Startup Advice

1. Know WHY you are doing this. This is the most important question of them all because unless you have a really big vision for why you are starting up, your life will become unbearable halfway through year two. You have to know WHY before you start so that when things get tough (and believe me, they WILL get tough), the last thing you want to do is bail.

2. Pick ONE THING you need to be the best at and get really good at it. The internet has made distribution so cheap that anyone can get their product in front of millions of eyeballs–but how are you harder-better-faster-stronger than everyone else? How are you going to do what everyone else isn’t doing? This is a question that hammers particularly creative types. There is no substitute for just being damn good at one thing and understanding it intimately.

3. Don’t go into debt, don’t start with money you can’t afford to lose, and don’t take on co-founders or early employees who won’t put in sweat equity for free. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but you want people around you who are willing to work free. You don’t want to be in debt–you realize soon enough that cashflow is king, and debt has a way of occupying your free cashflow.

4. “Do what you love” is not good enough advice for starting a company unless you are doing something that scales or has network effects. You don’t need to find a problem that ‘nobody has ever solved before.’ That’s totally arbitrary and frankly unattainable, unless you are solving something like quantum gravity or teleportation. But most startups really aren’t doing anything all that novel.

5. Build your product in public, even if you’re not that proud of it. Your friends, family, and co-workers won’t be as critical of your product as a stranger will be when it comes out, but they will still help you build something good enough that people want to use. I pitched one of my companies in front of 30 people when I had just the beginnings of an idea and not a clue as to launch date. It was a mess, but I got valuable feedback and had the chance to work out the kinks before that first customer showed up.

6. Your personal life will suffer. There is no such thing as work-life balance when you are running your own company–there’s only life, and it’s all about your company. Get used to working late nights, on weekends, and maybe even having few friends outside of your company. It’s a reality, and there are real tradeoffs.

7. Be prepared for the long haul. Unless you are getting acquired early or hitting it out of the park with some stroke of luck, things take time to play out in startup land. You might have a really great month or two, and then you might not make another dollar for three months after that. If you pick a company whose market and product are scalable, your revenue will grow over time, and the roller coaster won’t be as intense–but it’s still a roller coaster nonetheless.

8. Be ready to work harder than you ever have in your entire life on something that might not work out. It’s not easy to get up every morning and spend your waking hours committed to something that might fail. But the flip side of that is that if you do succeed, it’s gratifying and feels like nothing else in the world.

9. Be prepared for your friends and family NOT to understand what you are going through. They probably won’t get why you can’t make plans on a Thursday night, and they definitely won’t understand why you work all weekend and don’t seem to enjoy yourself. Embrace this disconnection–it will be your saving grace when you are ready to launch because it gives you perspective.

10. Surround yourself with people who do what they love for a living, because those people will make you want to do the same. I have been lucky enough to be friends with amazingly talented, kind and generous people who do what they love for a living. It’s inspiring, thrilling and motivating. We inspire each other because we push each other to always create the best work possible–to make others as happy with our work as we are.

11. Make sure you have triple-checked EVERYTHING before taking the plunge. It sounds obvious, but this experience has taught me that people make mistakes when they are in a rush or overwhelmed. Do not confuse “hustling” (aka running around like a chicken with your head cut off) with actually getting stuff done. Just because you work 20 hours a day doesn’t mean you aren’t making huge, avoidable mistakes!