Real Founder Lessons
The best startup advice from experienced founders...one real-world lesson at a time.
The stages of idea validation
(at minute 5:16)
Founder Lesson
I focus most of my time on high-growth startups. I define these as businesses that benefit from a major need the market. Once demand is proven for these businesses, outside resources (like capital and people) can then be applied to these businesses to get tremendous growth.
The term “bootstrapped” startup defines 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 . . .
Why does it take at least a year to get traction?
(at minute 8:27)
Founder Lesson
One of the counterintuitive things about startups that most fascinates me is how long they take to see even the smallest bit of true traction. A while back I wrote my first blog post on this topic and it’s one to the topics that I expect to re-visit a bunch in future blog posts.
I believe that this timeline is so . . .
Pattern matching with startups is powerful
(at minute 15:29)
Founder Lesson
I’ve heard that chess champions don't win because they can see more moves ahead than chess novices. They win because they've played so much that their pattern-matching skills are extraordinary. In other words, they've seen patterns on the chess board so many times that they subconsciously know how the game is . . .
Put simple rules around creativity
(at minute 22:09)
Founder Lesson
Even though startups are businesses, I’ve never thought of myself as a “businessman.” Like all college business majors, the Wall Street Journal was interesting to me for a few years after graduation, but I quickly realized that I was drawn to startups due to what happens with them during their earliest moments - when they . . .
Best to market will always beat first to market
(at minute 31:28)
Founder Lesson
Startups have lots of worries on a daily basis. Big worries that immediately to mind are (a) running out of money, (b) building the correct product and (c) hiring the right people. Another big, macro worry is how to think about competition, particularly how much to worry about getting your product launched before anyone . . .
Even startups that rely on a network effect can be validated early
(at minute 1:04:56)
Founder Lesson
I was meeting with a very successful local founder this week and he was describing his current strategy - after years of honing it - of finding a group of initial "happy customers" for a new product. Like this founder, over the past year it seems like I'm constantly telling founders...
"Distill . . .
