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Yesterday I was talking with an entrepreneurial civic leader and he was telling me about the pre-accelerator program they do. Hmm, pre-accelerator, I hadn’t heard of that before. With the incredible growth of programs like Y Combinator and TechStars, and the corresponding level of difficulty to get accepted, it makes sense that programs are emerging to help prep startups for the application process.

Here are a few components of a potential pre-accelerator program:

• Pitch Practice – Entrepreneurs love to talk about their vision. Only, 9 times out of 10 it is too jargon-filled and complicated for the average person to understand. Refining this message and coming up with a written elevator pitch that’s 30 seconds long is a great exercise.
• Goal Setting – When asked, most entrepreneurs say they want to be successful. Then, the next logical question is “how do you define success?” and there’s rarely a concrete answer. Entrepreneurs need to think through and write down SMART goals.
• MVP Development – Many startups applying to an accelerator program already have a minimum viable product (MVP) and some even have a number of paying customers. No longer is it enough to apply to an accelerator program with only an idea so there’s a need to put a prototype together in advance of the application.
• Executive Summary – Building a simple two page document that succinctly describes the main aspects of the startup is a start rite of passage for entrepreneurs. The executive summary should contain information about the idea, team, market, product, and more.

Look for more pre-accelerator programs to form and entrepreneurs to get value regardless of whether or not they’re accepted in an accelerator program. Entrepreneurship is hard and programs that help increase the chance of success are an important part of the community.

What else? What are some more thoughts on pre-accelerator programs?

When it comes to ideas, I’m always looking for ways to build a better organization and help team members achieve more. For example, Drive by Dan Pink, talks about autonomy, mastery, and purpose as three key things to ensure human motivation. In the recent NY Times article The Secret to Sustaining High Job Performance, the author highlights four core energy needs:

1. Sufficient rest, including the opportunity for intermittent renewal during the work day
2. Feeling valued and appreciated
3. Having the freedom to focus in an absorbed way on the highest priorities
4. Feeling connected to a mission or a cause greater than ourselves.

Yes, these four core energy needs for high performance work resonate with me. While people have different styles and approaches, these are universal elements. Read The Secret to Sustaining High Job Performance and learn more.

What else? What are some more thoughts on core energy needs for high performance work?

There’s an old saying that if you want to raise money from investors, go to them asking for advice. There’s a similar element in customer discover (watch the explanation video) where the more time spent with potential customers to get their input, the more likely they are to buy in the future. Put another way, customer discovery is one of the best ways to pre-sell a potential customer.

Here are a few thoughts on customer discovery as pre-selling:

• Every customer discovery conversation has the opportunity to be a lead in the future
• Building rapport and trust is a critical part of all relationships, and especially so in sales
• Customer discovery is a sales process (uncover pain, validate severity of problem, understand desired solution, etc.)
• One of the main reasons for customer discovery is to validate customer demand before building a product, which is pre-selling a product to be built later

Entrepreneurs that love selling love the customer discovery process. Entrepreneurs that are more product-focused and less sales-focused will find customer discovery a challenge and laborious. When this is the case, it’s important to acknowledge it and plan on adding a sales-oriented person to the team as soon as possible. Nothing happens until something gets sold and customer discovery is a great way to pre-sell a potential customer.

What else? What are some more thoughts on customer discovery as pre-selling?

With so much information online, there’s a real challenge for entrepreneurs to find best practices based on their current business stage. Entrepreneurial struggles at the seed stage are different from the early stage which are different from the growth stage. And, stages aren’t clear-cut, resulting in difficulties when transitioning between stages.

To begin, here are seven quick tips for entrepreneurs starting out:

1. Culture is key and needs to be intentional
2. Plan go/no-go goal metrics from the beginning
3. Know that raising money is 100x easier with traction and find traction metrics for your industry
4. Work to achieve product/market fit as quickly as possible
5. Use the Simplified One Page Strategic Plan, and make the strategic direction clear
6. Ensure a growth-oriented entrepreneur is on the team
7. Find a peer group

Building a successful business is incredibly hard. Entrepreneurs starting out would do well to follow these seven quick tips and improve their chance of success.

What else? What are some other tips for entrepreneurs starting out?

Admit it, we live in an incredible period of time where the most successful people in the world freely publish their lessons learned online and we can virtually “attend” some of their classes. This week we’re doing exactly that with Reid Hoffman teaching his Stanford class on scaling a rapidly growing company. Watch his video titled Blitzscaling Session 1: Household Stage and learn from the person that started and scaled LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD). Enjoy!

Recently I was talking to an entrepreneur that has spent $350,000 so far building stuff for his startup but nothing related to customer acquisition. This includes a visual brand identity, website, web app, and native mobile apps for Android and iOS. Now, during our conversation, I wanted to learn about his metrics. After mentioning that they haven’t signed any customers yet because they’re polishing the product, and therefore didn’t have any metrics yet, I asked about his go/no-go metrics to continue on with the idea. Meaning, what are his near-term goals, with specific metrics, to know if they’re making enough progress to keep moving forward. His answer: I don’t know.

Here are a few thoughts on go/no-go metrics for startups in the earliest of stages:

• While it’s easy and fun to build product, make a plan, with goals, and include aspirational metrics as well as “must hit” minimum metrics
• Consider goals related to identifying if product/market fit has been achieved
• Ask existing and potential investors what metrics they look for and would require for a subsequent round of funding

Too often, entrepreneurs don’t have metrics in mind when they’re starting out and get caught up in the grind without a target in sight. Also, remember the 3:1 customer acquisition to engineering spend ratio when budgeting in the early days as too many entrepreneurs spend all their money on the product and forget that they need even more money to acquire customers.

What else? What are some more thoughts on go/no-go metrics for continuing on with a startup?

Jeff mentioned not too long ago that tech startups aren’t really focused on innovating on a daily basis. Rather, they’re focused on not dying. For many entrepreneurs, especially those in the idea stage, they are closer to being a science project than an actual company. As Steve Blank famously says, “Startups are temporary organizations designed to find a repeatable business model.” I like to think of startups in this do-not-die stage as the hardiest of insects: cockroaches.

Here are a few thoughts on cockroach mode for startups:

• Look for little-to-no salaries for the entrepreneurs (a famous investor said the best predictor of startup success was the CEO’s salary)
• Look for entrepreneurs valeting cars in the evening to pay the bills
• Look for entrepreneurs staying in Airbnbs or friend’s sofas instead of hotel rooms on trips
• Look for everyone on the team focused on how to acquire customers (make money!) or find investors, not just the CEO
• Look for a palpable level of persistence and determination in the entrepreneur (watch out for the desperation level)

Building a successful startup is incredibly difficult. Cockroach mode for startups happens more often than people realize and entrepreneurs that make it through it are even stronger due to the experience.

What else? What are some more thoughts on cockroach mode for startups?

Yesterday, I was talking with an entrepreneur at lunch. Right at the beginning of the conversation he said, “What’s the most interesting project you’re working on now?” Then, this morning, a different entrepreneur asked, “What’s the most interesting new startup in the Atlanta Tech Village?” Thinking back on these interactions, it’s clear that adding “most interesting” is a great variation to the common question “what’s going on.”

There are a number of common questions where adding “most interesting” makes it better:

• When using the CEO Tools and walking the four corners, ask a question like “What’s the most interesting project you worked on last week?”
• When doing the weekly one-on-ones, ask “What’s the most interesting thing you learned last week?”
• When talking to entrepreneurs, ask “What’s your most interesting challenge right now?”

The next time you use one of your go-to questions, add “most interesting” to it and see what happens.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the “most interesting” variation to common questions?