Value of Peers
Fundraising, hiring, and marketing are all challenges, especially to first time entrepreneurs. However, many others have gone through what you’re going through. Entrepreneurs are told to avoid making the same mistake. However, the reality is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Believe it or not, 12 months ago, I didn’t know how a board functioned. 8 months ago, I didn’t know the best way to structure a sales compensation structure. 3 months ago, I didn’t know that a simple dashboard could increase transparency in the entire company.
Your first line of defence will always be people inside the business. Your team has all of the information at hand, but may lack the expertise to solve a particular problem. This is where hiring comes to play, but that’s a topic for another day. Your second line of defence is your board. Your board members have access to all of the key data to give you strategic advice. Much could be said about choosing your board member wisely, but again, that’s a topic for another day. Mentors and advisors are great, especially if they can connect you strategically. However, imagine if you only had 15 minutes of time to look over all the metrics and recent updates of a company, how would you be able to give detailed advice? Unless you have advisors who are very involved, it becomes hard for advisors to give operational advice when there are so many variables at play.
The best operational advice comes from people who are just a little bit ahead of you. Recently, I was asked to give advice on getting initial traction with a minimal viable product. After hearing my self speak, I realized the advice I gave was too high level and not operational enough. Sure, there are some nuggets here and there, but overall, it served more as an inspirational talk rather than advice. I asked myself how could this be. After all, I was in their shoes at one point. I’ve been on the other side listening to these kinds of talks as well. It’s just too high level. Suddenly, I made the connection. In the early years of building a company, time seems compressed because events happen so fast. You could be scrapping a new feature today and changing your sales funnel tomorrow. Many people call this “startup time”. A lot has happened since founding Chalk.com and the details fade away with time. This is why operational advice comes best from other entrepreneurs who are just 6–12 months ahead of you. In other words, your peers may just have the most relevant operational advice for you.
A peer network of entrepreneurs who are just a little ahead of you can be very impactful. Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster of emotions. There are challenges left and right for you to deal with. Although your peers may have gone through these challenges a while ago, they know how it felt — whether it’s challenging, exhilarating, or frustrating. It’s often hard for entrepreneurs to open up, but with a few trusted peers, this could be the difference between severe depression and smashing success. You peer network can also provide you with some healthy competition. I’m not talking about actual competing products here. Rather, peers who are ahead of you can be seen as role models for you to compete with. Ideally, you can learn from them to make less mistakes. This makes you strive to do better and maybe even shorten the experience gap. In the end, the relationship should also be bi-directional where you can provide some value as well.
I’ve learned a ton from my peers. Friends like Devon Galloway from Vidyard and Tim Hwang from FiscalNote have given me a lot of operational insights. Whether it’s about governance board, sales process, or culture on transparency, there will be someone in my peer network who has just gone through it. With any network, you get what you put into it. Your peers are one of your greatest assets.
Originally published on July 20, 2015.
