Category: Entrepreneurship

Signing the first 10 unaffiliated customers is one of the most difficult tasks as an entrepreneur. Building a prototype is straightforward. Getting mentorship and help is straightforward. Convincing someone to pay money for an unproven product at an unproven startup is hard. Very hard. Only, paying customers are the lifeblood of the business.

Here are a few ideas on acquiring the first 10 customers:

• Outbound Prospecting – Build a list of potential companies. Jump on LinkedIn and find the right people. Send them a personalized message that’s thoughtful and relevant. Be pleasantly persistent.
• Inbound Marketing – Write a blog. Create a community. Engage with people on Twitter. Work towards 1,000 true fans.
• Referrals – Ask a friend. Find the local chamber of commerce. Talk to previous colleagues. Use your network. People want to help other people.

Acquiring the first 10 customers is challenging. But, once you get 10 customers, you can get 100. And then 1,000 and beyond. The key is finding the early adopters and building momentum.

What else? What are some more thoughts on acquiring the first 10 customers?

In the software development field there’s a concept called continuous deployment which describes a process such that when code is checked into the main code repository, a series of tests are run, and if they all pass, the code is deployed to production immediately. Imagine changing the position of a button on a web application locally and seeing that change in production for thousands of users to use 10 minutes later. That’s continuous deployment.

Now, take the idea of continuous deployment and apply it to the entrepreneurial journey in the learning context. Continuous learning is creating a personal process to learn new things on a regular basis and apply them when applicable. With so many great books, blogs, and articles available combined with different mediums like print, screen, and audio, there are a number of ways to develop a habit of continuous learning. Start with a simple RSS reader or subscribe to receive new blog posts via email. Learn more, faster.

Entrepreneurs need to develop a process for continuous learning and improvement. It’s one of the best investments available.

What else? What are some more thoughts on continuous learning?

Recently a would-be entrepreneur said he wanted to start a company but didn’t have an idea yet. Hmm, I thought, there’s inspiration all around and a limitless number of startup ideas. True, it’s hard to find a seemingly great idea but there are many ideas worth pursuing in fast-growing markets. The key: just start.

Here are a tactics when seeking startup ideas:

• Read – Start reading for 60 minutes a day. Whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, blogs, articles, etc. it doesn’t matter. What matters that you’re actively soaking up as much information as possible so that the mind can find patterns and trends.
• Ask – Reach out to your five smartest friends and invite them to lunch. At lunch, ask about their current challenges. Ask about ideas they have for new products. Share your goal of starting a company and get their help.
• Mind map – Get everything out of your mind down in a mind map. Do one new topic or market daily with at least 25 ideas regardless of their quality. Force yourself to put something down, and do it consistently.

People think entrepreneurs have great ideas that magically appear. Not true. Most come from the little things, like encountering a problem and wanting to solve it. Be methodically and actively seek out inspiration for new startup ideas.

What else? What are some more tactics when seeking startup ideas?

Our video of the week is Bootstrapping a Unicorn Outside of Silicon Valley | Ryan Holmes (Hootsuite). Enjoy!

From YouTube:
Growing a company from an idea to one of the largest investment raises in Canadian Venture Capital history. Join us as we sit down with Ryan Holmes, the Founder & CEO of Hootsuite. Ryan Holmes founded Hootsuite in 2008, growing the company from a lean startup to a global leader in social media with over 11 million users, including 79 of the Fortune 100 companies. Thought leader, dog lover and serial entrepreneur, Ryan has redefined the face of social media—bringing Twitter, Facebook and other social networks out of the dorm room and into the boardroom. A college drop-out, he started a paintball company and pizza restaurant before founding Invoke Media, the company that developed Hootsuite. Today, Ryan is an authority in technology and business. He writes regularly for publications like Fast Company, Inc, Fortune, and has a column in the Wall Street Journal. He’s also one of LinkedIn’s top 20 most followed Influencers and presents at the world’s top tech conferences. An angel investor and advisor outside of Hootsuite, Ryan supports programs that empower the greater startup community and future generations of entrepreneurs, including his own non-profit initiative, The Next Big Thing.

Earlier today I was reminded of startup stages being described as “the jungle,” “the dirt road,” and “the highway”.  These names have been around for many years (here’s a post from 2010 on it) and the idea still holds true today. Similar to the concept of pilot it, nail it, and scale it (see 4 Startup Stages in 8 Words), these names are more colorful and memorable.

Let’s look at the jungle, dirt road, and highway stages of a startup:

• Jungle – Lots of searching. No clear path. Distractions everywhere. Very tough conditions.
• Dirt Road – A path! Progress. Speed is picking up but lots of bumps in the road. Still figuring things out.
• Highway – Speed! Smooth sailing. Tremendous momentum. Scaling. Process. Repeatability.

Most startups never make it out of the jungle. The ones that do aren’t guaranteed success but cover a good bit of ground on the dirt road. Finally, a select few make it to the highway and go fast and far.

Welcome to the jungle.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the jungle / dirt road / highway idea?

Last week I was talking to an entrepreneur that had sold his company and was starting to do some angel investing. I cautioned him that angel investing should be viewed as charity and that the vast majority of angel investors don’t make any money, even if they invest in a reasonably large number of startups (> 20). Angel investing is fun and stimulating, but outside limited markets and exclusive deal flow, isn’t a way to make decent returns, let alone beat the public markets.

After hearing this, he asked why we don’t have more startup success stories. Here are a few thoughts:

• Low Odds – Less than .02% of venture-backed startups ever sell for $100 million or more. This is for startups that raise institutional capital, which has a bar that’s 100x higher than raising angel capital, and even then only 20 in 1,000 sell for a meaningful amount.
• Competitive Markets – Markets are brutally competitive. Every good idea already has 10 competitors easily findable on Google. Pricing, sales cycle, etc. are all impacted by competition.
• Challenging Customer Acquisition – With so many vendors chasing the same number of potential customers, customer acquisition becomes more difficult and costly. The number one reason startups fail is that they run out of money and the second reason is that they can’t sign up customers in a scalable and profitable manner. Customer acquisition is challenging.

What’s the solution to more startup successes? More startups. More tries. More entrepreneurs taking a chance. The goal: more startups with 10 unaffiliated customers. More micro success stories leads to more modest success stories. More modest success stories leads to more major success stories.

To have more startup success stories we need to start with many more startups.

What else? What are some more thoughts are why there aren’t more startup success stories?

Early last month an entrepreneur was taking me through one of his startup challenges. After listening for a few minutes, it was clear that he was optimizing too much for an edge case — a scenario that happens infrequently — and not optimizing for the greater good. Entrepreneurs are known to spend 10 years of their life trying to solve a problem that’ll save them 10 minutes.

Here are a few questions to ask regarding potential edge case optimization:

• How does this work help the mission of the business?
• Does this apply to the majority of our best-fit customers?
• Where else could our time be spent?
• What makes this edge case so important?

Beware edge case optimization. Entrepreneurs love to innovate, but need to do it where it counts.

What else? What are some more thoughts on edge case optimization?

After writing the post on The Slow Startup Movement last month, a number of people have reached out and expressed their support and interest in the idea. While startups are scalable, growth-oriented companies, many founders and team members want a sustainable work/life blend. With the slow startup movement, there’s an opportunity to develop a common language and share ideas to help like-minded entrepreneurs in pursuit of startup success and a life outside the startup as well.

Here are a few slow startup movement questions for entrepreneurs to consider:

• How do I run my business now? How do I want to run it?
• What’s my peer group value now? What do I want out of a peer group?
• What path am I on now? What path do I want to be on?
• If I could change anything and make my journey more intentional, what would I change?
• What am I working towards? What are my long-term and short-term goals?

At its core, the slow startup movement is about being more thoughtful in the startup journey and blending it with the overall journey.

What else? What are some more slow startup movement questions to consider?

Recently an entrepreneur was looking for ideas for a virtual assistant to help with several projects. After asking a few questions, it became clear that using Upwork for freelancers was a quicker, more efficient route. Instead of hiring a person with general skills for a set number of hours per week, hire specialists per project.

Here are a few common outsourcing projects for entrepreneurs:

• Data entry / list building – Build a list of target contacts
• Copywriting – Capture your ideas and transform them into content
• Editing – Take your content and polish it
• General help – Offload the basics that are better done elsewhere

Entrepreneurs would do well to outsource the non-core tasks and use a freelancer marketplace like Upwork.

What else? What are some more tasks entrepreneurs should outsource?