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Over the years I’ve hired dozens of interns with much success. In fact, the first summer at Pardot we had 11 full-time interns and only three employees. Interns are great in that they’re excited to learn, eager to prove themselves, and want to be there. But, there’s absolutely one trait that’s required for the employer to have a great experience: the intern needs to be self-starting.

Self-starting is the most important trait when hiring an intern.

Think about it. An internship schedule is one where there’s little time to ramp up and be productive before the internship is over. During that time, the employer has a number of existing day-to-day tasks that have to get done outside of coaching and training the intern. Interns who are self-starting are more resourceful, more likely to figure things out on their own, and more likely to have the right balance of productivity to management effort.

Finally, interns are a great way to build a talent pipeline. Finding smart people that get things done is hard. By investing in interns there’s a continuous opportunity to find strong candidates for full-time positions as the startup grows. We’ve hired many interns into full-time roles.

Entrepreneurs would do well to develop a program for interns, especially in the scaling phase of the startup.

What else? What are some more thoughts on interns in startups?

One of the harder challenges in a startup is figuring out how long to stay the course. Traction almost always doesn’t happen overnight. Pinterest took four years before the media started noticing it. Incremental progress is often evident but it’s not clear that success is inevitable.

Here are a few questions when the startup path is unclear:

• Problem – How well is the problem defined? How many people have the problem? How painful is the problem?
• Feedback – What type of feedback do prospects and users provide? How strong is the feedback? How consistent is the feedback?
• Metrics – What are the weekly metrics? What’s the week-over-week growth? At this rate, when will the metrics look “good?”
• Next Steps – How clear are the next steps? Are there several OK options or one or two excellent options?

Staying the course or pivoting is a regular question for entrepreneurs when success is elusive. Often, there’s no obvious answer but asking these questions helps.

What else? What are some more questions to think through when the startup path is unclear?

For the video of the week watch How To Gain 1000 True Fans – Kevin Kelly on London Real. Enjoy!

From YouTube: Kevin Kelly discusses his famous article ‘1000 true fans’.
Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.

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.