Real Founder Lessons
The best startup advice from experienced founders...one real-world lesson at a time.
Don't grow until you have product-market fit
(at minute 2:11)
Founder Lesson
A few days ago I ran across this blog post. It’s the announcement from Shyp that they are cutting headcount and closing expansion markets to focus on profitability. Too many similar outcomes come to mind recently…Sprig, HomeHero, Zirtual, Beepi, Good Eggs & Homejoy. And these are just the ones that immediately come to . . .
MVP lessons from a burger joint
(listen to the whole thing)
Founder Lesson
I’m really loving How I Built This, a new podcast from NPR. They say it’s "a podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.” The founders tend to be from large businesses that people know and the podcasts dive into their origin stories.
When I started . . .
Posted in: allbootstrappingbusiness model validationcounterintuitive thingscreativitycustomer discoveryengagementexecutionfirst principlesfocusfoundershow i built thislean startuplisten to entire podcastmicromanagementmvpmy favoritespodcastprocessproductproduct market fitpsychological frictionrisksolving a problemsuper fanstractionunique playbookvalue proposition
Startups are mashups
(at minute 0:59)
Founder Lesson
If you are a regular reader of my blog then you know that I frequently talk about “knowing your space (and adjacent spaces) cold,” so that you can increase your odds of finding a 10x better product. In other words, learn as much as you can from other efforts around the country. This is particularly important in towns (like . . .
Startups are always messy
(at minute 4:56)
Founder Lesson
I’ve wrestled with a topic behind the scenes in writing my blog over the past two years…should I speak about startups topics cleanly (but less exact) or be as exact as possible (and risk watering-down the message)?
In writing about startups it has struck me that most “educators” or "advisors" on topics . . .
Focus on single actions
(at minute 5:31)
Founder Lesson
How do you know that consumers love your product?
What I hear most often is “just last week a customer told me how much they loved using the product.” Or founders will say "our daily active users (DAUs) or monthly active users (MAUs) continue to increase.”
These are both decent ways to keep your . . .
Going from doer to manager
(at minute 4:09)
Founder Lesson
Everyone knows that startups are “hard.” Ask anyone why this is the case and they’ll say things like “startups are risky” or “raising money is difficult.” While those things are true, they are only surface-level characteristics of startups. They don’t truly pinpoint why founders find the startup journey much more difficult . . .
Pivots can be executed very quickly
(at minute 19:29)
Founder Lesson
Every startup pivots.
If you are founder - particularly if it’s your first startup - this is an incredibly daunting statement. You are smart. You’ve had this problem for a long time. Your initial product solves your problem. Plus you’ve been thinking about and working on this idea for 6/12/18/24 months (or longer). . . .
