

Tell HN: Four (hopefully) unique and useful start-up tips - ackkchoo

I've read a lot of posts here on HN about start-up tips and advice. Many are good, but some are too vague to be actionable. Others, while useful, sometimes repeat common themes.<p>I run a start-up that is relatively successful. I am a long time lurker on HN, and wanted to give back to the community. I don’t have a personal blog, and HN is the primary audience I want to share this with, so apologies in advance for the formatting.<p>Although they might sound similar to other posts, hopefully these tips will be unique enough for someone to find useful. I know that they've been worthwhile for me.<p>== 1. Learn to say "no" gracefully ==
A lot of tips stress the importance of saying "no", turning down projects that you can’t do, and focusing on your core competencies. This is all great advice. However, in my experience, saying no is not always an easy task. Often times, you’ll be saying "no" to an existing partner, or someone with whom you might want to develop a business relationship in the future. It’s important to learn how to say "no" gracefully, burning no bridges in the process. By all means, be clear in your response, but don’t be a jerk about it, and leave the option open for future discussion at a time of your choosing.<p>Most online industries have relatively small social circles, and it’s important to be respectful, even if you can’t possibly understand why you might want something that another person is offering. Situations and circumstances change; you might need those connections in the future.<p>== 2. Negotiate everything ==
Get in the habit of negotiating everything. "You don’t ask, you don’t get". Remember that phrase and repeat it to yourself. Revenue shares, commissions, server costs, bandwidth costs, CDN costs, software costs, marketing costs, conference ticket prices and contracts are all negotiable.  At first you might feel weird asking for a discount, but pretty soon you get used to it, and it will become natural. Contrary to what you might assume, most people won’t find your request offensive, and you wont sound like a jerk. You don’t ask, you don’t get.<p>You’ll find it changes your life, not just your business. I negotiate everything now, and it’s probably saved me thousands of dollars this year alone, all for a few minutes of work. Car repairs, hotel prices, restaurant reservation times, and most recently an engagement ring from a high end jeweler that supposedly "didn’t negotiate" ;) Remember: you don’t ask, you don’t get.<p>== 3. Don’t obsess over stats ==
If you run an online business, it is easy to get caught up in the habit of checking your stats repeatedly throughout the day. Maybe you check your revenue reports every hour. You know how it’s "supposed" to look at 11AM on a Friday, and if it isn’t hitting your past targets you get discouraged and distracted, searching for a reason. Maybe your traffic is slightly down from what it was a week ago.<p>The problem with this is three-fold. First, it’s a huge distraction. It takes your attention away from other tasks you could be doing. It distracts your focus from long term, strategic thinking. Second, day to day (or even hour to hour) data is unreliable and unpredictable. There are seasonal trends. There are 500 other factors outside your control.  Third, it accomplishes nothing. Checking your stats isn’t going to change them.<p>Start checking your stats only once a day, at most. That way, you’ll be alerted to any potentially significant changes (i.e. your ecommerce engine is down), but still be able to keep focused on your daily tasks and the big picture, which is going to make more of a difference in the long run.<p>== 4. Make money ==
Ok, so this one is pretty obvious. But it’s shocking how often it is ignored. There are plenty of reasons to justify starting a business. Maybe you want to work for yourself, maybe you like the challenge, or maybe you really want to change the world. But it won’t matter if you aren’t making any money. Trust me.<p>A lot of times you will be faced with hard choices. Should I put this ad up here? Will this feature make my app/site look too commercial? Should I charge? If you don’t have a proven business model, you need to make figuring it out your NUMBER ONE priority.<p>If you’re only getting 1,000 visitors a day, it might seem hard to justify putting up an ad to get what might seem like chump change. But, by doing so, you’ll understand where your money is coming from, and what kind of traffic levels it will take to get you to where you really want to go. Most importantly, you might find that your business model doesn’t really scale, and it will force you to think of a new one. Better now than later. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise, or you’ll just be delaying the inevitable.
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jbond
I, too, negotiate everything. You would be surprised at how much wiggle room
there is at a national retailer like Best Buy for big-ticket items.

Here are some ground rules and the steps I use to haggle: Haggling works
better if you can pay in cash. Know how much you are willing to spend and do
not exceed it! Never, ever reveal to the salesperson how much you are willing
to spend.

1\. Express a casual and not too focused interest in the item (HDTV is a
perfect example).

2\. Show that you understand the product and are in the market for a new
television.

3\. Mention how the store's competitors and the internet are making it easier
to price compare.

4\. Ask if there are any specials on your particular model (are they throwing
in a Blu-ray player? Free DVDs? Sales price that doesn't go into effect until
the weekend?).

5\. Let the salesperson know that the currently advertised price is more than
your are willing to spend and ask him/her if there is anything they can do to
bring the price down. If they ask what you price you would like to see then
give them a number below your predefined maximum spending limit. It's up to
you to gauge how much lower, and you will find that after time this number
gets to be farther and farther from your max limit the comfortable you get at
negotiating.

6\. Make the deal at this price, or continue to haggle until you've crossed
your limit and are ready to leave.

7\. If you don't make the deal, you have four options:

    
    
      You can go back tomorrow and try with a different sales person
    
      You can head to a different store and try again.
    
      You can raise your max spending limit (not recommended).
    
      You can decide that you really didn't need the product anyway.
    

Hope this helps!

~~~
chris100
Internet prices and retail is actually something I have been thinking about
recently. Someone, please help me with the economics.

What if a retail store offered great advice and let you order online so you
get the best Internet price?

One reason why I almost never visit a retail store anymore is because the best
deal is always online.

So rather than take it as a challenge for retail, embrace it. Can one build a
retail business that relies on ordering stuff from the cheapest online
retailers?

I can think of the obvious reasons why not. But if you think creatively,
wouldn't that make sense? Even the cheapest online retailers offer some kind
of referral compensation. There may be other ways to make money than making a
profit on the big ticket item that your visitor came in to order...

~~~
notauser
Amazon affiliate revenues go up to 9%. I'm sure you could negotiate something
similar with other providers.

Possibly you could offer people an guided Internet shopping experience in the
mall - people come in and, with the help of an 'Internet shopping expert', buy
things at Internet prices for later delivery. As you suggest you could
monetize by collecting the affiliate commission.

If running a kiosk in a small mall cost you $20,000 a month (?) you would need
to persuade people to buy ~1,000 $200 TVs a month.

The biggest barrier I can see would be overcoming the hostility from the other
stores who would be really keen to kick you out once they spotted what you
were doing. Because they occupy more square feet I'm sure mall management
would oblige.

~~~
chris100
_The biggest barrier I can see would be overcoming the hostility from the
other stores_

If that's the only problem, you could just open your retail store outside a
mall, where no one can bother you.

Think El Camino in Silicon Valley. If you have the best value (unbeatable
price and good service), you should have a winner, right?

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wvl

      Start checking your stats only once a day, at most. 
      That way, you’ll be alerted to any potentially significant 
      changes (i.e. your ecommerce engine is down)
    

I agree with this advice, however I would sincerely hope that it doesn't take
reviewing your stats at the end of the day to notice that your ecommerce
engine is down! Monitoring should be in place to achieve this.

~~~
aneesh
True story I heard from some Amazon engineers.

Amazon doesn't (directly) monitor whether their servers are up. They just look
at the revenue graph in real-time, and if there's a noticeable dip,
something's wrong.

~~~
apu
Right, although they don't have to manually look at this -- they have many
sophisticated monitors in place that immediately notify engineers if things
are not in normal ranges.

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unohoo
== 2. Negotiate everything ==

I've found this to be a very much cultural thing. Bargaining / haggling is
quite common in Asian cultures. Since I'm originally from India, I initially
was surprised to find that haggling is not an acceptable thing in the american
society.

That hasnt stopped me from my efforts at haggling one bit.

My latest conquest - a free shield and case for my iphone when bestbuy made me
wait for about 45 minutes to get a new connection. Even before starting with
the process, I made it clear that I want freebies thrown in - else,I'll simply
take my business elsewhere.

~~~
arnorhs
Heh, I can imagine that it must have been a shock! I've been traveling through
India for the last few months and at first I had a really hard time haggling.

Westerners feel guilty and have all kinds of emotions fixed to this process,
while it's commonplace in India. I think Indians have a big advantage in that
aspect.

BTW: I love your country and GJ on the shield case :)

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zaidf
Definite resonates! What's your startup?

    
    
      If you don’t have a proven business model, 
      you need to make figuring it out your NUMBER ONE priority.
    

Amen!

Naturally this will bring up facebook, google etc. who may not have focused on
business model for a while. Like Steve Blank said in one of his talks, if you
think you've a google/facebook on your hand, ignore every rule and good luck:)

~~~
run4yourlives
Google is an exception.

Facebook is possibly in the same group (I'm still not convinced).

You should not model your practices after outliers, since by definition it is
most likely that their experiences will be nothing like yours.

------
tptacek
This is awesome. I'd love a small conversation thread about how to find
openings to negotiate things; I'm getting adequate at negotiating when
negotiation is expected (like in professional services), but I suck everywhere
else.

~~~
raju
Negotiate everything - Agreed. Would the OP have any tips on how one would
know how to approach this? Pointers to books/articles welcome.

~~~
ackkchoo
A lot of it just takes experience and practice. There are a few good books
available. "The Knack" by Norm Brodsky is very good, and the source of the
"You don't ask, you don't get quote". The chapter on negotiation is small, but
the rest of the book contains tons of invaluable insight.

Many books stress formulating a "win-win" situation, and "expanding the pie"
so that "everybody wins". This is good in theory, but rare in practice. In
almost every negotiation someone will have the upper hand.

I think the best approach is to listen carefully and try to understand the
other party's _need_. This may not necessarily be more money. Maybe they want
to build a long term relationship. Maybe they are willing to lower the price
if you pay upfront, or provide a larger deposit, because they prefer the
cashflow now. Maybe business is slow. You never know.

You also need to know your best alternative. If you have options, it is easy
to walk away from the deal. If you are informed, you will know the true market
price. You can't be afraid to walk away. I think it just takes time and
practice to develop this mentality, and the opposing side can typically sense
if you're serious about it or not.

A strategy that has worked well for me is to just say something like "I really
like your product/service, and would love to start using it, but the price is
a bit out of my range. Is there any way you can give me a discount?". It
doesn't work for everything, but I've been surprised how often it does work.
The worst thing that happens is that they say no. Remember, you have to ask!

~~~
tptacek
Strong second recommendation on "The Knack", even though I didn't get much
negotiating help out of it.

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RiderOfGiraffes
If you want this on the web, email me and I'll put it up. I've temporarily put
up a version that you can download, edit and email back to me if you like. You
can find it at www.penzba.co.uk (slash) StartupAdvice (dot) html

I won't put anything else on it, I'm not looking for traffic, I've just got a
parking space if you want it. I'm sure others could make similar offers in
case you're interested.

If I don't hear from you in a few days I'll remove it - the above is
obfuscated to avoid having links to something that might disappear.

~~~
ackkchoo
Sure, as long as you keep the page ad and link free, I would certainly
appreciate the offer to have it hosted. I want the content to speak for
itself. Maybe you can just add a small "credit" link at the bottom to my HN
profile. Cheers --

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Added the link. Do feel free to download it and email me an updated or
enhanced version. We'll have to do a dance to make sure it's you for real, but
that's easy enough.

If you don't want to change it, that's fine and we'll just link to it from
here so Google can find it.

~~~
ackkchoo
Thanks for adding it. I don't think I want to change anything, but if I do
I'll contact you at the email address you have listed.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Cool. Here's a link for Google to find ...

<http://www.penzba.co.uk/StartupAdvice.html>

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patio11
One of the key disciplines with stats, which is unfortunately not helped by
the default configuration of most popular tools (looking at YOU Google
Analytics), is that it either drives decisions or it is useless. If you are
checking stats more frequently than you're making decisions based on them,
you're wasting time.

Spend an hour and condense the stuff you absolutely need into a dashboard, and
schedule time to do any drill down or reporting you need to do on a regular
basis. Then, ignore the flowing river of noise your tools would otherwise
distract you with.

P.S. If you find yourself rationalizing a once-an-hour check as a sanity test,
either put it in a dashboard that you can check out of the corner of your eye
while doing productive work, or reduce your heuristic to code and then fire it
on a cron job. The computer's time is cheap. Yours is not.

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jbyers
Great advice. I'd rephrase #3 as "Obsess over having stats, not checking
stats"

