3 Things I Learned Working With Early-Stage Startups

Georgios Chasiotis

Published in

Marketing And Growth Hacking

4 min readApr 19, 2019

Working with early-stage startups is not easy — regardless if a VC backs them or they are bootstrapped.

Of course, you didn’t expect me to tell you that.

You already know it since you’ve previously worked for a startup or got hired by one as a vendor.

I fall in the second category.

What I’ve learned?

Here are 3 key lessons that I hope will save you both time and resources:

“Help the Captain Steer the Ship”

A couple of weeks ago, while listening to a podcast on my way to the office, I heard the following parallelism:

“Big companies are like these big cruise ships, and typically startups are speedboats.
A speedboat can go 360° really quickly; a cruise ship takes a very long time to adjust their sail and movement in a different direction.”

Note: The podcast was “The Side Hustle Show,” and the guest was Ross Simonds.

I agree with this 100%.

Most of the times, startups need to (and can) make quick decisions and change their strategy to find a product-market fit or scale.

However, sometimes, the “captain” — the founder and CEO — is NOT willing to steer the ship to a different direction.

What can you do as a vendor?

Help the founder take the right decision by using data and facts to support your opinion.

A startup is a speedboat indeed, and as a speedboat, it has to learn and adjust fast.

Don’t Make Big Commitments

When the budget is there, you may find it easy to invest heavily in major channels.

This way, you spend your valuable time doing invaluable things. (Or at least things that you should test before investing further.)

What do I mean by that?

Very often, I see startups throwing advertising $ in channels like Facebook, just for the sake of it, and without having validated the channel first.

But, why spend so much money on a platform that you haven’t validated yet?

Here is what I suggest instead:

Set low expectations, and make a smaller commitment,
Test the channel, and when you have enough data, make a decision,
If the channel is scalable, double-down the effort and the resources spent on it.

Never make big commitments without having tested the channel first.

Trust me, if you go all in from the beginning, 9 out of 10 times you’ll not get the results you expect.

No, Testing Every Idea You Bring on the Table is NOT Cool

One of the biggest mistakes that SaaS startups do is that they test every idea they bring on the table.

But, this is the wrong approach.

You can’t test everything.

And, testing everything doesn’t mean you are going to grow.

Instead, you should start filtering the ideas you have.

Come up with a system that will allow you to evaluate and prioritize your ideas.

This way, you’ll spend your time on things that matter.

And, especially if you are an early-stage, time is valuable.

So, you have to start saying “no” to ideas.

Because, as Steve Jobs put it:

“You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

The Bottom Line?

Working with early-startups is not easy.

Helping early-startups with their marketing, development, strategic or other needs is not easy either.

In a world of constant distraction, startup founders should:

Stop being afraid to take strategic decisions (fast),
Start testing before investing further in channels that could help them grow,
Stop testing every idea they (or their team) bring on the table, before validating it first.

These are the 3 key lessons I got working with amazing early-stage startups.

I hope you find them valuable for you, your startup business or your startup clients.