Validating the startup clichés
from growth hacking to failing fast.
I’ve been holding off from the obligatory “what I’ve learned at a startup” post as there’s a lot of them out there. I felt that the cliches I originally met with skepticism though, like many others yet to embark on a startup journey have been confirmed as true valuable insight and should be shared. So here’s some of my experiences with them so far.
You think you know…
Embrace Failure.
Yep, the oldest cliche in the startup manual. Failing hard and fast might seem like weird advice to anyone new to being involved in a startup and no one is saying you should intentionally fail, but when you do (and you will) just see it for what it is — a lesson learnt. There are two reasons that you’ll end up inevitably conceding a few own goals in the startup game; rookie mistakes and innovation.
Mistakes: We all start somewhere, for me it’s Yudoozy. Surrounding yourself with good experienced advisors that you trust is so key but there is no foolproof playbook to your specific product, market and tackling the unique problems you’ll face getting traction, raising investment, etc. so you will make mistakes, especially if you’re a small team of cofounders. Be it a glaringly obvious typo on a major email release or implementing a new feature based off of flawed data, there’s no substitute for very publicly fucking up in spectacular fashion. Learn from it and move on, you’re human and that’s a good thing. If you’re not looking back at last year, or even last week thinking ‘If only I knew then what I know now’ then you’re not doing it right.
Innovation: If you’re not failing or even risking failure, then you’re not innovating — It’s as simple as that.
Growth hack everything.
The mere mention of the term ‘growth hack’ seems to stir a rage in some people. It’s overused and the backlash is crazy but it’s also a set of tactics and a mindset that can be critical to reach that elusive hockey stick. If all those buzz words in one sentence didn’t make you sick in your mouth then read on. It’s not just A/B testing a landing page, it’s embracing experimentation and using the tools you have at your disposal right from the start to drive more sign ups or conversions and find a sustainable channel. We all know the examples of dropbox, hotmail etc (google growth hacking if not) but conversion led marketing and tracking everything to better understand what works for your business will make a difference and for an early stage startup looking for traction, even the slightest benefit can be pivotal. You can experiment and test everything. Make hypotheses, test them out and see what happens. The problem is people waste time on the wrong channel or trying to implement growth hacks they have read about before their product is ready for it. The only way you’ll find what works for your business is to start testing out some ideas. We constantly test out new ideas and channels for acquisition, some work and some don’t.
The MVP.
Lean Startup stipulates to get your minimum viable product out there quickly and track how users interact then iterate fast until you’ve got your product. While I do think taking a design thinking approach to understanding your target users first is helpful to define what to test, you really won’t learn at the rapid rate you can do when your product is in the hands of the user. There are always things you can tweak and add and design you can improve on but this cycle can be never ending. Just get it out the door and improve from the feedback and data. Endless amounts of user testing and prototypes were great, but it was only when we released it into the wild that the fun began. It’s scary as shit too! But just move fast.
The below gif perfectly sums up watching a user interact with your product for the first time.
Hustle.
You might think having an awesome product and a defined job role is enough to get you success, but it’s not. You’re required to get your hands dirty in every aspect of the business and by far the biggest is selling it. We’ve got a pretty well mapped out growth strategy that’s working and now we’re picking up a steady flow of clients but the initial few were tough and when your limited marketing budget ($0.00) is running dry, you have to keep the numbers coming in! So much so that I spent days on end manually searching and inviting potential users through LinkedIn to join the product. It was soul destroying but we gained around an extra 20% of conversions. #WINNING.
The struggle is REAL.
This is probably the most talked about and truest cliche — it’s tough. It can be mentally and emotionally draining with even the smallest of constructive criticism making you want to lay on the floor and reflect on life choices for the rest of day but you love it, right? Because if you didn’t love it you’d quit because you’re sane.
“People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up. And that’s what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up being “successful” in the eyes of the society and the ones that didn’t, oftentimes it’s the ones who were successful loved what they did, so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didn’t love it quit because they’re sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don’t love it? So it’s a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of worrying constantly and if you don’t love it, you’re going to fail.” — Steve Jobs
Similar experiences? Let me know your thoughts and feel free to share comments on the above.
