing lead times that create a much longer development cycle. Luckily, Ministry of Supply’s co-founders also went to MIT, where we learned the importance of hacking — i.e., moving fast, iterating quickly and using customer insights to educate design.

To that end, I want to share some creative ways that MoS brought some of the best online practices offline, and applied them to our product company:

A/B testing isn’t only for web companies.

When A/B testing, companies randomly test two variants and determine which one better achieves the company’s goals (e.g., click-through rate or conversion). Web startups are notorious for doing this often and well — and then optimizing based on the results.

When we started Ministry of Supply, we wondered if we could take this same principle and apply it to the offline world. Here’s how we did it: When we created our first batch of shirts, we used a different proprietary fabric for our white, blue and black Apollo shirts. This way, we could test three variants at the same time, gather customer feedback, and understand which fabric we should move forward with.

Any product business can design a simple, offline A/B test to determine what customers really want (or want more of) and make better business decisions as a result.

Small batches and world-class partners allow for rapid iteration.

When we first started out, we were forced to manufacturer in small batches, because we had cash constraints and uncertain demand. In short order, we learned what an advantage this supposed constraint actually was. Namely, it enabled us to iterate extremely quickly, and get a new product on the market in about three weeks.

As we’ve grown, we’ve made a decision to continue to work with partners who allow us to do smaller batches so that this mindset can become a part of our manufacturing DNA. So far, it’s paid off handsomely. When we shipped 8,000 shirts as part of our Kickstarter campaign, we started to get feedback that customers thought they were running too small. So we adjusted the pattern, trained our manufacturers, and had new shirts on the market — in just three short weeks; a timeframe completely unheard of in most product companies.

When customer relationships come offline, real relationships can develop.

Most web companies are obsessive about understanding their customers’ online behavior (what they’ve bought before, other websites they’ve visited, etc.). At MoS, we’re obsessive about understanding customers’ offline behavior. This includes who they are, what makes them tick, what they love and what they hate.

By getting to know our customers’ values and personalities (not just their online behavior) we’re able to form deep and meaningful relationships with them. We communicate with our customers in every way that we would communicate with friends: we’ve gone running with our customers, we Snapchat with them, we go out drinking with them, and we invite them into our office and homes. In short, we get to know who they are, not just what they do.

And, because our customers are some of the most badass people in the country, these relationships are, simply, what makes us tick.

Kit Hickey is the co-founder of Ministry of Supply, a brand which is inventing the future of men’s professional wear. The company has been featured in NYT, TechCrunch, Inc., Forbes and Elle Magazine. In addition, Kit is a lover of mountain sports and has half an MBA from MIT. Follow her: @kit_hickey

How One Little Change Will Solve Your Startup’s Tech Problems

I remember the day very clearly. It was a cold winter day in late ’12; my co-founder and I were having coffee with John Wark, proprietor of the Nashville Software School. John was graciously listening to our plea (begging actually) for my-founder Zach to attend the upcoming 6 month software development training program. The upcoming cohort was already full, actually over booked to be more accurate, and there simply were no available slots.

At that time, our startup GreenPal was building the first version of our product with a local development shop. None of us knew how to code, but we didn’t let that get in the way of attempting to bring our idea to life. Very quickly in the journey of attempting to develop a “shop built” product, we realized that we were naive to think we could build a technology company while relying heavily on outsourced tech talent.

Ultimately, there was a huge gap between what they ended up building and our product vision. Begrudgingly, we launched the shop-built product, which had taken 13 months to build, had come in over budget, and quickly became an embarrassment to show to friends and family. The thing was barely useable. Talking with early adopters of our product, we heard the same major problems over and over again. Although we had a visually pretty product, it was difficult to use, confusing, and bounced users like a basketball.

Our collective backs were against the wall. We had to build an entirely new product, from scratch. No one on our team had ever written a line of code, and the cold, hard reality set in that if we were to pursue our vision, we would have develop ourselves to become a dynamic self-reliant team. Shortly thereafter, Zach stepped up to make the pilgrimage to learn software development. This brings us to where this story began—at Starbucks asking John Wark to create a seat in the training program for Zach.

John was kind enough to hear us out, listen to our story, our vision, and the tight spot we were in. After a two hour discussion, he agreed to grant us the slot if another student dropped out. Luckily, three days later, one did, and Zach was in. Six months later and after going through Hell and back—as well as countless headaches I’m sure—Zach graduated from software school with a junior level understanding of front end and back end development languages. He pushed himself firmly outside of his comfort zone, and the reward was the acquiring of skillsets we desperately needed. His impressive and expedient grasp of the programing languages inspired our fellow co-founder, Ross, to begin learning Java Script for front end development, all self-taught with online courses and trial and error, as we soon realized that we would need specialists in both front end and back end languages.

Up until that point we had been delusional to think that we had a shot at building a successful company with solely outsourced tech talent. For the first time, now our team is actually in the startup game.

Without the in-house skills to quickly make iterations and execute on our product roadmap, our startup had been dead before it ever got started. The ability to move rapidly with agility all while controlling costs are all that matters in a startup. Our newest investment in training ourselves will prove to be invaluable.

So, if your startup needs a tech co-founder, consider becoming one. Does your team want success badly enough to consider life changing decisions like dedicating the hours needed to learn programming? I am lucky my co-founders did; we are now well on our way building version two of our product all in house.

It feels good to have a self-sufficient dynamic team, as we can chart our destiny with our own skill sets.

Bryan Clayton is a serial entrepreneur and cofounder of GreenPal. Follow him on Twitter @bryanmclayton

What Entrepreneurs Miss in Our “Big Plan”

From Justin Jackson

When it comes to building products, the biggest problem technical (and creative) people have is this:

increasing the technical challenge while creating a product does not increase the chance for more sales

This surprises us. We get an idea for a thing, think about the technology we’d use to build it, and get excited.

“I could build this on the Twilio API!”

“I could learn that new CSS framework!”

“I could use this new tool I just purchased!”

The problem is that all of this is focused on us, the creator, and not on the customer, the consumer.

Repeat after me:

“We are not normal people.”

Say it again:

“I am not a normal person.”

We’re not. What’s “normal” for us is often alien to our customers. If we’re actually going to sell products, we need to quit thinking about what’s cool to us, and focus on what customers actually need.

Here’s a lesson I learned the hard way: the best way to do this is to listen.

Let me give you an example:

How to Raise Money Without Asking

money2

From Ben Yoskovitz, Instigator Blog

When you start raising money for your startup, people will tell you, “If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.” You might dismiss this as generic, cookie-cutter advice, but there’s definitely some truth to it, particularly the second part.

If you want money, ask for advice.

Recently, I was in touch with three entrepreneurs (two via the phone, one via email), and in all three cases they wanted to give me an update and ask me some questions. All three are fundraising. None of them asked for money.

Maybe they don’t want my money. Maybe they don’t know I’m an investor (which seems unlikely). Or maybe they’re leveraging a little psychology to their advantage.

After each of the interactions, I thought about the startups and entrepreneurs for a few days. The updates were all positive (although they openly talked about outstanding issues too, they’re not being dishonest about things), and that positivity grew inside my brain over time. I was left…wanting more…

How to Know When to Raise VC Money

From Tomasz Tunguz, Redpoint Ventures

Aside from a startup’s internal considerations about the right time to raise money, founders should weigh the seasonality of the fund raising market when planning their

raise. There’s a rule of thumb batted around the valley that the worst times to raise capital are in the dog-days of summer and after Thanksgiving. As it turns out, this
aphorism is only a half-truth.

Below is a chart of the dollars VCs have invested by month of year. I’m using Crunchbase data since 2005 for tech companies in the US. There are a few notable trends in the data.

First, the impact of the summer is evident. The slowest month for investments during the year September. I’d estimate there are a few weeks latency in the data between when the investment commitment is made and the investment is disclosed. The legal diligence process of about 3-4 weeks that typically follows signing a term sheet introduces this lag.

Some Investors Prefer the Old Ways

Seed-Funding

Rob Go, Next View Ventures

A lot of things are evolving in the startup and VC world. Many of them for the better, as there has been a great surge in great talent going after big ideas and greater NibzNotes3 access to capital at the early stages. It’s an exciting time to be an entrepreneur and investor in this ecosystem.

But I find myself lamenting some things that seem to be changing. Or at least, things that used to be very rare, that are becoming less so. I’m pretty new to VC in the grand scheme of things, but I do think that are some old school idea that are being lost or forgotten that I tend to agree with. Here are three old-school ideas in particular I’ve been thinking about.

1. Knowing your investors.

This seems like common sense. In the early stages, entrepreneurs have historically known who all their investors are. Entrepreneurs will certainly know the VC’s that led their round, and they certainly know the friends and family that invested in their companies. Often early rounds included angel investors, and these usually fell into two categories. The first were people who know the founder really well, and believe in them. They wrote a check because they believed in the talents of the founder and wanted to support him or her.