The fastest way to kill progress is to form a committee.
I can't stand committees. They have become a catch-all way to defer hard decisions and accountability while simultaneously looking democratic and inclusive. I've spent 30 years on committees ranging from public company boards to popular non-profits, and I can tell you this—I have yet to see a single decision improved by a committee.
As a startup Founder, I never form committees, and I'd like to take this opportunity to warn you against doing it as well. Maybe your experience is different, and I totally respect that. But the seduction of groupthink and bureaucracy can quickly dilute even the smartest and most well-meaning startup, and that's a big problem.
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Let’s face it. Bootstrapping sucks. In theory, it should be liberating to be self-funded and self-sufficient at the early stages of running a business. But reality is much less glamorous. For one, we’re small peanuts surrounded by unicorns: our presence in the media, as a result, is almost zero. We’re competing with 10-figure marketing budgets and grinding our teeth to get there. We spend more time scratching our heads than making actual decisions.
Then, we see success stories like Basecamp, a company that could have been a unicorn but chose not to—growing to 50 employees and a customer base of hundreds of thousands along the way.
Holy shit, maybe it is all worth it.
While founders in the VC world are chasing their burn rates, Basec...
The most expensive decisions we will ever make as a Founder all come at the beginning — when we are most vulnerable.
The problem for us as Founders is we don't realize at the time just how expensive those decisions are, or that our vulnerability will dissipate over time. All we can see in that very moment is that we need "everything all at once" and anyone who is willing to take our fake Monopoly money (equity) to get it is doing us a favor.
They are not doing us a favor.
Founders can easily lose half of their company in the first year by making huge equity decisions that feel like the right decision at the time, but when looking back, become the most expensive decisions they will ever make, and ones that we can't get back.
Social Media is a great way to create buzz and connect with your users in a personal way. Since it’s free and open to everyone, instead of investing money as you would with traditional advertising, you need to invest time in building connections. This is easiest to do if you grow your social media presence along with your startup.
Beginning musicians fill their shows with friends and many entrepreneur’s first customers are there parents. The same is true with your start-up’s online presence. Invite every Facebook friend and every friend of friend to like your page. Many people are willing to do a little free press for someone they know personally. All you have to do is ask. By recruiting your inner circle to act as a fo...
Continuing in Phase One of a four-part Funding Series:
Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise
Part 1 - Startup Bootstrapping
Part 2 - Debt as Startup Capital
Part 3 - Equity Funding for Startups ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)
Part 4 - Convertible Debt
Phase Two - Investor Selection
Phase Three - The Pitch
Phase Four - Investor Outreach
Let's dive in!
Pursuing equity financing means that, in exchange for the money they invest now, angel investors or venture capitalists will receive a stake in your company and its performance moving forward.
Equity financing is one of the most sought-after forms of startup funding for entrepreneurs, although certainly the least available (compared to something like a business loan or friends and family financing). Simply put – there...
Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to have a first-hand look at several marketing plans, budgets and strategies — quite a few, of which, that have been weak and sub-optimal.
I’ve noticed an alarming trend within small businesses and startups across all industries: After experiencing a small degree of success from their current efforts, they get complacent. Teams that were once innovative and curious go on autopilot — pre-allocating funds to the same channels they’ve always used to connect with their audience.
In the beginning many startups experiment with a myriad of marketing channels, ad placements and creative direction to figure out what works for their target market. But, after a few short years, they stop exploring. Wha...
Welcome to Phase One of a four-part Funding Series:
Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise
Part 1 - Startup Bootstrapping ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)
Part 2 - Debt as Startup Capital
Part 3 - Equity Funding for Startups
Part 4 - Convertible Debt
Phase Two - Investor Selection
Phase Three - The Pitch
Phase Four - Investor Outreach
We are excited to guide you on your funding journey. Let's dive in!
Bootstrapping involves all sorts of capital — friends and family, your personal savings, crowdfunding, and of course the ever-popular "sweat equity" (getting people to work for stock in your company).
Contrary to what many believe, most businesses don't get started by way of a big investment from some deep-pocketed investor. Most businesses get started ...
During last week’s wide-ranging conversation about evaluating your ideas, we touched on the idea of “niching”: paring down your target audience until you find the exact set of people you want to help.
So once you’ve taken that step of committing to a core audience and decided who you’re for (and who you’re not), the next question becomes: how do you get in front of those target customers? And, more importantly: how do you figure out what they want from your product?
“[It’s about] lots and lots and lots of living with the customer. Live and breathe the customer – they will show you the right path.”
The dream, of course, is to put together a quick survey, send it out to a mailing list of 10,000 of your ideal users, and come back to find your ...
If the depictions of startups in popular culture are to be believed, working for a startup is basically like hanging out in a clean version of a frat house basement. There are pool tables; ping pong tables; kegs that you can drink whenever you want! There are communal workspaces, free food and nap spaces. We have Nerf gun fights spontaneously every day!
And while some of that is true, sometimes — go check out Airbnb’s office in San Francisco for an amazing example of what can be done with startup unicorn money — the reality of working at a startup is a bit more… complicated.
“I’ve worked for a few startups now (Zirtual Inc. [pre-acquisition] for three years, WeWork for six months, and TrendKite presently for over a year),” Kristopher Louie...
Brian Chesky’s dad wasn’t thrilled he had decided to go to art school. Chesky promised him he would not move back home to live in their basement, and that when he was done, he’d get a real job with health care benefits.
And he did. But at age 22 he was overcome by a “weird feeling of mortality.” A sense of “this is my life”: Commuting in LA traffic alone to a job in a design company. It was a let down after he’d started to believe the high-minded rhetoric from Rhode Island School of Design that designers could “design the world around them.”
He quit that job, rolled up a foam bed into his crappy Honda Civic and moved in with his old design pal Joe Gebbia in San Francisco. In a bid to pay rent, they opened up their home to attendees of a des...