

The Most Important Business Lessons I’ve Learned  - zaidf
http://www.ryanallis.com/most-important-business-lessons-learned/

======
smoody
I agree with everything except for one point (which was a painful process for
me to learn): some people want and need to be told what to do and there's
nothing wrong with that assuming that, once told what to do, the people can
execute.

I just assumed that everyone on my team was like me -- didn't want to be told
what to do at a micro-level. I had a couple of team members who were really
good engineers and they were failing miserably. Once I realized that they
needed to be give explicit instructions on what they should be doing, they
coded like a house on fire. One attribute of great CEOs (IMHO) is the ability
to get a careful read of everyone on your team and understand exactly how much
or little to manage them. In an ideal world, one could hire an entire company
of people who do not need to be micro-managed, but real life doesn't always
allow for that luxury.

~~~
zaidf
I, too, was often confused by this message because you hear it preached often.
After digging deeper via one-to-one conversations with people like Ryan, you
realize that it is already implied that you make each individual's
responsibility very clear.

I bet even at Ryan's company the programmers are given very explicit specs on
what to code.

------
zaidf
I like Ryan's focus and explanation of the key metrics he uses:

 _To grow your sales, it is critical to calculate the lifetime value of an
average customer, calculate what you’re currently paying to acquire an average
customer (total monthly ad spend divided by customers acquired in that month),
determine the maximum you’re willing to pay to acquire an average customer,
and scale your marketing scientifically by testing relentlessly and finding
the channels in which you can acquire customers for less than your maximum
acceptable customer acquisition cost and then growing spend within those
channels.

Never raise more equity capital than 1x your current annualized revenue
(monthly revenue x 12). If you raise too much money too soon you’ll give up
too much ownership and control of your company and be tempted to spend the
money in ways that aren’t carefully controlled. Wait to raise a large round
until you have proven mathematically than $X amount of additional spending
with generate $Y amount of additional revenue. (once you figure out #2 this is
easy)._

~~~
frankdenbow
His company just raised $40+ million

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/30/icontact-
raises-40-million-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/30/icontact-
raises-40-million-for-email-marketing-software/)

~~~
zaidf
Yup! They are killing it.

------
tszming
Can't agree more with this point: If you create a great culture (a fun work
environment filled with people who are high performers and who care about
their work and their impact on the world) you will be able to attract and
retain better people who will be much more engaged and productive and create a
much more financially successful company.

------
wheaties
My Web of Trust Firefox add-on declares this site to be on the lowest of low
ratings and recommends I don't visit it. Quite funny, guess he's disagreed
with some pro-active people.

------
abalashov
OT, but this tendency of marketing droids to noun "spend" (as opposed to
"spending") drives me absolutely insane...

------
skowmunk
That's a bunch of some really good advice with loads of common sense.

Thanks for posting it.

------
c00p3r
_Hire people who are smarter than you._ It is the essential.

It could be stated as _Hire a young passionate geek and make him feel special
and comfortable._ It is actually very cheap, compared to hiring an impotent
'certified professional'.

