Startup Tips Archives - Page 42 of 66

3 Myths About Successful Startup Cultures

We’ve all read the stories about the hot new startups making waves in their industry – and how they’re doing it from colorful beanbag chairs in a once-destitute warehouse on the south side of town. We’re prone to conclude that these startups are sustaining high-level performance because they’ve broken down the (cubicle) walls binding our ability to collaborate, innovate, and achieve full potential.

Unfortunately, myths about high performing culture develop from these stories. Now, to dispel a few “must-have” myths:

A ‘Cool’ Vibe

While it may seem that a waterslide snaking through your office will promote innovation, it usually just leaves you all wet. Many high performing companies do have “cool” vibe cultures, but their sustained performance is attributed to much more than the free mocha coolatas. These cultures tend to be manifestations of their founders and leaders – entrepreneurial, risk-taking, intentionally provocative. These outward characteristics predicate high performance when they are founded in certain values: determination to succeed against all odds, an underdog mentality, and a youthful exuberance that imitators just can’t match.

Don’t try to be something you’re not. Seek to understand what is truly valued in your organization. Then, ask yourself how those values manifest themselves daily. Are these manifestations going to help you or derail you from achieving your goals? “Cool” doesn’t necessarily mean high performing. And trying to be “cool” when you’re not certainly isn’t going to end well.

A Charismatic Leader

The second common myth is that organizations need a charismatic leader at the helm in order to inspire greatness in others. In fact, recent thinking is quite the opposite. Highly successful CEOs tend to be those who shy away from the spotlight – those who are maniacally focused on the success of the business and who are never satisfied. If your charismatic CEO spends more time on the speaking circuit than in the office contributing to your organization’s success, you may be in trouble.

A Startup Mentality

While all organizations must be adaptive in order to meet the changing needs of the market (an attribute often associated with quick and nimble startups), this is not a prerequisite for success. Although it may be more challenging to turn the rudder on an ocean liner than a dingy, mature organizations are absolutely able to foster innovative thinking that keeps them competitive. It’s less about a startup mentality and more about understanding your objectives and how your organization’s culture is going to help get you there.

Myth-buster bottom line: A culture of performance is not necessarily a culture that seems catchy. The key is to clarify what you stand for and who you need to be and to execute on that vision authentically.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Chris Cancialosi, Ph.D., is Managing Partner and Founder of gothamCulture, is a recognized expert in the field of leader and organizational development with particular focus on the leader’s role in shaping high-performing culture.

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.

5 Tips for Startup Life Survival

The startup lifestyle can be grueling. If you’re not careful, it can take a serious toll on your physical and mental health. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a CTO, a programmer, or work in a nontechnical capacity; everyone needs a startup survival strategy to help them maintain their work-life balance as they learn to juggle an ever-growing workload, excessively long days and a personal life. It can be a pretty daunting task. Those who aren’t careful may find themselves suffering from burnout.

Anyone working at the forefront of technology and innovation is no stranger to the demands of startup life. In an industry where leaving the office before 8 p.m. is often frowned upon, it’s no surprise that industry leaders like Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer brag about working 130-hour weeks from time to time. Then there’s the famous Apple slogan, which has also helped set an industry precedent: “90 hours a week and loving it.” These increasing demands, coupled with the do-more-with-less mentality of such work environments, are having a detrimental effect on employees.

There’s a good chance that everyone who works at a startup has or will experience bouts of stress and burnout from time to time. What’s important is that one knows how to deal with the demands of the startup workplace.

Below are five tips for surviving the startup lifestyle.

Get a life. Your work, while demanding, shouldn’t be performed at the expense of your life. It’s important to spend time with loved ones and make time to do the things you enjoy. Don’t neglect your relationships. But more importantly, don’t neglect yourself. While this may feel like a waste of time, it will leave you feeling refreshed, energized and ready to tackle your to-do list head on.
Accept your limitations. Working at a startup doesn’t have to mean overtime and impending burnout. If you’re an efficient multitasker, you’ll be able to cram a decent amount of tasks into a full day of work. It’s essential that you understand your own needs. For some, perhaps an extended lunch break increases concentration and productivity overall, whereas some may benefit from short, frequent breaks throughout the day. Determine your needs and limitations to ensure you’re as efficient as you can be.
Get moving. Exercise and maintaining a healthy lifestyle often fall by the wayside as workload increases. Being active will not only help you keep in shape but will increase your productivity in addition to making you happier and more energetic. So get moving and while you’re at it, pay attention to the food you are consuming. Certain foods are linked to increased brain stimulation, while others cause steep energy declines. These are simple lifestyle changes that may greatly improve your quality of life and will make you a more productive member of your startup team.
Disconnect after hours. Just because you have a smartphone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t disengage from the office. Unless it’s something pressing, there’s no need to respond to emails outside office hours. And if you’re someone who has a tendency to obsessively check email, removing work email from your phone may be a good option. It’s important to take a break and make some time for yourself at the end of a long day.
Write your manifesto. It’s important to be aware of what you stand for and what you want out of life. Do you know what your main life goals are? Is your current job getting you any closer to reaching them? Constantly evaluating your goals will help you see your job in a different light. For example, it may help you realize it’s time to find something that more closely matches your manifesto. Whatever it is that you discover, having a personal manifesto written out will help you see the big picture.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Zach Cutler is a dynamic entrepreneur and marketing professional who formed Cutler Group, a Tech PR agency, in 2009. He specializes in crafting innovative communication campaigns to help emerging and established tech companies thrive.

4 Tips to Attract Angel Investment in 2014

Starting a new company from the ground floor is never easy; even seasoned entrepreneurs have been known to stumble along the way. First-time entrepreneurs have one brief chance to make a big impression on investors, and unfortunately more often than not they will fail. Following are four tips for early stage entrepreneurs hoping to prove to investors theirs is an idea worth opening their wallets for this year.

Think Like an Investor

Just like the first rule of public speaking – know your audience. Entrepreneurs who do not pay enough attention to understanding what investors are looking for will most likely fail to engage their audience. First-time entrepreneurs often spend too much time emphasizing their product or service during a pitch and as a result forget to answer some very key questions – the relevant experience of your management team, the go-to market strategy, the competitive landscape and potential for acquisition, just to name a few. Investors respond best to a balanced emotional and analytical appeal; think about it, would you rather have someone read you an almanac or tell you an exciting narrative based on the facts that almanac contains?

Choose Three Takeaways

If there is a lot of information to convey in a limited amount of time, abide by the rule of three. Before you step foot in the meeting, decide on the three most important takeaways prospective investors should leave the presentation with. Then, whether it’s placing an easel at the front of the room with the three takeaways listed or bringing them up several times throughout your presentation, let investors know from the beginning of your pitch that if they remember nothing else from your presentation, they should remember these three items.

Think Big

One of the biggest mistakes early stage entrepreneurs make is not thinking big enough. Investors need to know how you plan to reach a large market with a sustainable competitive advantage. The most profitable ventures are able to scale quickly and efficiently; entrepreneurs who secure funding are the ones who were able to communicate how they anticipate and plan for challenges they will likely face throughout the growth of the venture. There is considerably less risk for investors, who remember are looking for a big return, if your market is enormous. An enormous market means a venture does not have to capture an unrealistically high market share to command an exit value that will enable investors to meet their return requirements ; a small market means a potentially smaller exit event that could fall short of an investor’s needs or expectations. Showing investors that you have a realistic plan to quickly scale and grow within a large market oftentimes means the difference between attracting their money (or not.)

Make Realistic (and Defensible) Financial Projections

With so many sky-high valuations making headlines in 2013, it is easy to see why early stage entrepreneurs might be tempted to overestimate the value of their idea. Doing so, however, can seriously limit the longevity of your venture and ability to secure increased funding during subsequent rounds. It is also easy to price yourself out of the market if investors are turned off by the unreasonable value you place on the venture– in this scenario you do not even get the first round of funding let alone the opportunity for future investment. Do your homework. Take advantage of online tools like Worthworm, seek the advice of mentors, and ensure you walk into a meeting with a defensible and credible value and financial projections.

It is undoubtedly an exciting time to be a first-time entrepreneur as the public continues to embrace innovative ideas in so many diverse industries. However, even the greatest ideas can fail to take off if the money dries up. As you seek to attract angel investment this year, consider these four tips as you prepare for that critical first meeting where making the right impression is more important than making a big impression.

Alan Lobock is the co-founder of Worthworm (www.worthworm.com) and SkyMall. Having been on both sides of the start-up investment scene– seeking investment for his ventures and as an angel investor himself, Alan launched Worthworm to solve one of the biggest challenges young companies and their prospective investors face—how to compute a credible and defensible PMV for an early stage venture seeking angel investment.

How to Easily Make the Best Startup Connections

Over the years of my deep study and fascination with people and social dynamics, I’ve noticed that the world’s best connectors do things in a pretty similar way.

We all know the people who meet people with ease, seem to always have the influencers in their corner and are constantly surrounded by passionate and inspiring people.

Whether they know it or not, they all follow a set of habits. Let these habits serve as guidance for how to approach the people around you. For me, they are a way of life.

Without them, you’re nowhere. With them, anything’s possible.

10 Habits of People Who Connect With Anyone

Smile. This is by far the fastest way in the world to create a connection. It’s also a powerful show of confidence, which people respect and are drawn to. Smiles are contagious and the simple act makes people feel better. Whether it’s you’re approaching a close friend, a bus driver, someone you’re dying to meet or just walking into a room of strangers, there is no stronger opener.
See friends, not strangers. When you walk into a room, see the new faces not as strangers but as friends you have yet to meet. You see the world in a more similar way to others than you probably realize — especially if you’re at the same event or a part of the same communities. Approach accordingly.
Make friends. This is the foundation. Making genuine connections is nothing more than making friends. When you’re about to approach someone, ask, “How would I treat this person if they were my close friend or someone I’d want to be a close friend?” You put friends first. You listen to them. You hear their problems so you can help in any way you can. Act accordingly.
Be genuine. If you’re connecting just because you want to get yourself further up the ladder, then you’ve already lost. There is only one type of connection — one you genuinely care about. Find someone you actually do care to meet and get to know. Anything else is a waste of time.
Contribute. Meeting people is about making their lives better. Whether that’s by giving them a smile, a new job or anything in between — there is a way to help everyone. Give like crazy, embrace generosity and make others more successful.
Pay attention. The easiest way to be interesting is to be interested. Find excitement in what you can learn from others. Hear what they say. Listen and learn about what matters to them — not so you can say something back as soon as possible, but so you can get a window into their world. People want to tell their story. Be the person excited to hear it.
Make people a priority. There is no more important task for anyone than surrounding yourself with the right people. It’s part of every day, not something we do for an hour every week or two. It’s a way of being and a way of life.
Be open to conversation. Embrace conversation with those around you. Everyone has something to offer — your server or the guy next to you on a park bench or plane flight. Even if you came to read a book, realize the best part of your day might be learning about the world of the person next to you.
Know who you are and who you want in your life. Know your passions, goals, talents, interests and the impact you want to have on the world. These will serve as your guiding light for how you can help and who you actually want to write into your story. Act with intention.
Be uniquely YOU. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Don’t try to look and sound like someone else, and don’t hold back! Be vulnerable and open. Share your real story and goals. Tell others about your wife, kids and parenting struggles. Talking about the weather does not build connection. Being real does.

Remember that every maverick has a home team offering advice and encouragement. Every game-changer has an inner circle of support.

Yours is waiting.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Scott Dinsmore is an entrepreneur, career change strategist, travel photographer, ultra-runner and founder of Live Your Legend, a business and international community dedicated to helping you build a career around work that genuinely excites you – and surround yourself with the people who make it possible. The Live Your Legend Community’s LOCAL event sites are non-commercial gatherings happening on January 7 in 140 cities in 44 countries around the U.S. and the world. Locations are available here.

6 Great Personal Tips for Your Startup Success

As entrepreneurs, our personal happiness, the way we listen to and react to our staff, and the way we shape our own role at work all have profound effects on our companies, and ultimately, on how they grow. But lasting change is difficult. I should know – I recently achieved three major advances that I didn’t think were possible:

I pushed my wife to create more work-life balance with me.
I expressed compassion for a staff member facing personal challenges that were getting in the way of her job.
I redefined my number one priority with my team at Round Table Companies (RTC) to focus on deepening relationships with potential clients.

It wasn’t easy, but I had a solid guide. Not long ago, I was playing around on Twitter, searching for people with influential business and leadership profiles who could review and possibly share my last Forbes piece. Author Robin Sharma read and enjoyed the article, and consequently challenged me to read his new book. After looking at his site, I knew we were in alignment, so I dove into The Leader Who Had No Title.

Below are six key lessons I learned from Robin that you can apply to your own business success.

It’s Never too Early to Work on Your Dream

While he continued to practice law, Robin would get to his local 24-hour coffee shop at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning and write until he had to go to work at 8:00. Though the first editor told him he couldn’t write, Robin printed 2,000 copies of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari at Kinko’s. He kept them in his kitchen as he sold copies. Sixteen years later, Robin’s books have sold more than six million copies. Early morning hustle pays off!

Question: Do you pop out of bed excited for the day, or are you snoozing your way out of opportunity?

Live From a Place of Gratitude

Robin’s books inspired me to wake up at 5:30 a.m. every weekday morning (for the last 65 days now!) and spend 20 minutes journaling about what I’m grateful for and what I’m dreaming of becoming. That writing sets up my day from a place of appreciation verses the fear or anxiety that can often drive entrepreneurs. Coming from a place of appreciation all the time is a dynamic shift for me. I highly recommend you try it and see how quickly it can impact your brain chemistry and your behavior.

Question: Do you engage in any kind of ritual to help set up your day?

Splash Ice Water on Your Face (Figuratively)

As the owner of a million-dollar-a-year storytelling company, when times are good, I am a blast to work with and for. But as an entrepreneur, my moods change as often as Chicago’s weather. If revenue dips, or a deadline is missed, I take my anxiety out on our executive team, who repeat the process with our support staff.

I grabbed another lesson from Robin to deal with those negative thoughts: whenever I catch myself thinking negatively, I imagine getting splashed in the face with ice water. Amazingly, that practice helps me shake off the thoughts and recognize that they are not reality.

Question: How much of your day is ruled by worry vs. reality?

Question Your Role

Through my gratitude work, I started dreaming about what was possible for my company again. That shifted me from the role of managing back into my entrepreneurial power zone. It also helped me admit that my strength is not managing. Getting out of that role was great for me, but also for the spirit of the company. And it just so happened that our COO, David Cohen, was ready to make his own shift into a stronger leadership role. People management comes easily to him, and our staff thrives under his steadfast leadership style. Win-win-win.

Question: Is your current role one of choice, or one of habit?

Take Care of Yourself

Exercise is important for entrepreneurs because we’re desperately in need of ways to manage our stress. After two years of working out twice a week, I was ready to up my game. I started a difficult conversation with my trainer about changing up my schedule so I could work out four days a week at the same budget by taking more classes and doing less personal training. I had been avoiding that conversation out of a sense of guilt. And then, bam! I came from a place of kindness, had the conversation, and got what I needed. As the owner of her gym, she was looking to train less and have more time to run her own business anyway. Another win-win.

Question: What do you schedule into your life to ensure you’re taking care of your health? Do you respect yourself by protecting that time?

Challenge Others With Vulnerable Conversations

The conversations I had with my COO, my trainer, and my wife were all uncomfortable for me because I risked the fear of rejection. As entrepreneurs, we experience plenty of rejection. But we also become masterful at setting up our worlds so rejection is limited.

To keep ourselves pushing our limits, we have to press up against our comfort zones. Coming from a place of appreciation helped me to approach these difficult conversations with kindness. None of them went perfectly, but I walked away from each of them with great results and also a feeling of pride in how I handled myself.

Question: What difficult conversations are you avoiding in your life?

Small Shifts Add Up to Big Change

The most powerful takeaway here is that people like Robin are not superhuman, and they’re not just lucky. He put one foot in front of the other, took the risk of leaving a successful law practice, and then set up his life to serve others. And he did it all from a place of gratitude — something all entrepreneurs can achieve.

Working in Los Angeles for a decade, Corey Michael Blake was the face and voice behind a dozen Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 brands as a commercial and voiceover actor (his work won Belding, Addy, Cannes, and London International Advertising awards), before working as a film producer and director, as an author and publisher, and now as the founder and President of storytelling company Round Table Companies (RTC).

Startup Lessons for the Next Generation

Question: What lesson would you teach your younger self about entrepreneurship, given what you know now?

Embrace Change

“When I started out, I thought success meant everything working out the way you planned. But that’s not really how entrepreneurship works. Some things work out far better than you imagined, some things don’t happen and other things seem like epic failures, but it’s really all just a learning process. Rolling with the punches, embracing change and enjoying the adventure is a big part of the fun.”

ELIZABETH SAUNDERS Follow @RealLifeE

Understand There’s More Than One Way

“I entered the world of entrepreneurship timidly, even feeling uncomfortable to call myself a “real” entrepreneur for years. What I didn’t understand when I started out was that entrepreneurship is less about your number of investors, your job title or how many companies you’ve sold. What entrepreneurship is about is freedom and using your power of choice to do business and serve others in ways that empower you, liberate you and do good in the world. There’s not just one way to go about it; the journey is what you make of it.”

DAVE URSILLO The Literati Writers

Don’t Get Distracted

“As an entrepreneur, many new ideas and shiny new ventures will catch your eye on a day-to-day basis, but more often than not, focusing on one mission at a time will mean the difference between success and failure. As the saying goes, if you chase two rabbits, both will escape. Sometimes, focus and a relentless attitude can even trump the greatness of the idea itself.”

RICHARD LORENZEN Fifth Avenue Brands

Surround Yourself with the Right People

“There are many important principles of good business: best practices, success strategies, etc. But none of them are universal. You can march to your own beat. You can do things your own way…and you can make it work. But the people you choose to surround yourself with will make or break you. When I have ambitious, hard-working, like-minded people around me – motivating peers and mentors I can learn from, collaborate with, test/validate ideas with and get pushed by – I make fast progress and thrive. When I don’t have those people around me, I stagnate. You need a strong support network.”

CODY MCKIBBEN Digital Nomad Academy

Don’t Get Stuck on the Hamster Wheel

“A huge lesson I learned well after starting a business was that there’s a difference between owning a company and running one. Both are great, but the latter means that you can never stop running, or the company will slow down. Over time, it’s key to learn how to build a trustworthy team and to train others in your knowledge. At first, my goal was just to have a business that worked, but now my goal is to one day have a business that could survive even if I stopped running. I want to be able to catch my breath and enjoy it!”

LEXA HILLYER Paper Lantern Lit

Master the Tension Between Focus & Flexibility

“Entrepreneurs are generally good with either being focused or being flexible, but the trick is mastering the tension between the two. It is important to be focused — on your goals, on your business plan, and on your customers. However, you also have to stay flexible to the needs of the market.”

SUZANNE SMITH Social Impact Architects

Accept That Mistakes Are Okay

“Accept that 80 percent is an A+. Being a perfectionist and an entrepreneur can often yield several problems, including micromanaging, which drives you — and those around you — crazy. Accept that mistakes will happen, and that they are, in fact, part of building a great business and team.”

ILYA POZIN Ciplex

Collaborate With Others, Compete with Yourself

“Entrepreneurship isn’t a zero-sum game. You and your competitors can all be winners and, for the most part, competing with anyone other than yourself (unless you’re a professional athlete, of course!) is counterproductive. Share ideas, help each other out and rise together. And keep your competitive edge turned inward. Not only will your sanity benefit, but so will your business.”

ALEXIS WOLFER The Beauty Bean

Ask the Questions

“A friend of mine Shervin Pishevar made a statement that has stuck with me and served as a reminder for quite some time. He said, “the answer is always no unless you ask.” A simple, yet powerful, truth. Unless you ask the questions, there’s no way of knowing what the outcome will be. And without asking the question, the answer is always no. This is something I continually try to remind myself of when stuck in a spot of uncertanity and fear. Ask the questions that need to be asked.”

JEFF SLOBOTSKI Silicon Prairie News

Avoid Analysis Paralysis

“Decision and action are always better than indecision. This is particularly important for early business success. Execution moves things forward, and you don’t have time to ponder small decisions. Sometimes, even a lot of analysis will not give you the answer, and you have to go with what you believe will work best. “

JESSE PUJJI Ampush

Manage Yourself Well

“For first-time entrepreneurs, managing yourself can be a real challenge. We don’t realize how much we sometimes need structure. Being accountable to someone (a boss) is a huge motivating factor. I’d develop better habits around managing my time in a sustainable way. With my first company, I’d work 24 hours straight (literally). Some days, I’d just take off completely. Balance is everything, and it’s the key to sustainably being an entrepreneur for the long run.”

MITCH GORDON Go Overseas

Test Before You Invest

“We entrepreneurs have ideas every day. The sooner you test these ideas against reality to see if they’re viable, the quicker you’ll get to the idea that works. For example, I once had an idea to build an iPhone app. I made the wireframes. I got with a developer. I paid the developer about 20 percent of my savings account. And I lost all my money because I had an app no one wanted. If I had tested the app idea with my potential customers without any investment, I would have quickly found out my idea wasn’t needed. Get out of the building and test before you invest.”

BRETT FARMILOE Internet Marketing Company

Start With Your Strengths

“Research shows pretty conclusively that the best leaders do one primary thing differently: They know their strengths and work in them almost all the time. This sounds simple, but what I didn’t realize was that our society isn’t set up like this. From our earliest school days, we are taught to focus on making our deficiencies better; this never leads to greatness. Instead, first discover those things that make you unique: your gifts/talents/strengths. Second, find a big, hairy problem in the world that makes you righteously indignant. Third, use your strengths to solve that problem!”

JOSH ALLAN DYKSTRA Strengths Doctors

Talk to Customers

“As a younger entrepreneur, I always wanted to build or start something that I wanted. It’s part of what makes entrepreneurs great is that they are often so passionate about a solution to a problem, because they have that problem. But the reality is, just because you have a problem isn’t enough to start a company around it. So talk to your customers… a lot. After realizing how much you learn from customers, we now have built that feedback loop so tightly into the company — from weekly in-office usability testing to all-hands customer support to monthly feedback from our employees. “

ERIC KOESTER DCI

Generate Sustainable Revenue

“Focus on generating sustainable revenue. Entrepreneurs thrive on ideas and opportunity. Some ideas take longer to materialize into a profitable business and in some cases opportunity takes longer to materialize. Regardless of the idea or the opportunity, I would focus on smaller increments that can start delivering revenue sooner than later. This is a critical success factor for technology startups given that I can easily manage to become a thinker than a revenue generator. This also helps in seeing what works and expanding on that versus going with the big bang theory.”

RAHEEL RETIWALLA Fuzed

Get Out of Your Rut

“Business plan? No problem. Road trip to raise capital? Got it. Two hours of sleep? Push through it. These are all things we did early on without blinking. We loved our small team and our mission, and we fell in love with our business. Then, our business got older and, although it aged well, it lost some of its excitement. Our passion became a job first, instead of the other way around. It took time, but we got out of the rut by changing things up: new roles, scenery, experiences, projects and team activities. It’s not about building new fires, but feeding the one you started. “

BEN WAGNER LifeKraze

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3 Tips to Building Strong Startup Culture

The desire to be engaged in purposeful, fulfilling activity is universal. Maslow classified it as a basic need in his “self actualization” rung of the pyramid. Aristotle called it eudemonia, or human flourishing: “the soul acting in accordance with virtue.” Csikszentmihalyi proffers two concepts: good work — in which one “enjoys doing [one’s] best while at the same time contributing to something beyond [one]self”— and growth toward complexity — in which people flourish as their achievements grow. When we boil all these concepts down, we see that they are all derivations of the same basic principle. I call this principle Live.Learn.Grow™. These three words tap into a universal truth that people ultimately want to be and do their best.

So what does it take for this to happen?

What You Do Doesn’t Matter

A company has to realize that what they do doesn’t really matter. Sound completely nuts? It shouldn’t.

Think about companies that completely changed course or shifted strategy and direction. When a company that specialized in producing computers saw an opportunity in mobile phones, they introduced the world to the iPhone. When a video dating site called TuneInHookUp flailed, its founders decided to change direction and then created YouTube. An unsuccessful podcasting startup worked on a side project for months before making it their full-time gig and renaming themselves Twitter.

More and more companies are seeing that making drastic shifts to what they do doesn’t have to impact who they are, as long as they are true to how they do it.

Many companies who modify strategy and approach are unsuccessful because their compass is pointed solely towards profits, not towards the people who create them. So what goes into how a company does business and, more importantly, how it does business well? I believe it’s about creating an environment that allows people to thrive.

Why “Core Values” Fall Short

Companies most often define their culture through a series of core or company values. If you take a sampling of some of the core values out there, you will see many of the same themes repeated. Really, don’t most people want similar things? We want to work in a place where we feel respected. We want our clients taken care of, we want to do good work, and we want our company to prosper.

So why do so many of these attempt to create a strong culture through values fail?

Values are often static and generic. In the effort to boil them down to universal truths, values are often universally useless. Many leaders and businesses try to create a list of values to impose upon the company, as opposed to creating a company with these values woven into the fibers of the business. They take the same approach with people; they try to hire folks who have the skills they need and then try to instill the values in them once they are onboard. Rather than that, hire people who, themselves, embody the values.

How to Define Dynamic Values for Your Organization

Values must remain a dynamic element in an organization. Each value of the snowball builds upon the other both at the individual and organizational levels, gaining a momentum that snowballs and propels the growth and development of both.

To work, your values must be:

Action-oriented
Relevant regardless of tenure or stage in the organization
Dynamic – they grow, change and develop with individuals
Holistic – they apply personally and professionally.

A critical assumption behind our approach is that businesses leveraging our methodology would have to outperform their peers in the market. Profit is only the means to the end, but it is a powerful validator for those who would initially be dismissed as “unsustainable nice-to-haves.”

In his book Conscious Capitalism, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey argues that profit maximization need not be the sole purpose of business and calls for “a way of thinking about business that is more conscious of its higher purpose, its impacts on the world, and the relationships it has with its various constituencies and stakeholders.” It is not that profits aren’t the responsibility of a business; without strong performance, people lose their jobs, investors lose their money, and customers lose access to a product or service. Instead, it is the blind pursuit of profits as purpose that leads companies astray.

Sound too good to be true? Mackey and his co-founder tracked businesses who adhered to these practices over 15 years and compared their performance to the S&P 500. The result? Businesses built on a higher purpose and values outperformed the market 10 to one.

I want to help create a world where everyone has the opportunity to live, learn and grow. Ultimately, that is what my company aspires to do daily for anyone we touch. While there are many ways to do this, I’m personally compelled to drive this change through the workplace. Since so much of the world spends so much time and energy at work, my assumption is that, by changing the way the world does business we can fundamentally change the world.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Tynesia Boyea Robinson is the CEO of Reliance Methods, which puts Americans to work by providing human capital strategy and placement solutions for clients like Walmart, Trammell Crow, and the federal government. Tynesia serves on numerous boards and has published several articles, which have been featured in the Washington Post and in Leap of Reason. Education: Harvard MBA, Duke University EE & Comp Sci.

3 Easy Tips for Your Startup’s Social Media Strategy

It’s a new year, and you know what that means- the perfect time for New Year’s resolutions! When setting your resolutions, think larger than yourself; perhaps it’s time to better your business. What’s a better way to start than to begin your social media scheduling for the year?! We are sure that your brand has some sort of social media presence (we don’t know many who don’t), but why not make it great by planning killer content AHEAD of time? While this may sound overwhelming, it’s a lot easier than you may think. Given that social media scheduling is something that we have recently begun to do religiously, we believe that we can give you pointers for the task, so sit tight and stay tuned for some of our advice.

Designate Days

In order to make sure you are posting meaningful, purposeful content, we recommend designating particular days around certain subjects. For instance, maybe on Wednesdays you will post things centered around your company, while on Mondays, you will want to post more fun things or things that would be of interest to your target audience as they are easing into their week. Tuesday could be dedicated to things going on within your company’s industry, Thursday could be centered around people that are in communication with your brand and giving thanks and feedback to them, and Friday could be about what is going on in your company’s home city. Of course, these are just suggestions- use your own discretion about what is good for your unique company when designating days. In addition, you may also choose to continue posting throughout the weekend, if you’d like. The idea is to create a blueprint of what you would like your week of social media to look like so as to make finding content easier as well as providing relevant and useful information to your target audience.

Optimize Your Schedule

There are certain hours in the day that are better for engaging with your audience than others. In other words, just by choosing a particular time, more people will not only see your posts for themselves, but they are also more likely to interact with it and share it with even more people. These times can vary according to your business and your audience, but according to an infographic by KISSmetrics, titled “The Science of Social Timing”, here are some helpful guidelines:

Twitter:

5 pm is a good time to tweet for an optimal amount of retweets
You are most effective when you tweet between 1-4 times an hour
The best days to tweet tend to be during the middle of the week and on weekends
To increase click-through rates, noon and 6 pm are the best times to tweet

Facebook:

The best day to share is Saturday
The most effective time to post is noon
The best sharing frequency tends to be .5 per day

Of course, as we previously mentioned, these times and days are not set in stone, and they can vary from company to company, so use these as guidelines, not absolute rules.

Choose A Program

Now that you have an idea of what you want to post as well as when you want a post, you’re ready to actually begin to schedule. The good news is that there are many programs out there to help you with this task. We are fond of HootSuite, but here we will provide a list of additional programs you may want to look at for your scheduling needs:

For even more options, visit this site.

Hopefully these tips will help you get the start you need for a great year of social media content!

This post originally appeared on the Tailwind blog.

5 Hacks to Get the Most Value Out of College

Peter Thiel says “…what important truth do very few people agree with you on? To a first approximation, the correct answer is going to be a secret. Secrets are unpopular or unconventional truths. So if you come up with a good answer, that’s your secret.”

His point about secrets is that secrets are keys that can lead to successful ventures. Secrets are non-obvious truths that few other people see until they are introduced to them.

I’ve shared secrets about learning how to walk, how to get through a breakup, how to be a movie guru, and how I became a bestselling writer.

College is a big secret everyone is talking about. The trend right now is for rich guys to diss college. Peter Thiel is renowned for paying kids $100,000 not to attend college. A lot of other people, like my friend James Altucher, have written about how college is a scam.

At what price does college become “worth it”? It can be argued that it may never be worth it – you pay more money in than you can ever get back and end up in a black-hole-of-no-return. This is what happens to most people, but there is another way. In this post series, I will share my secret to hacking college.

College is a bet.

College is a bet. You are betting 5 years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars on an outcome that occurs after those 5 years. You need to have an expected outcome in order to know how much to bet. Five years is a lot of time, and you shouldn’t bet 5 years and all that money on something that will not propel you forward.

The real question is one of cost versus value.

Benjamin Graham said and Buffett popularized: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”

Graham is popular for inventing value investing: buying things intrinsically undervalued, which limits risk and improves probability of reward. The challenge with value investing is finding undervalued things – because these are non-obvious and hidden.

What if you had a formula that helped you find the secret value in college so you could graduate debt-free with many job offers? Kind of like value investing in your education?

Use the scam to your advantage; hack the system, and you can give yourself the best chance for success. This is how Buffett invests, how Thiel advises and how Altucher has rebuilt himself too many times – by following a value-based formula.

Don’t be okay getting scammed.

Most people get scammed by college because they are comfortable getting scammed by college. When you went to college how many of your friends said “I’m totally getting scammed right now”? None of them.

Instead, they said “Where can I get the cheapest slice of pizza tonight because I am literally dead broke paying my life savings to an institution that doesn’t guarantee I’ll have a way of earning it back when I graduate and I have a final exam tomorrow in Georgian Literature so I’ll see you later.”

On the other hand, I graduated with no student loan debt and a full time job where all the money came straight back to me and not to student loans. My first job taught me the lessons in an industry that I then used to build my own business.

The financial freedom I gained allowed me to take more risks. I quit jobs and traveled the world more than once. I started trading from a home office when I was 22. I paid cash for my cars and never made a single car payment. I wasn’t wealthy, but I was free, and I’ve always lived below my means, enabling more freedom.

I almost got scammed by college but I figured it out just in time.

Let’s look at the numbers:

2013 average college loan debt: $35,200 (and we all know people with much more)
Average starting salary of 2013′s graduating class: $44,928 (after tax and 401K your take home is ~$30,596)
US Gov’t Student Loan Interest Rate: up from 3.4-3.9%
Average graduate salaries: down 5.4% in 2013
Average Annual Tuition: up 5.4%
Tution and living costs at Harvard: $64,954/year
Tuition and living costs at University of Illinois: $29,594-$48,896/year
Tuition and living costs at #1 ranked Walla Walla Community College: $11,415-$17,976/year

At these prices, education is a major cost. If you attended University of Ilinois with in-state tuition you pay $30K/year. The average student graduates in 5 years, not 4, total cost is $150,000 + you have to remove the money you could have made if you were in a job for 5 years. Let’s call that $30,000/year for a whopping total college cost of $300,000 over 5 years. Wow. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for in-state cost of going to college.

There’s got to be a way to hack that.

How to Hack College Rule #1:

Reduce the amount of time you spend in college. This will reduce room & board and tuition. If you went to the University of Illinois in-state for 3 years instead of 5 you’d save about $60,000.

SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

If you attend Harvard, I just saved you $130K. If the average graduate finishes with $35K in debt, they could wipe out the debt and have $25K extra in their pocket.

The way to reduce your time in college is by cramming in more hours per semester. I was taking over 21 credit hours per semester. Next, you attend school year round. No summer jobs, no internships. Finish fast.

When you graduate with a degree in a trade, you don’t have to worry about interning anywhere. People will give you job offers all over the place. Take lots of hours each term and go to school year round. This will make you finish college up to 2 years early.

How to Hack College Rule #2:

What really matters to people is the focus of your degree and where you graduated, not where you went to school all 5 years.

When was the last time someone asked you “Well, I see you graduated from Stanford but where did you go the other 4 years?” Never. No one cares. Start your education going to a less expensive school, finish your prerequisites, and if you must go somewhere that “looks better” on your resume, transfer there for the last few terms so you can get the degree from that school.

Is it risky? Not as risky as spending $130K on two years of basic college courses and frat parties. When you transfer into your graduating school, finish as fast as you can to limit the expense. Go somewhere inexpensive the first 2 years, live at home if you have to, and save the extra cost of living and tuition expenses. Many schools look favorably towards transfer students and make it easy for students to transfer in.

I spoke to Christine Mascolo, Harvard’s Director of Transfer Admissions. Harvard looks favorably on transfer students. They look for students with a sincere, concentrated focus combined with other interests outside the classroom showing how they can contribute to the community while pursuing their academic passions. Though Harvard only accepts a small number of transfer students per year, transferring into a good school is not only possible, but a solid option that can save you a ton of money.

How To Hack college Rule #3:

You may love Georgian Literature, but you have to study a trade in college. Georgian Literature is essentially useless. No one will pay you for your review of Defoe. A trade is anything that trains you for a specific type of career after college: finance, accounting, programming, engineering, environmental geology, law, medicine, nursing, etc. These majors will get you a job after college, and your grades hardly matter.

I don’t care if you say “but I’m passionate about Georgian Literature.” Study academics as a minor. Your job at college is to learn how to create value or prepare to get a job after college: minimize cost and maximize return.

A friend just graduated from University of Colorado with his bachelor’s in computer science and his first job is a programmer at Apple making over $100,000. He had multiple job offers in several cities. His future is set for life. Win.

Another friend graduated from University of Colorado with an English degree. She moved back to her parents’ house in Maine and is working at a restaurant as a server. This is after 5 years out-of-state tuition + living expenses totaling around $125,000 + financial aid. I’m sure she’s academically enriched, but she’s in the financial and opportunistic hole. Loss.

How To Hack College Rule #4:

Be entrepreneurial by learning how to help people. You are around a totally unique demographic. Facebook started as a college-based product. Would Facebook have ever started if not for its founder attending college?

It’s a great market. What do these people need? Be creative, and start something on your own. Maybe it will grow and make you wealthy, maybe not, but it will teach you real keys to success. Go to the entrepreneurship center at your college.

I was the Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship while in graduate school at the University of Oregon. Not only did that fellowship pay for my graduate business education, I also worked with aspiring entrepreneurs and founded a company through a relationship that began there.

The secret of real education is learning how to create value. If you can do that, you will be secure and free for life. Most of college is like tourism: fun experience but it’s all about YOU. This is not the way the world works. No one cares about your mind opening experience. They care what you can do for them. You have to learn how to help people: you must learn how to create value.

Another friend of mine is a lifeguard in San Diego. She started a jewelry company in college and people love it, but she doesn’t see the opportunity. I beg her to focus on her business over her job. Here’s why:

She is young – No family, no rent, no overhead
She has customers – Lots of customers! Stores want to carry her products and the products sell. Everyone in business would kill for this problem. Give your customers what they want! If they want to buy, you sell!
It’s scalable – At her “job” she is stuck making an hourly wage. No matter what, she can only make that wage. Her jewelry income is theoretically unlimited: if she markets herself more she could get into big stores and create a million dollar company very quickly. Look at what Sara Blakely did with Spanx or what Charlie Chanaratsopon did with his concept Charming Charlie.
It’s dependable – She won’t fire herself.
It creates value – It brings pleasure to lots of people and I personally love it.
It’s valuable – If she stuck with it she could sell the company in a couple years for a lot of money and never have to work again. Then she could go surf in Fiji and be a lifeguard for fun rather than as a slave.
It’s a real education – She’ll learn more about building something than school can teach; she could skip school.

When you are in college it’s a great time to start a business. You have facilities, a customer demographic, time to experiment, and limited overhead.

How To Hack College Rule #5:

Limit your expenses. This includes tuition, but also rent and other living expenses. With my little company I was paying rent with enough left to eat at Tipu’s Tiger and drink Chai Lattes at Second Thoughts a few times each week.

I bought a VW bus with summer job money (before I knew enough to go to school year round) for about $3,500 and had no car payments. I traveled and lived in it on weekends so I didn’t have any camp site fees or hotel fees and my friends LOVED traveling all over the West Coast in my house on wheels (it had red chili pepper lights inside; we looked like a glowing red spaceship zooming down the highway). I was going through college fast, earning money, learning valuable business skills, and still having fun.

Thiel’s definition is that secrets are about value – something you know that others don’t see, but can help a lot of people. His interest as an investor is of course to create a return on the secrets of the founders he invests in.

If you compress your college career into fewer years, start at the least expensive school and transfer, study a trade, be entrepreneurial, and limit your expenses, you will save at least $50,000. You will graduate with more job opportunities and more years of income. You could probably make $100-$200K additional income in those extra years.

What would you do with $50,000 extra, or more, in your life? Before you go to college, you should think about this. If you follow this advice I’d love to have dinner and hear your story. I’ll even pick up the dinner tab.

Kevin Faul’s background is in finance. He loves being in the mountains and on the ocean, and he likes to build – furniture & ideas. Follow him on instagram @kevinfaul or twitter @kcfaul. Or just email him kcfaul [at] gmail [dot] com.

Starting Up in 2013: The Good Stuff

Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a lessons learned series from entrepreneur Matt Goldman. You can read part 1 here.

Although we’ve had our share of screw-ups, we’ve also managed to do a few things right. Maybe you can learn from them:

We Took Two Products to Market

Building two products took its toll on our runway by slowing us down, but it also has granted us access to a wider audience and opened many promotional opportunities.

We had no intention of launching HookFeed before Minimalytics, but figured adding a cross-promotion in the “Thanks for signing up for the beta list” email would start building the list. It did.

We also have been able to reference both products whenever writing a post, and an amazing number of people click through to check them out.

Minimalytics has always been more popular, but we were able to grow an audience for HookFeed on the coattails of Minimalytics, and that would not have been possible had we not marketed them at the same time.

And the cost? Throwing up a simple animated landing page explaining what the product would do (which has since changed).

Our beta lists for the products are currently at 2,893 for Minimalytics and 1,322 for HookFeed.

We also announced the book we’re writing with Michael Sacca far before we had time to start working on it. By mentioning it here and there on the internet, the list has grown steadily to over 300 people without a dedicated marketing push.

We Didn’t Wait to Talk to People Until We Had a Success

From the very beginning, we began reaching out to successful entrepreneurs for help. Since we had some attractive landing pages up, and reached out to them in non-sleazy ways, we had a 100% response rate. We’ve learned so much from our product chats with people, and made some amazing friends online.

Along the way, we constantly felt like impostors. Like we weren’t ready to talk to these people since we hadn’t even launched a product yet. But I’m so glad we did.

The only thing holding you back from talking to your heroes is yourself.

We Trusted Our Gut

Everything about our early-beginnings would have been advised against by most people.

Joelle was my co-worker (ok, kind of my boss) when we used to work at an agency. That’s when we started dating.
I left my steady job last December to start Small HQ (and start burning through savings trying to finally launch a profitable product)
Joelle joined me in March and we began working together
We started living together shortly after this
We chose to work on 2 products instead of focusing on 1
We turned down client work and burned through savings

I’ve lost count of how many people have scoffed at the fact that we work together.

“You work with your girlfriend?! I don’t know if I could do that…”

Joelle likes to say, “If you can’t stand to be around your partner most of the day, why the hell are you even dating?”

Advice, at the end of the day, is just someone else’s opinion. And sometimes needs to be ignored.

The nature of it is that the most popular advice floats to the top, and when you’re dealing with something risky like entrepreneurship, you’re going to hear advice from many who have failed.

With all these lessons in my back pocket I’m more eager than ever moving into 2014 — though I have no doubt a whole new set of failures and lessons are just around the next bend.

Where will we be next December? No idea… but I do know it’ll be one hell of a ride!

I’m Matt Goldman. I’m building HookFeed and Minimalytics. Also writing a book about how to build a SaaS rocketship with my partner Joelle and Michael Sacca.

Top 10 Places to Get Work Done

As more and more of us become digital nomads and gain the flexibility to work when and where we’d like. We thought we’d take a look at 10 of the best places to work from. Because everyone knows, keeping your employees happy is all the matters. Worker production and high output days are a thing of the past.

1) The Coffee Shop.

Free wifi? Check. Delicious Pour Over Coffee? Check. Plenty of open space for your laptop and scone? Check. The “coffice” has become the go-to working space in the last 5 years. With the influx of more small business owners and independent contractors, this space serves as a catch-all for creativity. While it’s unsure how many of those 20 somethings at coffee shops actually collect a paycheck, it’s safe to say they look cool as shit doing it.

2) The Couch.

If you’re working on the couch, odds are you don’t have pants on and the TV is getting as much of your attention as the computer is. Probably the first space to breakthrough after America’s workforce was allowed to flee the office. The couch provides all the comforts of home (because, well, you know why). Year after year it’s been voted “Best Destination for House Hunter’s International Breaks in Between Conference Calls” by Forbes*.

3) The Beach. Seriously, Any Beach.

No one actually works at the beach. The best you’ll do here is read a book or check some email. If you put in a full day while sitting at a beautiful tropical resort, you should probably get a refund on your airfare. What to brag to your co-workers when you get back about how much work you got done while on vacation? How fun bragging to your soon-to-be ex-wife, too.

4) The Bar.

The bar is most certainly a high-risk, high-reward play. Perhaps best suited with those coffee shop / bar combos. Do you work early in the day and slip in a conference call with an IPA? Find yourself sending emails into too many beers and you’re going to have a lot of explaining to-do the next day.

“Suzy thanks for sending those reports today… And I just wanted to tell you I dream about the smell of your beautiful hair after every team meeting.

Thanks Again!
Craig”

5) Hotel Room.

The most dreaded work location of all-time. Thought you had a bad enough time working at the client site from 8-8? You’ve been rewarded by your favorite employer to put in a few more hours at the musty motel in – “what’s this city called again?” Hotel room work is the worst, we shouldn’t have even put it on the list. It should actually be #1 on the list of Worst Places to Work from.

6) The Office.

Sometimes the office isn’t that bad, unless you sit in a massive cube farm that takes up 10,000 sq ft. It could be worse, you could be sitting next to the guy who clips his nails every couple hours… oh wait, you do? Might we suggest those new noise-canceling headphones? If done right, the office can be the perfect psychological trigger to put you into work mode. Easy accessibility to others, infinite amounts of paper clips, and a stand up desk? The office is like… the new office?

7) An Airplane.

The airplane is an extremely useful place to get work done, especially during long flights. Of course if you’re anything like me, you have to drink so many gin and tonics just to get through the flight, work is an afterthought. Perhaps best suited for catching up on that new work book you’ve been meaning to read. Try to relax a little, odds are you were working just before you took off, and heading back your cell phone to make business calls once you land.

8) Outside.

The last time I worked outside was during Philosophy 200 in college. For some reason the view of co-eds in bikinis and frisbees helped me verbalize Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In reality, the glare is so bad on every computer screen in the world when outside – how can you even find the address bar? If you’re doing some creative thinking, sketching, or writing with a pen and pad, mother nature may just be the extra push you need. And if you do look to setup shop for an entire day, stay away from the co-eds and frisbees.

9) Co-working Space.

Ah the co-working space, a big FU to the Baby Boomers. Millennials don’t need no stinking walls, or pragmatics desks, or even chairs. We’re going to work and talk loudly so everyone in the room can hear us. Conference call? Perfect, everyone needed to know exactly how much my October expense report was. While the co-working space is an improvement over the conventional cubicle, it’s a quiet worker’s worst nightmare. Give it a try and see how long you can last.

10) The Bathroom Stall.

Last year German Researchers revealed that more emails are sent sitting on toilets than any other location in the world**. The bathroom stall just made the cut this year, but we already see it as an emerging trend for 2014. With the push to mobile and BYODs in the workplace, we’re expecting your boss to hold breakout session here very soon. Sit down and let the words per minute fly, but please don’t forget a courtesy flush and your sanitizer wipes. You’ll probably be texting on that same phone at lunch time.

*This is totally made up. To anyone at Forbes, I apologize. But you should research this stat, it’s probably huge!

**Again, made this one up too. For some reason “German” Researchers always sounds so much more credible

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.

This post originally appeared on the Sqrl blog.

Starting Up in 2013: Lessons Learned

Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of 2 part series from entrepreneur Matt Goldman. Read part on the great lessons from 2013 tomorrow.

This year has been a whirlwind.

Diving headfirst into the SaaS world is a roller coaster ride like no other, a constant fluctuation of peaks and valleys, mini successes and epic failures. And, when all is said and done, an invaluable string of lessons to carry on to the next ride.

This year Joelle (my girlfriend/business partner) and I have made the life-changing leap from 9-to-5ers to full-time entrepreneurs.

We’ve grown a little audience of our own, talked to our heroes, learned from our peers, launched a product…and then another one, met some amazing people, and perhaps most important of all, discovered a new lifestyle we didn’t think was possible before.And in doing so we’ve naturally made a ton of mistakes along the way.

While we’ve written plenty about micro-lessons we’ve learned throughout the year, here are some of the bigger ones we’ve learned. My hope is that there are a few nuggets in here you can take with you on your next trip around the track.

Product Takes a Long-Ass Time. Plan Accordingly.

We started in March, whipped up two landing pages, and got to work building out some ideas. Surely, we’d launch the products within a few months, and then make a ton of money, right?

Wrong. This was what actually happened:

April 8: Minimalytics Teaser Page
April 29: HookFeed Teaser Page
August 21: First Minimalytics Beta Tester
**HookFeed pivoted to focus entirely on Stripe Notifications in a Live Stream
October 24: First HookFeed Beta Tester
**HookFeed pivoted to focus on Stripe Email Alerts and Daily/Weekly Summaries
December 17: HookFeed Launched

So it’s been just over 9 months and we’ve only “launched” one of our products. Minimalytics is still in beta and needs significant development before it’s ready for prime-time. We overcomplicated things and are working on returning to our Minimal promise

Even though we’ve launched HookFeed to the public now, it will take several months before it is generating anywhere near enough revenue to cover two salaries entirely.

Luckily, we started with a longer runway than we thought we needed. You should set aside cash to fund at least 1 year to become profitable.

If you’re one of the folks who thinks you’ll have a profitable product in a few months (I sure did), then this bit is important. Listen up:

Your product will not make as much as you think, as soon as you think. Be ready for that.

We Spread Ourselves Thin

Nearly every experienced entrepreneur we’ve Skyped with has ended our conversation with, “Why the hell are you building two products? Focus on one.”

Every time we heard this advice, we said, “Yeah, Yeah…I guess it’s just a lesson we need to learn on our own. We want both products for ourselves, so we’re going to build both.”

Many great things have come of building two products at once (which I’ll touch on in a bit), but it has also increased our time to market on both products, increased our cash-burned, and slowed our learnings/pivots.

That being said, if I could press rewind and go back to March, I’d do it all the same. However, I would have paid more attention to the feedback we were getting from people smarter than us.

Juggling two products is really hard. Marketing two products and building one-at-a-time is much more attainable.

We Let Client Work Steal Our Focus

Although we started with the dream of never working for anyone again, whether they were a boss or a number of clients…I was approached by a retail chain seeking an overhaul of their various websites.

When Joelle came to work with me, we realized we could use an extension to our runway, and we signed a 4-month contract to rebuild their entire web presence. Luckily, I had just read Brennan’s book and ventured out of my comfort zone to charge about 5x what I would have normally charged. They accepted, and ended up being a great client. Our contract ended in July, but we made the decision to stay onboard for monthly work.

Up until July, we were spending about half of our time on client work, and that was enough to nearly derail our product efforts. Since then, we’ve been able to balance the two much better.

Our advice for product people taking client work:

Don’t turn it away if it’s a good deal. Run if it’s a bad deal.
Charge 3-5x what you normally do. Read Brennan’s book.
Don’t bill hourly. Bill daily, weekly, monthly, or preferably per project.
Group client hours together so you can spend chunks of time building and marketing your product(s).

We Had No Sense of Urgency

When you have a long runway, and don’t fully understand how much time/effort it takes to get a successful software product off the ground, it’s easy to squander valuable time.

That’s not to say that you should be spending every waking hour on your work, but rather that the hours you dedicate to work (which can be reasonable) need to be fully devoted to work.

We’re making changes starting this week, and actually setting working hours (gasp!). When you leave a full-time job and discover the freedom of working solo, you tend to resist any process that you dealt with at your prior job. One of those is set working hours.

In the past, I would wake up around 5-6am and “work” until about midnight. But throughout the day, I would go out for food, go visit Tiny Factory and chat it up, play the occasional video game, or go on cleaning sprees to avoid exerting any effort on the not-so-fun bits of work.

In the future, I’ll still be waking around 5am, but focusing harder and actually working during my brightest time of the day. Then working out, then eating lunch, then back to work, stopping no later than 6pm.

More of an effort will go towards writing and coding the tough stuff in the early morning, and handling the lighter tasks in the afternoon. Possibly over a beer.

I wasn’t sure how this would feel, but I tried it yesterday and it was amazing. Having no burden at 6pm sent a few questions through my head, “What books could I read?” “What should I cook for Joelle?” “Who should we hang out with this week?”

All good things that got neglected over the past year.

We Spent too Much Time Together

When you live and work with your girlfriend, you see a lot of one another. We’re pretty used to this since we actually met at work at our last job. But it still takes its toll.

We’ve found that we are each most productive when we’re alone, and even better, out of the house.

My most productive time is:

At my desk writing/coding between 5am and 8am
At a coffee/beer shop in the afternoon

I’ve also noticed a 10x increase in Joelle’s output when she gets out of the house.

We’re making an effort daily to get out and away from each other now. Not just for productivity reasons, but also so that our time spent together is more valuable/appreciated.

It’s easy to fizzle the sparks that flew when you were first dating someone. Especially when most of the day you treat each other like business partners. It takes only a little extra effort to avoid this default, and return to the days of snuggles and sunset cuddles.

We Let Our Health Suffer

We’re both in relatively good shape, but during busy times this year, we let workouts take a back seat to work — and our health surely suffered.

I’m much worse than Joelle in this regard. She has run triathlons and been competitive her whole life. I have always avoided competitive sports and although I love the feeling after working out, I avoid it like the plague.

If you have a partner/team, encourage each other to workout and stay healthy year-round. The impact is incredible.

I’m Matt Goldman. I’m building HookFeed and Minimalytics. Also writing a book about how to build a SaaS rocketship with my partner Joelle and Michael Sacca.

*A version of this post was originally posted on Medium.

Build a Successful Sales Process in 7 Steps

At ElasticSales, we’ve had the privilege of working with dozens of early-stage startups, helping them establish their sales processes. Some ask us to build their process from the ground up. Many come to us solely looking for guidance as they develop their own sales processes and teams. In both cases, the best campaigns are those in which the founders are actively involved with developing the process, or have conducted their startup’s early sales themselves.

For tech entrepreneurs without sales experience, here’s how you build a sales process for your startup from the ground up.

Begin Customer Outreach as Early as Possible

The best thing you can do to develop your sales process is to get out there as early as possible. That Lean Startup mentality works just as well in sales as it is for development. Spend a week, even a few days, picking up the phone and cold-calling your customers. During these early calls you’ll get a sense of their challenges, objections you might face, and direct customer feedback about your product. You might even realize a key aspect of your product that needs to be tweaked before you push hard into the market.

As a founder, YOU absolutely need to do this before handing it off to someone else. Conducting preliminary outreach to your customers will help you better understand them, their needs and your market place. You can then refine your product as you develop your sales process.

Do a Full Walk-Through

Walk through simulated conversations. Begin by finding the lead and travel through the complete sales process. End by handing the customer off to your support team. Do this with colleagues who understand your space, then try your pitch out on someone who doesn’t. (Outsiders quickly notice problems and inefficiencies.) These scenarios not only give you great practice before implementing your process, they’ll help you identify gaps in it. Say on your first call you get a customer’s credit card — then what? How do you process the payment? Who do they speak to next? Mock calls are a great way to practice your pitch and refine the logistics of a sale.

Establish Qualifying Criteria

Qualifying criteria are a list of traits that make someone a good fit (qualified) to buy your product. It sounds easy enough, but lots of young companies have no idea what they need to know about a customer to make a sale.

So how do you develop qualifying criteria and track them?

Common criteria for leads are:

Does your product solve their pain point?
Does your product save them money/cost?
Does your product save them time?
Is your product in their budget?
Are they using a competitor’s product and paying for it?
How fast can they make a buying decision?

It’s best to develop just five criteria based on what you THINK you need to know about a buyer, and then reach out to a subset of customers. Identify those five criteria in the customers, and then see if the criteria need to be expanded, or even cut down, to identify whether they would be a good fit.

DO NOT get into the habit of marking every lead qualified because “you had a nice conversation.” Remember, a qualified deal is very different than an active opportunity. An active opportunity is a qualified lead with a value attached to it. This means that you have communicated the cost of the product/service to the prospect, they understand it, and have expressed that it is in within their budget.

Establish a Sales Script

A good call script is a method for you to guide a customer through your sales process from start to finish, while showing them the value of your product/service.

A call script typically has the following sections:

• Introduction
• Qualifying Questions
• Q&A About Features, Pricing and Next Steps
• Asking for the Close
• Managing Customer Objections
• Establishing Next Steps

Developing a script is an iterative process, but it begins with research. Know your product and how it fits into the market, and convey that as simply as possible to the customer. Your script needs to incorporate your qualifying questions (so you know they’re a good fit), common pain points, and benefits around which to position your solution.

Establish a Conversion Funnel

A conversion funnel should be built with a “reverse” approach. Establish a range of deals you’d like closed over the course of a week or even a month. Then ask yourself how many active opportunities/deals you need to qualify in order to achieve that goal. This is called a conversion rate.

But how many scheduled calls or demos do you need to perform each week to in order achieve the desired amount of qualified opportunities? Using the conversion rates you’ve estimated (be conservative), determine how many calls/emails, or leads generated, you need each week in order to schedule that target amount of calls.

The amount of calls or emails you need to send each week is pretty large – this is the top of the funnel. In turn, this might mean that your “closed deals” goal might be too large. Start with a number you believe to be attainable but aggressive. Work through the entire process and reach the goals you set out at the beginning of the week.

Once you’ve done that, start increasing your goal by 10 percent each month. You need to have 10 percent month-over-month growth to really have a healthy funnel as a startup.

Optimize Implementation

Sales doesn’t end with the close. As a sales person, you need to make sure that the customer is successfully integrated. This means a clean handoff to your support team. As a founder, you’ll quickly find out ways to improve your process and ensure that your customers stick around. This is also crucial in order to secure customer references — integral in bringing in new business down the road!

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

Just because something works, doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it. Make sure you are constantly stress testing your process to figure out what’s broken. Maybe your script is still a bit clunky, emails don’t generate the response rates you’d like, or your conversion rates too low. Don’t get stuck doing something because it works well enough. Lack of iteration is what prevents companies from making a good sales process great!

It’s crucial that you, as the founder, conduct some of this early outreach and help develop your company’s sales process. Early customer engagement can provide some of the best insights as you look to improve your product or service. Only once you’ve developed this repeatable process, and know it works, can you confidently hand off sales to a director that can refine the process even more.

Steli Efti is the Co-Founder / CEO of Close.io and ElasticSales and an advisor to several startups and entrepreneurs.

5 Lessons for Fast Growing Startups

fast-growing

Within our first month of publicly launching Ministry of Supply in June 2012, we sold more than 6,000 shirts and gained 4,000 customers. Our company grew fast because it had to. We were an adolescent trapped in a baby’s body — we had to learn how to sprint before we could learn how to walk, and we had some serious growing pains as we tried to scale production from 300 to 6,000 shirts a month. However, we quickly realized that by empowering our customers and empowering our company, we could truly grow the way we wanted. Everything we do comes down to empowering people to be their best.

As a co-founder, I focus a lot on how we can scale our team, our operations and our distribution. We’re a startup, and face many of the same challenges that startups face. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way about managing fast growth.

Championship vs. Ownership

There are six members of our team, and we all champion different areas of the business. For example, co-founder Gihan Amarasiriwardena focuses on product development and technology. Devin Cook, head of Customer Advocacy, spends all day thinking about how we can make customers as happy as possible. Over the months, we realized that we worked better as a team when we moved away from ownership and moved towards championship.

This philosophy ensures nobody feels possessive about his or her area of focus, while encouraging teamwork and collaboration. So while Devin may be focused on customer happiness, we all chip in with ideas and often have company-wide brainstorms about improving the customer experience. As champions, we’re all really proud of the areas we focus on and are encouraged to get others behind our initiatives.

Holistic Views of the Business

I love knowing what’s going on in all areas of the business, and we’ve found that everyone the team does too. We have an open office space and are constantly talking and bouncing ideas off of each other throughout the day. A few months ago, we realized that our communication wasn’t great despite the fact that we spent all day talking – some people didn’t know what was going on in various aspects of the business because decisions get made so quickly and a lot of decisions get made outside of the office.

We’ve been trying to get better at making sure that everyone in the company knows what’s going on and has a holistic view of the business. Being transparent and giving everyone the opportunity to know as much as they can enables everyone on a team to be their best.

Agile Problem-Solving

We act fast whenever we see problems. When we realized that some of the shirts we were shipping were running too slim, we halted production, created a new pattern, trained our manufacturers, and got better-fitting shirts on the market in three weeks.

Being able to adapt quickly and iterate in real time is a huge benefit of a startup and we will forever try to retain that ability. In this example, by acting quickly to solve a problem, we were able to minimize exchanges — and more importantly, make our customers happy.

Technology Is in Our DNA

As a fashion brand born out of MIT, we use technology to create the best products possible — from our use of thermal mapping to optimize venting in our Aero pants design to the NASA phase-change performance materials we use in our Apollo shirts.

We truly believe that technology can improve everyone’s lives and we democratize technology through apparel. As such, we don’t stop at the use of technology in product development; we leverage technology in every touch point of our brand.

Brand Is Culture

At Ministry of Supply, we all live and breathe the mission. We are intentional about hiring people who fit both our brand and our culture. When we take company retreats, we challenge ourselves to be our best. Our last one included hiking and winter camping in negative degrees. We want our customers to be their best and our employees to be their best. Everything we do comes down to that.

Obviously a startup is a tremendous amount of work and nothing is certain. However, by staying true to our mission and empowering our customers and employees, we know that we’ll be here for the long haul.

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