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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?

Entrepreneurs love to think big and brainstorm different what-if scenarios. Only, the big idea is often too broad and unattainable without meaningful incremental progress in a much shorter timeframe. Meaning, results are needed in the next 12 months to continue the pursuit of the 10-year vision.

Think about Tesla starting with an expensive electric sports car to prove the concept. Then an expensive sedan followed by a crossover. Only after those successes was a mainstream, mid-priced sedan possible.

Think about Uber starting as a high-end black car service in one city. Once that worked they added ridesharing and launching hundreds of cities. Now, Uber has expanded to food delivery and more.

Think big but start small. Take the 10-year vision and reduce it to a 12-month outcome with sufficient progress to continue.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the idea that the big vision needs incremental progress?

Back in 2008 Pardot was just starting to get off the ground with a few hundred thousand in recurring revenue and the makings of a big market. Excitedly, I applied to be a “member company” at a local startup organization by filling out an online application and trying to meet with people. No one would meet with me. We weren’t “the right type of company” and didn’t get accepted into the program.

Rejected.

Completely rejected.

I put my head down and went back to work. We didn’t need the blessing of another organization for us to be successful. With a strong locus of control we followed Andre Agassi’s mantra “control what you can control” and continued plodding along. Ultimately, the business was successful and we didn’t need validation from something else.

Getting rejected is an awful feeling but it didn’t stop us from realizing our vision.