Although, YC wouldn't attempt giving 'real' advise at this point. (advise that would end up being labeled elitist, misogynistic etc.) They're under the spotlight, and have to be politically correct.
As startup advisors and accelerators go, they are google/microsoft. Held back by their own weight.
I bet the next 10 years will see a lot of celebrity-driven startups. Will.i.am, Tom Hanks, Justin Timberlake etc.
Looking for your 3rd co-founder? Talk to your local celebrity agent.
Something about the term 'popularizer' annoys me. Why not just call them 'marketers'.
IMHO, the perfect startup team: 1 technical co-founder, 1 technical co-founder who loves analytics and online marketing, 1 celebrity. Followed by celebrity investors.
That's an unusual case because Will Ferrell is a world-class expert at comedy, which is Funny or Die's product. Even if you want to argue that their actual product is the ads around the videos, Will Ferrell is more than just a celebrity endorser.
Until I discovered deep meditation (http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Meditation-Pathway-Personal-Freed...).
Summarized: Repeat a chant, such as 'I am' (or any phrase of your choosing) for about 5 minutes, focusing on what the chant-phrase sounds like in your mind.
With the phrase 'I am', you would try to feel the sounds 'A-Y-A-M' being pronounced in your mind, without ever vocalizing it.
Gets me napping within 5 minutes, wake up charged up for a massively productive session. I hope you'll give it a try sometime.
I like the way you've responded to some of these comments. You're a class act.
Interesting blog too (the bootstrap frontpage confused me for a moment though). found the post about the conversation with your co-founder rather interesting. so I think i've had a peek at how you plan to generate ideas.
What I'm about to outline might seem obvious to you, though might seem blasphemous to lotsa folks out there.
I'd like to outline the one thing (most) founders ignore during their idea process.
IMHO, younger founders who're thinking of startup life as a career (long haul), should work on maximizing (2), (3) and (4) primarily.
There's a lot of perception hacks that can be applied to get ahead with those three.
Now, here's the ONE thing:
I'd like to suggest that founders imagine the kinds of people they'd like to connect with during this span of time: women(yeah!), movie stars(?), other founders, journalists, scientists, atheists, social workers.
Don't just think it though, get it down on paper, turn it into a goal of sorts: I must form connections with these people!
It's possible you wouldn't cross off that entire list with a single startup.
You'll have to imagine yourself answering the 'what do you do' question to these people. (maybe you'd have to do some research into what they might likely want to hear)
Now, regardless of the traction you have (ideally > 0, for mental reasons),
that fact that you're running a 'startup' can get you places these days.
Before I get carried away,
answering 'what you do' can get you massively different reactions varying with the audience, locality etc.
we're usually just thinking about what investors want to put money into.
so yeah, think about the money, what's trendy, but also the kinds of people you want to connect with OUTSIDE the startup community.
I think the above holds extreme importance, especially if you're going on an 'what would you like me to build for you' marathon.
Good luck. Looking forward to updates on your blog.
I like the way you've responded to some of these comments. You're a class act.
Thanks for the encouragement! (Really hard to come by these days.) :)
Interesting blog too (the bootstrap frontpage confused me for a moment though).
I just stitched together the design in a hurry. Redesigning the blog is lower in my priority list right now. Expect an overhaul soon though.
found the post about the conversation with your co-founder rather interesting.
I'm glad you did. This is why I put it there in the first place. I thought people like you'd help me figure out if we're on the right track.
IMHO, younger founders who're thinking of startup life as a career (long haul), should work on maximizing (2), (3) and (4) primarily.
I totally agree. It is easy to take these things for granted. Especially the value of connections and the fact that you have to be constantly working to make new ones.
It's possible you wouldn't cross off that entire list with a single startup.
Like I said, I think connections are a perpetual work in progress. It's more than likely that we won't cross off even half of it.
Before I get carried away, answering 'what you do' can get you massively different reactions varying with the audience, locality etc.
Don't even get me started on that one! A few relatives of mine are actually horrified by the idea that I despise the idea of a regular job and would rather start my own thing. Sigh.
I think the above holds extreme importance, especially if you're going on an 'what would you like me to build for you' marathon.
Haha, exactly. In fact, the whole point of this (even-if-you-have-to-make-a-fool-out-of-yourself) exercise was to get two things into our heads:
- Ideas are like girlfriends. Have fun with them but think twice before getting emotionally involved.
- The hardest thing for startups (and for most things in life) is to be able to talk to people and successfully get your idea across. Practice it.
Good luck. Looking forward to updates on your blog.
Thank you. Trust me when I say that I have derived great value from your comment.
Agree that it feels like a waste of executive time.
Although, there's probably a bit that the exec could learn from early users, perhaps initiate conversations over features, gather pain points and so on.
But there's no reason why this can't be handled by someone else on the team.
And '1000' is just a ridiculous arbitrary number. How quickly did the company get to 1000 users? Imagine replying to a 1000 early adopters who've signed-up over 5 days. It's absurd.
I feel dedicating a % of the day for this, might make a little more sense.
Lastly, it's astonishing you find time for the stuff you've listed.
Whether or not it's a waste of time depends on the commitment you've made to your customers. Jobs obsessed over design for a reason. Our promise is to provide exceptional customer service, so that's how we prioritize our time.
Though, habits like these (suggested by the article) early-on could shape the startup's perception of their commitment to their customers. It could end up being a costly 'culture' thing.
It's still debatable whether dealing with customers daily, makes for productive use of an executive's precious time, even if the startup's value proposition revolves around exceptional customer service.
I've witnessed a few small companies getting infinitely better, once they started hiring the right people to fill sales and customer relations positions, that were usually handled by the founders themselves.
Well, I can say that it has been a great use of my time :-) The increased focus has demonstrably paid off in terms of real revenue and customer activity that I don't think we could have tapped into with a lesser focus. Everyday I'm seeing new things that help us improve, that help me set a strategic direction that would be muted if the feedback were filtered through intermediaries.
There are other ways of organizing of course. Someone once told me that its way better to organize around the strengths and weaknesses of the people that you have and the people that become available than it is to organize within the constraints of an org. chart "because that's the way its done". I'm sure that if we had a different mix of skills, we might choose to delegate differently, but this is what works for us. For example, I spend very little time worrying about engineering matters compared to the amount of time I spend managing customer service workflows. What matters is whether we're putting points on the board, not so much which plays we're running.
"It's the only link that appears at the bottom of my emails."
Personally, I've noticed an increasing affinity for the 'tag as spam' button.
It takes a certain amount of effort to scroll down, and find the unsubscribe (I'm not even sure if it's there), vs. having my inbox cleaned up by just clicking the darn 'tag as spam' button -- dead easy. Also, there's the uncertainty about how daunting the unsubscribe experience might be. These days, quite many startups get their users to go through tedious surveys before they can unsubscribe completely. This results in a sticky association that's hard to undo: 'unsubscribe' is a hassle.
Are there ways around this?
How about a large button above the fold that says 'Don't mail me.', 'Junk!' or similar. Something that indicates they'll have their intended results: less of this sorta mail, and a cleaner inbox.
On the other hand, this might result in more unsubscribes.
Adding a large button to the top would certainly make it easier for those people who open the emails and want to unsubscribe. And I wouldn't worry about the increase in unsubscribers. I'd rather help people unsubscribe than have them mark my emails as spam.
I'm assuming that the majority of people are not even opening the emails though. Hitting the spam button is just too easy. I think the system is broken.
'startup tree' -- Neat idea for a weekend project.
It's hard for early employees not to be inspired by high-energy, inspirational organizations.
I feel startups should work into their biz-plans, the fact that greater than 50% of their early frontline force would want out, within 12 months even. Some of them competing too. 'Scratch an itch' often stems from environmental input.
I like the idea of hiring and nurturing early employees with these thoughts in mind: http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2011/10/03/creating-an-entrepr...
You'd be lying to yourself if you think your employees would give their best to your gig alone, indefinitely.
In reality, daily deals aren't allowing brands to develop deeper, more engaging business to customer relationships.
Couldn't agree more. Businesses need to pursue metrics around customer-lifetime-value with a vengeance. Once they do, they'll realize non-incentivized campaigns convert better.
The Groupon trend reminds me about this anecdote from 'Switch' (by the Heath brothers), about how given a larger bucket of stale popcorn, the audience always ate more. I know of folks who now find it painful to buy something (services, food etc.) at full price. The implications are immense -- there's been a permanent & massive shift in consumer behavior.
Also, there's tons of folks starting small businesses increasingly, to keep re-fueling the groupon's of the world.
