Real Founder Lessons
The best startup advice from experienced founders...one real-world lesson at a time.
What's your earned secret?
(at minute 8:07)
Founder Lesson
Talk with a dozen successful founders and you'll hear a few very common themes of general startup advice...
Team. Nothing matters more than great people. The hugely successful Techstars accelerator values team so much that they say that the five things they care about (in order) are "team, team, team, . . .
Make one doughnut
(at minute 13:01)
Founder Lesson
There’s a doughnut shop in my neighborhood called Revolution Doughnuts. As a neighbor I can attest that they are a tremendous local success story and their ratings on Yelp put them in the top 15% of all restaurants in town.
I lived nearby before they launched their first location, so I saw how the owner . . .
Founders need a theory of human behavior
(at minute 13:03)
Founder Lesson
A trusted startup friend came to me the other day with a new idea...
He just bought a house, so he's thinking a lot about paying contractors for large projects and doing smaller projects himself. There are lots of videos on YouTube about small home projects (eg cutting down vines on the side of your home), but . . .
Creativity loves constraint
(at minute 19:11)
Founder Lesson
I don't know where I first heard this notion, but on a monthly basis I think about the counterintuitive concept that creativity loves constraint.
On a personal level I'm a moderate procrastinator for most things. Over the years I've found that forcing myself to get 50% of the work done in a tight . . .
Product-market fit isn’t rational
(at minute 15:43)
Founder Lesson
There isn't a topic that interests me more than product-market fit. In the 2007 - 2010 timeframe I went from a lifestyle business (where I could fool myself that it was high-growth) to a high-growth startup (where you didn't have to wonder if it had product-market fit) and that transition completely changed the way . . .
It's all about love (not likes)
(listen to the whole thing)
Founder Lesson
There's only been two times that I've referenced a podcast in one of my blog posts, but not referenced an exact moment for the reader to listen to hear the lesson. First there was this one and today I'm going to do it again. In both instances the podcast has so many good lessons throughout that I would encourage . . .
Every startup is a series of pivots
(at minute 0:33)
Founder Lesson
Last week I was having dinner with a founder who had a very good exit for his startup. Halfway through dinner he begins to reminisce about the journey. It is well-known that this startup had four distinct (large) pivots, but his narrative didn't describe it that way. Because he was the person on the front lines of this . . .
