Real Founder Lessons

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 . . .

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What angel investors want to see

(at minute 41:46)

Founder Lesson
As a group of investors, angel investors fall into a tricky middle ground that founders should understand and appreciate. Angels are typically individuals who are able to invest $10,000 to $100,000 personally. Most angels that I encounter act like friends & family investors - they focus on the people and idea. Like your . . .

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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 . . .

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The only metric that really matters for an early startup

(at minute 7:05)

Founder Lesson
Momentum is oxygen for startups. This is something that I’ve experienced many times. Momentum can be anything that motivates you and your team. Getting selected for a big conference. Convincing a local angel to invest. Getting a good press story. All of these small victories keep the founders going and make the difficult . . .

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It's really hard to get minimum viable product right

(at minute 24:01)

Founder Lesson
Since product-market fit is maybe the most important step in a new startup, deciding what to test and what initial product to create becomes pretty important. I find that most founders do the “kitchen sink” method of including everything. This methods takes too much time and money. Another group goes the Lean Startup route . . .

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Who are your real competitors?

(at minute 21:54)

Founder Lesson
Over the years I’ve struggled with how to think about competition. There are obvious competitors in your industry that you can find with a simple Google search, but I’ve found that the best founders think more deeply about this topic.

The best founders fixate on their primary customer value proposition and who else . . .

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A good startup education for anyone

For this post, I decided to switch things up a bit to give a little backstory on where I get most of the content for my blog.

I frequently have coffee meetings with first-time founders where they ask for advice on how to learn the basics of startups.

Here are the best four ways to learn about startups...

1) Best way . . .

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