When the startup feels like it's in a rut, or no progress is being made (because of team, money, supplier, distributor, etc.) there are a few options:
1) Hope that the logjam will break up by itself
2) Attack the logjam(s)
3) Attack different problems
4) Hope for an amazing stroke of luck -- someone unexpectedly drops a solution right into your path
5) Other outcome
In my mind, #1 and #4 are possible, but unlikely. Option #2 is warranted, but unpleasant, and sometimes not possible to address (eg., a customer repeatedly blows you off). #3 is a great option -- there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done, and making progress on those fronts can make you feel a lot better.
As for #5, what else did I miss?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
The six-month startup has a name!
I'm so glad we've chosen a name (which I hope to reveal in the not-too-distant future), and grabbed the .com domain. It gives us an identity to hang our hat on, and is something that conveys more legitimacy to potential partners and customers than just our names and gmail addresses.
Both of us feel more invested in the venture because of the new name.
Next steps: Email, Google Apps, Website.
Both of us feel more invested in the venture because of the new name.
Next steps: Email, Google Apps, Website.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
How to describe a pre-funded startup in one sentence
A business school classmate emailed me to ask what's going on. My response:
Early-stage startup life: Some days are really good, some are depressingly bad, most filled with uncertainty, all characterized by poverty.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
What keeps me awake at night as an entrepreneur
I woke up in the middle of the night, with a disturbing thought in my head about the startup:
What the hell am I doing? How can my startup possibly succeed, with competitors lurking out there, little IP, and no money?
The day before, I had a pretty dismal day with the six-month startup (no progress). The tech startup was up and down -- a good lunch meeting with my cofounder in which we narrowed down our next steps, and I did a pretty good analysis of some of the market factors that we need to pay attention to. But we still have so far to go.
In the meantime, I have no income, and many, many costs, including looming student debt (payments start 6 months after graduation).
The worry and anxiety caught up with me in my dream state. Self-doubt regularly surfaces, but this was a particularly bad. This morning I was able to "talk myself down", and pledge to make some real progress tomorrow. But it would help if I had someone to commiserate with at a moments notice (both of my partners were not available).
What the hell am I doing? How can my startup possibly succeed, with competitors lurking out there, little IP, and no money?
The day before, I had a pretty dismal day with the six-month startup (no progress). The tech startup was up and down -- a good lunch meeting with my cofounder in which we narrowed down our next steps, and I did a pretty good analysis of some of the market factors that we need to pay attention to. But we still have so far to go.
In the meantime, I have no income, and many, many costs, including looming student debt (payments start 6 months after graduation).
The worry and anxiety caught up with me in my dream state. Self-doubt regularly surfaces, but this was a particularly bad. This morning I was able to "talk myself down", and pledge to make some real progress tomorrow. But it would help if I had someone to commiserate with at a moments notice (both of my partners were not available).
Monday, August 15, 2011
The financial bar vs. the courage bar
A great quote from Ben Horowitz's blog:
Over the past 10 years, technological advances dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.
The quote comes at the end of his post about leaders making tough decisions. Well worth a read.
(via Hacker News)
Over the past 10 years, technological advances dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.
The quote comes at the end of his post about leaders making tough decisions. Well worth a read.
(via Hacker News)
Phone vs. Email
I admit it. I'm an email guy at heart. I'll gladly spend 10 minutes hammering out an email (or using any other form of asynchronous, electronic dialogue like a forum, Twitter, or G+) than picking up a phone for one minute.
Why? I'm not as good at spontaneous discussions as I am at writing. There's no record of the conversation that I can refer back to. I worry that the person on the other end doesn't want to talk with me for some reason. I hate to make small talk. I forget to ask or say certain things. Sometimes I say the wrong thing. Because it's spontaneous and anyone can say or ask anything, I don't have control over the conversation in the same way I do with email.
But my reluctance to pick up the phone is a limitation, and not just because it takes more time to write an email than it does to speak on the phone with someone. A sizable portion of the population of the population prefers to use the phone over asynchronous communication. For instance, at my old job, I learned who these people were, and tried to accomodate them. Sometimes I was forced to -- they did not consistently respond to email, which meant that I had to pick up the phone or grab them in the hallway if I happened to see them.
I've found that of my two new ventures, the people I interact with for the tech startup are very much focused on email, Yammer, and Twitter. The phone is important only when we have a face-to-face meeting and need to let the other party know where we are or that one of us will be late.
For the six-month product startup, on the other hand, I have found that almost everybody is a phone guy. I suspect it relates to the quick-moving culture of manufacturing, where people tend to be on the shop floor or moving between meetings. Of course, they won't necessarily adapt to my communications needs, so it's up to me to adapt to their ways of doing business -- which means organizing my thoughts, gritting my teeth, and picking up the phone.
Why? I'm not as good at spontaneous discussions as I am at writing. There's no record of the conversation that I can refer back to. I worry that the person on the other end doesn't want to talk with me for some reason. I hate to make small talk. I forget to ask or say certain things. Sometimes I say the wrong thing. Because it's spontaneous and anyone can say or ask anything, I don't have control over the conversation in the same way I do with email.
But my reluctance to pick up the phone is a limitation, and not just because it takes more time to write an email than it does to speak on the phone with someone. A sizable portion of the population of the population prefers to use the phone over asynchronous communication. For instance, at my old job, I learned who these people were, and tried to accomodate them. Sometimes I was forced to -- they did not consistently respond to email, which meant that I had to pick up the phone or grab them in the hallway if I happened to see them.
I've found that of my two new ventures, the people I interact with for the tech startup are very much focused on email, Yammer, and Twitter. The phone is important only when we have a face-to-face meeting and need to let the other party know where we are or that one of us will be late.
For the six-month product startup, on the other hand, I have found that almost everybody is a phone guy. I suspect it relates to the quick-moving culture of manufacturing, where people tend to be on the shop floor or moving between meetings. Of course, they won't necessarily adapt to my communications needs, so it's up to me to adapt to their ways of doing business -- which means organizing my thoughts, gritting my teeth, and picking up the phone.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
A LinkedIn profile for entrepreneurs: Starting from scratch
Tonight's challenge: Rewriting my LinkedIn profile. I've been on LinkedIn for years, and think it's a super tool for highlighting my career and creating a personal brand. But there are two problems:
- It reads like a corporate résumé, as opposed to an entrepreneurship-focused resume
- Some of my career highlights -- including a slew of awards -- relate to expertise that has nothing to do with my current entrepreneurial ventures.
So, I'm going to rewrite it. One thing I've learned from past efforts is that it's very difficult to do a rewrite by looking at the existing entries -- if they're well-written, or highlight elements that are points of pride, it's very difficult to delete them and start from scratch.
Instead, I am going to really start from scratch, based on the things that I know I want to emphasize, and not even look at what I have up there now. I am also going to ignore LinkedIn's classic format, which is oriented toward chronologically ordered corporate careers. I've seen examples on LinkedIn in which entrepreneurs use the "summary" field to write their résumé the way they want, and this seems like a potential approach. Once I am ready to show my work of art, I'll leave a link here ... stay tuned!
Update: David Meerman Scott has written an excellent blog post about why he's not on LinkedIn. Another marketing pro, Seth Godin, also avoids LinkedIn ... and Facebook. There is a sound argument for avoiding LinkedIn for both -- their branding is tied up with their blogs, books, and speaking engagements, and having people turn to Linkedin to learn about them devalues their existing online resources, and by extension, their brands.
- It reads like a corporate résumé, as opposed to an entrepreneurship-focused resume
- Some of my career highlights -- including a slew of awards -- relate to expertise that has nothing to do with my current entrepreneurial ventures.
So, I'm going to rewrite it. One thing I've learned from past efforts is that it's very difficult to do a rewrite by looking at the existing entries -- if they're well-written, or highlight elements that are points of pride, it's very difficult to delete them and start from scratch.
Instead, I am going to really start from scratch, based on the things that I know I want to emphasize, and not even look at what I have up there now. I am also going to ignore LinkedIn's classic format, which is oriented toward chronologically ordered corporate careers. I've seen examples on LinkedIn in which entrepreneurs use the "summary" field to write their résumé the way they want, and this seems like a potential approach. Once I am ready to show my work of art, I'll leave a link here ... stay tuned!
Update: David Meerman Scott has written an excellent blog post about why he's not on LinkedIn. Another marketing pro, Seth Godin, also avoids LinkedIn ... and Facebook. There is a sound argument for avoiding LinkedIn for both -- their branding is tied up with their blogs, books, and speaking engagements, and having people turn to Linkedin to learn about them devalues their existing online resources, and by extension, their brands.
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