Real Founder Lessons
The best startup advice from experienced founders...one real-world lesson at a time.
The importance of having experienced founder/CEOs as advisors or board members
(at minute 26:16)
Founder Lesson
One thing that I’ve come to realize recently is how rare it is to come up with an idea for a new venture and have it get to a reasonable size.
Think about all of the people that you interact with on a daily/weekly/monthly basis - how many of them have ever written an idea on a napkin and then grown that idea into a . . .
Measurement is important, but the value proposition of your product has to come first
(at minute 42:38)
Founder Lesson
My initial conversations with founders often go like this...
Founder: Here’s my startup idea…won’t it be amazing what we can do when we have 10,000 users?
Me: Since you haven’t launched yet, I’d encourage you to spend as much time as possible measuring whether or not there’s demand for what you plan to . . .
The best founders combine vision & micromanagement
(at minute 42:50)
Founder Lesson
It’s common wisdom that startups are defined by their limited resources. The actual definition of a startup could be “a new business that grows quickly despite limited resources."
While this startup rule-of-thumb is known by most everyone, very few people have been in the trenches enough to truly understand . . .
Founders often don't have a grand plan at the very beginning
(at minute 16:10)
Founder Lesson
History is often re-written over time. A great example of this is startups that are successful. After reaching a certain level - for a bunch of good reasons - the origin story of startups is altered for PR reasons. The re-written story goes something like “the underdog founder had grand plans from the very beginning and has . . .
Focus is your competitive advantage
(at minute 15:12)
Founder Lesson
Startups have a lot of disadvantages compared to other players in your industry. Most every other player in your industry has more money, more employees, more experience…pretty much more of everything. The only advantage that your startup has - and it’s bigger than you think - is focus.
Everyone you know woke up . . .
Resiliency is the most important founder trait
(at minute 18:22)
Founder Lesson
There’s a lot written about the importance of the resiliency of startup founders. I don’t like to write blog posts unless I can contribute something unique to the topic, so when I first heard the people on this podcast talk about resiliency, I was expecting the same old same old with nothing much blog-worthy here. But about . . .
Talk with competitors
(at minute 15:54)
Founder Lesson
It’s common knowledge that talking with users is the best way to understand a potential market for a new startup. Less known, but also valuable, is talking with investors who invest in the space. Maybe even less accepted is a third way…talking with competitors.
In this podcast an experienced founder describes why . . .
