Real Founder Lessons
The best startup advice from experienced founders...one real-world lesson at a time.
Startups are all about testing assumptions quickly
(at minute 4:18)
Founder Lesson
Recently I was meeting with a first-time founder who has been working on his bootstrapped startup for two years. When I asked about his progress, he said that the first version of their app was just released into the app store.
Without going into specifics, this founding team - like most founding teams - has a very . . .
Be skeptical of customer feedback in the idea stage
(at minute 12:34)
Founder Lesson
Lately I’ve been been working closely with a group of startup founders in the idea stage. In other words, they know the space they want to focus on, but don’t have the complete business model ready to validate.
During this stage, customer feedback is always tricky. I’ll never argue against talking with potential . . .
My 50th blog post
Founder Lesson
Last summer I decided that I would try my hand at blogging. A few things had come together in my startup journey, so with this first post I was in business.
Almost a year (and a few hundred readers) later and I’m still really enjoying it. Each writing session allows me to organize my thoughts about an important . . .
Just put up a landing page and get some press
(at minute 14:23)
Founder Lesson
I was recently talking with an ex-NFL player about his new startup. His startup helps amateur athletes measure their performance and compare with others. He gave me the full pitch and then said, “a big advantage I have (as the founder) is that I’ve been to the ‘promised land,’ so it gives me some credibility.” Of course he . . .
Creating an early-stage startup brand (when you are bad at brand)
(at minute 6:07)
Founder Lesson
Over the years I’ve developed a very specific playbook for my own startup ideas. Determine what is most likely to be a 10x better product in a space. Once that’s been tested, layer a very strong brand on top of that product. There are many playbooks to be successful…this is mine.
Put as simply as possible, the . . .
New products need a clear vision
(at minute 21:50)
Founder Lesson
How would you like to be a startup competing with Apple? I love competing with big/slow/dumb companies, but Apple isn’t one that I’d want as a competitor.
The founder in this podcast didn’t feel that way. He founded Pebble…a watch that made crowdfunding history in 2012 when it raised $10 million and broke that . . .
Learn as much as you can before you write a line of code
(at minute 33:42)
Founder Lesson
I graduated college in 1994. Netscape went public a year later, kicking-off the beginning of the consumer internet. Most of the technology innovation over the following decade was about infrastructure - making sure most people had broadband to their homes, developing phones with real computing power & growing wireless . . .
