Thelonious Monk was a fantastic jazz musician, and an amazing band leader. Did he run a tech startup? No. But he could have with all these words of wisdom.
It’s a no B.S. manifesto. Each gig, each song, and each band mate was mission critical to Monk. And our startups need to be treated the same way. It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness. But as founders we have to gather, support, and grow great teams or risk losing the whole endeavor.
Below is Monk’s complete, original list of advice for band members. But let me break it down for you and swap a few musical references with the proper modern startup terminology.
So many of us founders debate ov...
Every year, we’ll hear people declare that SEO is dead. Well known entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk has declared that its been dying for quite some time. It might be changing, but it’s not dying. Not even close.
Wouldn’t we all love to go back to the late 1990s and early 2000s – a time when simply stuffing keywords into a website’s meta tags, footers and CSS files was enough to guarantee high rankings in the search engines? Not to mention getting paid big money for these simple hacks.
As search engine algorithms have become more sophisticated, most of these tricks have died out. You’ve probably already heard the tagline “SEO is dead”, but for some reason the mindset still persists that figuring out the latest on-page tweaks is the key to natura...
Traction is the very heart of a startup. When you’re building from scratch and trying to convince the world that your idea has merit, the proof of your ability as an entrepreneur to be successful is in the traction you generate for your business.
The excitement of a deal, particularly to investors, is always around the momentum of a business.
There are many types of traction: forming your company, hiring staff, and of course signing up paying customers. All of them are critical to building the business, and by way of that, generating interest from investors.
Ideally you want to create traction on as many fronts as possible. The excitement of a deal, particularly to investors, is always around the momentum of a business.
It’s one thing to sa...
Startups often adopt a sprinter’s mentality. They want to get as far ahead as possible in as little time as necessary. Progress is measured in terms of growth, profitability, and revenue, but there’s a big difference between generating revenue and driving actual value. Just because a company is growing doesn’t mean it’s actually becoming a greater asset. It’s just a larger version of its previous self.
To boost your company’s value, I recommend creating a startup exit strategy as part of your startup’s overall business plan. You may be thinking, “I’m not ready to sell!” But hear me out.
All business owners should be taking steps from day one that will determine how profitable their creation will be on the day of the sale. And the exit stra...
If you’re bootstrapping your SaaS, you should drop your free tier.
By doing so, I was able to double the revenue growth rate of my Slack app Smooz, while reducing the amount of work required to maintain my app and support my customers.
There may be exceptions, but only for well thought-out reasons. Instead, focus on attracting paying customers. This article is based on hard-learned lessons, from the mistakes I made while launching and growing Smooz. Recently, several entrepreneurs asked my opinion about their pricing structure, and were about to fall into the exact same traps that I fell into.
Entrepreneurial success isn’t an achievement — it’s a process. No matter how big you make it, there’s always a new challenge over the next hill.
The best entrepreneurs welcome this never-ending cycle of improvement. Even heavy hitters like Bill Gates and Elon Musk continue to seek out new opportunities. To a layperson, these two have obviously done enough, but in their minds, they can still do much more. That ceaseless drive separates the truly successful from the also-rans.
As a home-schooled child, I loved my free time. I would do math problems in my head and think about my schoolwork while I was playing so that when the time came to test, I would be prepared and not have to study longer.
I graduated from high school e...
Question: What is your best marketing tip that specifically applies to B2B marketing?
When speaking to and building a relationship with another business, ask how you can serve them. Then do it. One way you can always help another business grow is by introducing them to other potential customers, vendors, partners and team members. When you make a connection that serves and lasts well for them, they will remember who did it. The favor always comes back to you tenfold.
– Matt Shoup (@MattShoup), MattShoup.com
Reaching the right decision maker in a B2B sale is often the first hurdle. Figuring out how to either bypass the gatekeeper or impact them so greatly that they pass the informatio...
Looking at startup news publications such as TechCrunch or Mashable, a new entrepreneur might think that every startup raises capital and walks away with MILLIONS in their pockets after a quick and easy overnight success followed by an acquisition by Google or Facebook. These sensationalized stories are actually very misleading and do not represent the daily grind of startup life.
Here are some of the common startup myths debunked:
Being technical is pretty important if you’re planning on starting an internet startup. So if you’re not technical, it is a good idea to learn at least some technical skills. Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare, was non-technical before he founded his first startup, Dodgeball, later sol...
It was only a few short months ago that I jumped out of my steady job airplane in lieu of a parachuteless descent to San Francisco. With virtually no meaningful savings or product development experience, I started to frantically fabricate my company, Pronto Concepts Inc., into a parachute on the way down.
All I had was an idea for a product I thought people would like but I never imagined I could do it alone. I started my journey with a search for a co-founder, only to find out it could have been my biggest mistake.
The typical first step for any potential venture is to congregate a core team of co-founders. This is not done without merit, for there are several reasons for wanting to go at it with teammates...
Usually, after the third month of the year your crisp new running gear and fitbit has been designated to the back of the closet as a guilty reminder, and you are counting your steps to the subway station as your day’s exercise. You are not the only one. In fact, according to U.S. News, nearly 80% of resolutions fall short by the second week of February
While Millennials are better than their parent’s generation at sticking to new year’s resolutions, their frantic work and social lives make it hard to stick to plans on the long term. Millennials are ‘experience motivated’ and take up new hobbies and regimes with great intentions, but according to Statistic Brain only 8% achieve their resolut...