“Do More Faster” by David Cohen and Brad Feld is definitely worth your time. Read it and learn…
Excerpts:
p 19 – “I like Apple because they are not afraid of getting a basic 1.0 (version of a product) out into the world and iterating on it” -Matt Mullenweg
p 23 – David Cohen talks about how tons and tons of features kill many startups. “This is a fundamentally flawed strategy that presumes users will adopt a new service just because it has more features. The reality is that most people use a particular service because it does one thing really, really well.”
p 24 – quote by Ev Williams “Focus on the smallest possible problem yo could solve that would potentially be useful … Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages.”
p 36 – sign on Techstars office in Cambridge, MA: “You are STUPID. LISTEN To Your USERS Or You Will Have NONE.”
p 55 – “(Fail Fast) means that you should be happy about having a bunch of little failures along the path to success, because if you’re not failing, you’re probably just not trying enough stuff.”
p 95 – In addition to the team, the product or service and the market (timing/size/etc.), Greg Gottesman adds one more factor to the startup must-have list: the right startup culture. Here is his list of characteristics of a great startup culture:
1. No politics
2. It’s not a job, it’s a mission
3. Intolerance for mediocrity
4. Watching pennies
5. Equity-driven
6. Good communication, even in bad times
7. Perfect alignment (“strategy makes sense and is aligned with the vision. People are doing what they are good at and in the right roles…”
8. Strong leadership
9. Mutual respect
10. Customer-obsessed
11. High energy level
12. Fun
13. Integrity
p – 116+ Hyper-productive small nimble companies simply do more faster – “they focus on what matters and make massive progress in the areas that actually have an impact.”
p 123 – Ari Newman says Make Decisions Quickly. “One of the most valuable assets an early stage company has is that it is nimble … teh consequences of not making decisions quickly is akin to giving up one of your best assets.
p 124 – “We lived the Mantra of ‘Build something valuable, get the word out, and then listen to your customers. Then iterate and repeat.’ … We also paid close attention to what our metrics told us (and skated to where the puck was going, instead of where it was right now).”
p 130 – Ryan McIntyre on data: “Use your head and trust your gut … Be prepared for the data to give you a head fake. Early success with a certain customer segment might lead to a decision to focus on a subgroup of customers that turns out to be really hard to sell to and which happens to represent only 4% of the overall customer base … (as a startup founder) you’ll need to get comfortable living with messy and incomplete data.”
p 135 – Revenue, milestones, products and code so NOT count as progress to Eric Reis. He defines progress in a startup as “validated learning about customers” which is where companies learn to grow renewable audiences through a scalable process that can be automated or at least delegated (meaning founders themselves don’t have to personally conduct every sale). He argues for companies to not have to sell their products “by hand. Instead, each potential customer has to go through a self-serve process of signing-up and paying money … they have found, over time, a formula for acquiring, qualifying and selling customers in the market segments they have targeted. Most importantly, they have lots of data about the unit economics of their business. They know how much it costs to bring in a customer and they know how much money they can expect to make on each one.”
p 146 – some of the free products they list that many firms use: Balsamiq for screen prototyping; DimDim for web meetings; DropBox for storage; GitHub for code sharing; MogoTest for making sure applications look great on every browser; Pivotal Tracker for issue tracking; SendGrid for email delivery; SnapABug for chatting with your website visitors, Twilio for audio conf/ phone/ SMS
p 162 – Andy Smith on Features: Quality Over Quantity! To build useful, meaningful features: (1) focus on ease of use and visual appeal; (2) build ONE thing well; (3) listen to some but NOT all user feedback (some feedback is just wrong)
p 165 – Ben Casnocha: Have a Bias Toward Action (aka Learn By Doing). Action! Constantly make decisions and act on them, then learn/ iterate/ evolve your thinking > more action.
p 174 – Don’t wait for your product to be perfect. Go, Ship , Iterate over and over again (quickly). Continuous Releases! “Getting your product into the hands of your users quickly, with regular updates, is the key to getting a great product.” Suggests an agile project management tool like Rally Software
p 183 – Dave McClure: “What’s key and really hard is simplifying your product and building a great user experience … Build a culture of feedback and measured analytics into your process and organization.”
p 183 – If you can figure out how to make money and make users happy, and how to do both of thise things at scale, you probably have an interesting business on your hands.
p 189 – Bill Flagg: “A real business boils down to one thing – serving peoples’ needs and getting paid for it in a way that you can operate profitably. The best way to do that is to know your customers.”
p 190 – Bill Flagg (RegOnline) puts this message on their invoices: “If you are not completely satisfied with your service, mark down this bill as you feel it is appropriate and tell me where we can improve.”
p 231 – Show, Don’t Tell. “I don’t want you to describe what you are going to do; I want to see it (even a rough prototype) … The great entrepreneurs (and salespeople) show. Just think of how Steve Jobs does it. Show me!”
p 246 – Make sure that you (and not a contractor you hire) owns all your IP (default ownership may often go to the contractor). “A simple solution wen working with independent contractors is to have a written contract that unambiguously assigns IP over to the company.”
p 247 – Local universities are often a great resource for first-time entrepreneurs (including the law school)
p 255 – default to Delaware as your state of incorporation – laws are well-known, company-friendly, and won’t have some absurd unknown law that trips you up
p 261 – vesting ownership for founders (more than one) – that way if someone leaves without contributing much, they don’t take all their equity with them.
p270 – 83(b) Election is a “magic document” that allows for you to pay all of the tax on the stock that has been granted to you ahead of time, regardless of vesting (one day 1, this stock’s value – and the tax due – is negligible). -Matt Galligan
As I said above, “Do More Faster” by David Cohen and Brad Feld is definitely worth your time. Read it and learn…