- and who to bring in to make it happen
I am lucky to be able to speak to a lot of startups via Seedcamp and a few other places, where the same few problems / challenges come up again and again. This is one of them, hope my thoughts are helpful.
Today I had a few quick calls with founders as part of my EIR duties at Seedcamp and on one particular call — an energetic and very smart founder who had contacted me to talk about marketing and growth — it seems I was able to impact his thinking about growth.
The startup have a great product, it…
“Just fucking do it”, they say.
But, JFDI = do what is in front of you. JDFI = working hard not smart. JDFI = occasionally being right by chance (not design).
Don’t leave things to chance. Don’t JFDI.
Instead, Just fucking set your goals, then ruthlessly prioritize, then have everyone work on those goals with customer development and concierge MVPs etc, then a/b test it, then iterate on it…. then repeat the cycle until you hit your goals
JFSYGTRPTHSWOTGWCDACMVPETABTTIOT…TRTCUYHYG
Catchy, I know.
These last few weeks in the UK we have been debating SAT’s. Should we be demanding our 11 year olds understand what a ‘subordinating conjunction’ is when even the UK Prime Minister doesn’t? Are our kids under too much pressure or alternatively are expectations too low? Or I would add — In a world where Siri or Google can answer any question in seconds, does knowledge really matter or are skills and the ability to learn more important?
It is a good debate and one we should be having, but we are very privileged to be able to have it.
…
The underlying team principles that ultimately drive Mitoo’s over 50%/month growth.
For the last 18 months at Mitoo we have have been putting together an internal guide to help steer the team on the path to growth and success. We call it our “Playbook”.
Now that we are really hitting the growth curve, looking back at the playbook it’s clear how important these details have been to our success. It contains lots of juicy stuff from the last 4 years of building and 18 months of having a Mitoo live (even if the first version was pretty average).
Anyway, I think sharing some of the Playbook will encourage us to keep…
A manager-less team structure built for innovation; inspired by the AngelList team
Can working without managers increase efficiency and productivity?
Post raising our seed round and going from 2 to 7 people, at Mitoo we have been on a journey of discovery.
Everyone wants to have the highest possible output and to get the right work-life balance at the same time. Like many other we’ve been constantly looking for the most efficient ways to work as a team in order to deliver quality in the right priority order.
In doing this we have learned a huge amount, so I plan to post our discoveries over time, but I think it is the most recent change that has has the biggest impact.
Back in October of this year I flew to San Francisco to meet up with some great friends and fellow startups…
Andrew Crump
Founder, product/growth person, and thinker. CEO WRKBR and GrowGrowGrow. Previously EIR @Seedcamp, Grad/mentor @500. Advisor to some.
