Even when they stop getting the desired results, founders keep pressing that button, hoping the inscrutable machine starts working again.
Category: Aphorisms
The Tie Goes To The Runner
In startup land, we like to tell ourselves a bedtime story that it’s all a meritocracy and we’re strictly about finding the best people. Hacker News is filled with comments like “who cares what race or gender they are; just pick the best people.” If only it were that easy, my little brogrammer.
Stop Launching “A Then B” Businesses
90% of all startups fail, and these particular founders are betting on two successful startups in a row. For the mathematically inclined out there, those founders have an approximately 1% chance of success. Good luck to them.
If You Want Money, Ask For Advice (If You Want Advice, Ask for Money)
Rapidly implementing investor feedback immediately builds an emotional tie between the investor and your company. Maybe they didn’t invest capital, but they invested an idea, and now their idea is a part of your idea.
Understand Your Customers’ Business As Well As They Do
As CEOs and product owners, we are effectively outsourced team members, contract force accelerators. Yet more often than not, we act like clueless employees, sleepwalking through the day, hoping that our actions align with our employer’s goals or, at worst, praying we don’t fuck up enough to be noticed.
What Needs to be True for Your Company to Succeed?
The only way to truly prove that a business idea is good is to launch it and make it successful. What is much, much easier is proving that a business idea is a bad one.