Only once you’ve sold your product enough times, one at a time, can you start creating efficiencies. Sales is a process. And just like all processes, it makes a set of tasks more efficient. But you need successful tasks first. Otherwise, you just have super-efficient shitty tasks.
The first step is to take a look at your corporate values, and determine if the employee shares them. This assumes of course, that you have corporate values. And honor them. Companies have values in order to give employees a north star when faced with complex decisions.
As a first-time founder, having Eric tell me that I wasn’t fucking anything up, and that this was a normal part of the process, was invaluable to me. By reframing it from “this last 20 percent is taking too long,” to “I was really only 20 percent of the way done,” I was able to take a step back, realize I was at a different point than I thought I was, and move forward from there.
“Each month I walk away with a piece of advice that sticks with me and helps guide my decisions for the rest of the month. Most of the time on the call, I don’t even know what will have the biggest impact. But a few days or a week later, there’s Eric’s voice in my head.”
The mark of a great business is product/market fit — successfully selling to the market is far easier said than done. What *is* much, much easier is proving that a business idea is a bad one. You start with the question “what needs to absolutely be true?” and see if you can quickly prove one or more of them false.
The odds you can do even one thing well when starting a business are LOW. The odds you can simultaneously do multiple things well are VERY low. And, if you’re trying to derisk your business, that’s the first place you should start. Find your one good thing, and focus on it.