Helen Yu of Tigon Advisory: Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup

An Interview With Paul Moss

The “Define-Minimum” disconnect. To be at least minimally viable, a product must be marketable — not evidence of technical prowess too impractical to sell. Figure out what your minimum viable product, minimum viable team and minimum viable repeatability will help you make your vision marketable.

Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles.

Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup?

In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experience about what it takes to create a highly successful startup.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Helen Yu.

Helen Yu is an author and speaker with expertise in global customer-success and technology. Helen is a consultant to the largest technology companies in the world and is a board advisor to fast growth SaaS companies. Her specialty is driving growth while solving complex challenges. After watching many start-up technology founders rise and fail, Ms. Yu launched Tigon Advisory in 2017 as a growth accelerator.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I started my career as an accountant and financial analyst. My curiosity and learning agility got me where I am today. I learned to code as a Hyperion consultant, and went on to design and implement 400+ financial planning applications working alongside CFOs. Then, I ran an Oracle BI consulting practice post-acquisition with the added pleasure of learning from then Oracle Executive Vice President of Sales Keith Block. Under his tutelage, I learned the nuances of Enterprise Solution Sales at Oracle. I then learned marketing and SAAS at Adobe, and successfully led the startup to scale-up challenges at Marketo. My journey led me to recognize critical gap patterns in growth-driven technology startups, prompting me to become an entrepreneur of a startup accelerator Tigon Advisory.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

I started Tigon Advisory because I saw many companies — from start-ups to large enterprise — making the same mistakes. I felt there was a better way to scale organizations if they could torch the gaps, thereby growing more swiftly and delivering a better customer experience and company culture, both of which I am very passionate about.

My journey began in my youth. I grew up as the youngest and only girl in a house with nine boys in a small town outside of Beijing, China. Being raised in a culture where males are revered taught me resilience and gave me a strong sense of courage to take on big challenges and not give up.

Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with your business? Can you share a story with us?

I admire my grandmother the most. She raised me along with nine cousins. Being the only girl and youngest, grandma made sure I grew up strong. As a role model, she taught me the value of hard-work, straight talk and being kind. I broke down when grandma passed away. Grandma’s last words to me were: “Stay special, make the world proud and spread my ashes to a tall mountain.” That’s why I set out on a mission to climb Mt. Everest base camp and carried her ashes there. I applied lessons learned through my climbing experience to my life’s work and broke through many challenges. Her spirit helped me start my journey with my business.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Tigon Advisory drives growth for the largest technology companies in the world. We are the only strategic advisory firm that addresses five essential disconnects: The Product/Market Fit Gap, the Define-Minimum Repeatability Gap, the Customer Voice Gap, the Process Gap and the Measurement Gap. Our tagline: Start-ups, Cure Your Disconnects.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Social responsibility and strengthening the tech ecosystem through community and collaboration is extremely important to me. Every year on my birthday, I volunteer my time to make a difference. In 2019, that meant donating my time to speaking at 1871, a tech startup accelerator in the heart of Chicago. I celebrated being another year older by leading a hands-on workshop for tech founders. I also find great inspiration in the wonders of natures by biking, hiking, mountain climbing and scaling ice glaciers. speaking at conferences and seeking the right-fit board of director role also occupies my time because both are ways to lend the value of my unique experiences for the good of others.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Curiosity, Grit, and being a risk taker are three-character traits most instrumental to my journey. I started my career as an accountant and financial analyst. My curiosity and learning agility got me where I am today. I learned to code as a Hyperion consultant, and went on to design and implement 400+ financial planning applications working alongside CFOs. Then, I ran an Oracle BI consulting practice post-acquisition with the added pleasure of learning from then Oracle Executive Vice President of Sales Keith Block. Under his tutelage, I learned the nuances of Enterprise Solution Sales at Oracle. I then learned marketing and SAAS at Adobe, and successfully led the startup to scale-up challenges at Marketo. My journey led me to recognize critical gap patterns in growth-driven technology startups, prompting me to become an entrepreneur of a startup accelerator.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

Being raised by grandmother who always put others interest ahead of hers, I have been a giver my entire life. I wish I knew that sometimes you could be taken advantage of as a giver. Although I never regret of being a giver.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

The most significant barrier in my career as a female leader is rejections and being stereotyped. I was sent to “Women Unlimited” by Adobe. I left Adobe right after I graduated from the program. I volunteered to go back to the group to share my experience and was rejected and was told that I was “unfit” by the group leader in Chicago. “Unfit” is sometimes the code for trailblazers. I decided to mentor and coach other “unfit” female leaders since then and take the pride in seeing their success over the years.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?

When I face challenges as a leader, I focus on understanding why the challenge exists, root cause of the challenge, what it takes to overcome the challenge and then work to solve the challenge. I sometimes reach out to others who have faced similar challenges to seek advice. The journey to overcome challenges and learning how to prevent them from happening encourages me the most.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy, and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

People generally have a hard time understanding the demands of being a founder. Find an advisor, a thought partner, or someone to seek best practices with. Build a community. Making time for your family and making time for yourself is critical. The pile of unfinished work will never go away. The demand on you will not evaporate. There will always be one more thing to do or one more person to call. Reading, hobbies, exercise, volunteering in your community, mentoring others at local innovation centers are all ways to ride the emotional highs and low of being a founder.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

Bootstrapping refers to starting a company with money on hand without seeking external funding. Raising funding, is when you seek out investors from Venture Capital to invest money in your company. These investors provide you with capital in exchange for equity. Here is a comparison:

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.

The biggest challenge for startup is the need to reprioritize what matters and accomplish operational must-dos with fewer resources and limited budget. As startups turn idea into product, product to market and market to scale, here are the 5 disconnects they need to conquer to accelerate growth:

1. Product/Market Disconnect. Early miscalculations often result in products mismatched to market demand. The match must be perfect. “Slightly off” is still off.
2. The “Define-Minimum” disconnect. To be at least minimally viable, a product must be marketable — not evidence of technical prowess too impractical to sell. Figure out what your minimum viable product, minimum viable team and minimum viable repeatability will help you make your vision marketable.
3. The Customer Voice disconnect. Customers will tell you what they want. But you’ve got to leave the “lab” and listen, or have someone who does; someone who knows what to listen for.
4. The Process Disconnect. It’s all about “The Process,” says Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid — the steps you take to systematize success. What’s true for a layup is true for a start-up. Success depends on establishing processes to make it repeatable
5. The Measurement Disconnect. How to measure each function’s performance so that “success” is defined consistently across your company? There’s a science to it. It takes more than enterprise logos to turn a start-up into a scale-up.

You must refresh strategy, processes and procedures accordingly as your goal evolves. Knowing why you are on the startup journey, where you are going, whom is going with you, acuminate to the voice of your customers, tracking and measuring progress along the way will be critical.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

The most common mistakes I have seen CEOs and founders make is their blind spots on the growth disconnects — those broken or weakened links barring a company from moving forward. This might be turning a blind eye to an unhealthy work culture or an over-emphasis on policy over customer experience or targeting too large of an audience. Identifying the product market fit disconnect, define minimum viable disconnect; the voice of customer disconnect, process and measurement disconnect and finding experience Sherpa to guide you how to overcome these disconnects will get you on the right path.

Startup founders often work extremely long hours and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?

As founders, we are passionate about what we do. However, when we love our work more than ourselves, we put the company, our family and ourselves at risk. It is important to take a break and preserve your energy. Stepping back, reflecting, and setting up the right example for other matters. Being exhausted will not help you solve the problem or live your purpose. Being overwhelmed leads to burnout, and burnout keeps you from reaching the summit. Taking an hour out of each day to give you “think time” will create mind space to make your day much more productive. You can start with 15 minutes a day and keep adding time incrementally until you make it a habbit.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I am a firm believer that growth thrives at the intersection of technology and humanity. Gaining additional Knowledge that allows us to serve the better good of the society is the most powerful way of advancing humanity. Imagine if each of us starts to learn something new each week, we track the progress, tag someone with the expertise as our mentor, identify someone else as our mentee, and sponsor our mentee to advance with their career.

We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Melinda Gate is someone I’d love to meet and have lunch with some day. has made women’s empowerment a priority at the foundation and her company. We have shared passion and purpose.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Here are a few ways to find me:

1. Website: tigonadvisory@gmail.com
2. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tigonhyu/
3. Twitter: @YuHelenYu

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!