Gust

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Don’t hire people who like your ideas all the time. It’s always more productive to focus on making your offering successful, rather than killing your competitors. Be quick to fire and slow to hire. Pull the trigger fast when a new hire isn’t working, but don’t forget to be human and follow all the steps.

Entrepreneur 174

Entrepreneur Forecast Hiring Leadership 174

Gust

DECEMBER 29, 2013

Company and product naming may also seem simple, but should be a key early effort, because mistakes can be very costly. Be quick to hire and slow to fire. Hiring after one interview is like hopping a red-eye to Vegas to get married after one date. Only hire people who like you or think like you.

Startup 183

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 183

Gust

JANUARY 12, 2014

But motion without momentum may be even less productive. Cashflow is the element of momentum that allows you to hand over jobs to other people and do more of your core passion jobs, like creating content or designing new products. Founders or employees in constant motion, but with no momentum, will never get off the ground.

Entrepreneur 171

Entrepreneur Hiring Employee Operations 171

Gust

JANUARY 5, 2014

We all know the products they give away, and the ones purchased by family and friends don’t count. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. On the other hand, if your price is over the moon, even the best product features probably won’t sell it.

Business Model 171

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 171

Gust

JULY 22, 2012

I’m definitely not lobbying here for promising things you can’t deliver, or hiring a publicist before your first programmer. People forget your early mistakes if they haven’t bought your product yet. At any point, hiring a professional to generate your PR may be well worth the cost, but it’s not required. Give it to them.

Elevator Pitch 158

Elevator Pitch Startup IP Public Relations 158

Gust

JANUARY 20, 2013

Since the days of Henry Ford, mass production has been the Holy Grail of business, rather than build-to-order. That means hiring help, rather than helpers, and providing the resources they need to stay current. These perspectives evolved through the age of mass production. Image via Facebook.com.

Startup 180

Startup Social Media Cloud Customer 180

Gust

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see.

Angel Investor 143

Angel Investor Venture Capital Partner Networking 143

Gust

JUNE 26, 2012

The new job never want to hire somebody with that kind of chip on a shoulder. The pitch had been intriguing, the product/market fit looked attractive, and the guy in charge seemed to know his stuff. Fair or not, it just doesn’t work, right? More so with investor pitches.

Due Diligence 121

Due Diligence Hiring Partner Product 121

Gust

DECEMBER 8, 2013

They should be asking to speak to you if you are a potential investor or a superstar hire. Real customers are ones who have paid full price for the product, have it installed and in use, and are still satisfied. If there are no customers yet, when will the product ship, and how many times has the date been set?

Due Diligence 174

Due Diligence Sweat Equity Intellectual Property Burn Rate 174

Gust

JULY 29, 2012

Don’t hire any employees. There you can sell your products and services 24 hours per day, seven days a week, on a global basis. Another example is the Amazon.com model, where they order your product for direct shipment, only after they get your payment. You can’t be successful doing something you don’t enjoy.

Bandwidth 155

Bandwidth Bootstrapping Equity Startup 155

Gust

JANUARY 12, 2014

But motion without momentum may be even less productive. Cashflow is the element of momentum that allows you to hand over jobs to other people and do more of your core passion jobs, like creating content or designing new products. Founders or employees in constant motion, but with no momentum, will never get off the ground.

Entrepreneur 70

Entrepreneur Hiring Employee Operations 70

Gust

DECEMBER 9, 2012

It also means that it’s time to stop micro-managing, hire some of the right people, and start giving up some control. This is implementing a model that you can replicate, to get your product or service out across the country, and around the world. Only then can you expand those things that led to your initial success.

Elevator Pitch 163

Elevator Pitch Startup Bootstrapping Entrepreneur 163

Gust

DECEMBER 16, 2011

And, a bit misty-eyed, this old war veteran can actually remember the glory days: Venture capitalists would commit tens of millions for a startup to buy expensive infrastructure; hire sales and marketing teams as products were still being built; and lease out big slugs of office space for the coming hiring spree.

IPO 87

IPO .Net Social Network Mobile 87

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

You are ready to start when you can: 1) identify a grand and worthy vision; 2) predict a trajectory for your growth; and 3) share marketing/sales, product, and financing plans that will enable you to get there. My answer is almost always the same. When you embark on the financing process, you should expect it to take at least 6 months.

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital Finance Early Stage .Net 163

Gust

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Plan to replace your product with a better and cheaper one. If the current product is making money, it seems like a bad risk to obsolete it. Build a dynamic product line, rather than a single product. Build a dynamic product line, rather than a single product. Take the strategic risk.

Forecast 188

Forecast Viral Social Network Business Model 188

Gust

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

A startup that has found product-market fit needs to transition quickly into that category, with operational excellence taking precedence over bursts of creative brilliance. A startup is in the business of creating value from nothing – or, as Steve Blank describes it, “searching for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

Startup 98

Startup Silicon Valley Reputation Community 98