25 Startup Truths
Lessons from getting from $0 to $1M for the 3rd time
I’ve gone from $0 to $1M/year for the 3rd time in my life.
Here are 25 startup truths:
Building a great team takes time. I’m building ours for 9 years, across projects.
Radical transparency builds trust like nothing else. Mostly- attracts the right people, repels the wrong ones.
It’s cheap to build software, it’s extremely expensive to build a great product.
Bootstrapping vs being venture-backed depends on the market and competition. Not on your personal preference.
PR is vanity. Yet it’s an important part of the marketing mix and must be done.
Each time you get from 0 to1 is different. The fact that you’ve done it before helps... but the strategy and tactics are different each time.
The true test is: how much $ will you be making if tomorrow you have 0 employees. What about in 1 year?
It’s all marketing. Nobody loves their creation on day 1. Yet you can’t make $1M if you don’t sell the s**t out of whatever you have.
The more senior you become, the more sales you do.
CEO needs to have deep expertise in the field of the business.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, join forces with others.
Owning 5% of a $1,000,000,000 business is better than owning 95% of nothing.
30% of the time of a CEO goes into admin and finance. As CEO, find someone to own this ASAP and you’ll accelerate the trajectory of your business.
If someone is not working out, part ways fast. It’s better for everyone.
Toxic clients should be fired.
Partners that benefit from your partnership at your expense should be removed. It must be a win-win.
Look for ways to outsource as much as possible. Never outsource your core product/activity.
Always reward hard work and dedication. If you can’t afford to do it with $$$, give more time, attention, coaching. That’s often more valuable.
MacBook is orders of magnitude better than any Windows computer. You can’t reach your full potential without a Mac. Not an opinion but a fact!
Great systems are the difference between very good and truly great.
Process is the opposite of creativity. To stumble upon great ideas, you must avoid putting people in boxes. Yet no process means no scale.
Your 20s must be spent in experimentation. Find what you hate. Find what makes you tick.
It’s easy to give back. It’s hard to pay forward.
Being direct may be perceived as being rude. Yet always being direct makes you predictable and trustworthy, which is extremely productive.
It has never been easier to start a business. Yet it’s harder than ever to build lasting value.
This post was based on my experiences scaling businesses to $1M.
Yet money has never been the final goal for me.
How can the means of getting there be the destination?
