Execute Already!

How We Went From Idea To Company In 4 Days… by @jonathanhinshaw

OK, so let’s just dive right in to this — I’ve got like 20 minutes to write this out and get this message to you because right now… I am still in execution mode! Please excuse any spelling/grammar issues :)

The Summer of Execution

When people ask me “What have you done this summer?” they are typically referring to a vacation of some sort.

So, when I tell them what I did this summer, they about fall over. I realize this will sound insane, but you’re motivated by something you love, you find the time — you make it work.

This summer I have successfully;

• Moved into a new home
• Moved into new offices (We even put 2 professional offices with 5 work stations within my home!)
• Hired 3 more full time people to work remotely
• Went to Hawaii for 2 weeks vacation
• Went to Sturgis motorcycle rally for 1 week vacation
• Personally mentored over 50 entrepreneurs and creative web professionals (1 day a week, every week)
• Made over 2,100 phone calls
• Sent over 9,000 emails (about 100 per day)
• Started CrossFit and go every day, 5 days a week!
• Created two brand new companies (2 new brands)
• Plus, I’ve been running my digital agency (ebwaycreative.com) and we grew 20% over this summer! And, I haven’t worked a weekend yet (aside from maybe 1–2 hours of a Saturday morning here and there and a couple all nighters.)

What did you do this summer?

I don’t ask that to rub this into your face. I just want to put it out there that I’ve done a ton of execution this summer.

And, I’ve learned from the best of the best about how to stop stalling and make things happen. If I can do this, you can too.

“But Jonathan, I have a family!” — No shit! So do I.

In fact, I’ve got a wife, 13 year old boy, 3 dogs, 2 horses and a cat. I get it — but it doesn’t stop me from getting shit done.

I spend time with my family (my wife and I work together and we even do CrossFit together) and I take care of all the animals and still maintain a constant state of EXECUTION.

My 4 Phases of Execution!

While everyone else is stuck on logos, content, market research and whatever mathematical mind trip they are wasting their time on — I just start doing shit that I love and making things happen.

Keep in mind, I don’t do “business plans” and all that brain damage when I start out on a new company. That crap is for later on. I only need to do a quick Lean Canvas (see an example of a Lean Canvas here, courtesy of my partners over at ugurus.com — it’s from a $10K Bootcamp course that I’m a mentor for.)

For me, creating a company happens in 4 phases:
(1) Qualify (2) Startup, (3) Ramp-up, (4) Scale

Phase 1: Qualification

On a Wednesday afternoon I picked up the phone to call a business owner / partner of mine (one of the smartest guys I know) and pitch him my idea for a new startup.

We talked for about 45 minutes as I gave him the 20,000ft view and he said “Sounds interesting, let me think for a minute and then call you back in 30–45 minutes.”

Behind the scenes, here is our thought process:

1. Do we like each other?
2. Are we equally yoked? (Do we have the same ethics, morals, belief system etc? This is another story but, if you get it, you get it.)
3. Is there an opportunity to make cash now? (Is there a need/problem in the market that we can solve now?)
4. Have we identified a large enough problem/pain point within the marketplace to bring in a solution people will pay money for?

Fifteen minutes later the phone rang and the answer was “OK Jon, I’m in. What are we going to call this new company?” — Done, let’s rock and roll!

If the answer to all these questions is yes, and it was — then you move forward. Once we decided it was a good idea and that we wanted to partner up, we were ready to start the Ramp Up phase.

Now, the #1 thing people get stuck on is branding. Whether it’s the website, logo, language, whatever — this is always the area of contention and frustration. Stop getting stuck here!

The simple fact of the matter is that you can re-brand in 90 days if your company is working well on a trajectory that looks promising.

So the goal at first is to just go out and get the easy stuff done so you can start selling.

Phase 2: Startup

DAY ONE

• Name: After a 2 hour brain storming session on Skype, we came up with a name. Purchased the domain, and called it done.
• UVP (Unique Value Prop): We went through what we call a Lean Canvas and discovered what our Value Proposition was, who we were targeting and what their biggest pain was — in their (our target audience) own language.
• Brand: We went with simple and professional. One revision to change the color and done. (we had our designer mock it up and within 4 hours he came back with the final version, we changed the color 1 time and moved on.)
• LLC: We crafted a simple NDA and had a verbal agreement. Went to inkfile.com and grabbed our LLC. (I took 51% of the company, my partner took 49% — why? Because someone has to be the CEO, you can’t have 2 CEOs. It’s not ego, it’s business.)

Now that we had a brand and paperwork on the way — we could switch our focus to the marketing stuff!

We had 4–5 days until the LLC paper work came back, so we couldn’t setup a bank account yet. But, we could prepare and get ready to put money in that account as soon as possible. So that’s exactly what we did.

DAY TWO & THREE

• Website: I know what you’re thinking… Landing Page? — Nope! We created a 5 page website with content, imagery and full featured eCommerce store with ordering process and auto-responders.
• SlideDeck: We needed a sales deck so we created an amazing slide deck for our first opportunity. Which we had already targeted!
• Video: We created a simple video, a draft of what we wanted to say. In the end, we decided not to use the first video because we fell in love with the slide deck, but it’s there if we ever need it. In truth, creating the video helped me work on our language, it was a great sales exercise!

DAY FOUR

• Process, Process, Process: We created a Basecamp account internally and outlined every single process we needed to run this company. From on-boarding to account management to sales. We even created a checklist for the checklist. No process = no company!
• Technology: Signed up for a new Google Apps account to create emails and notifications. Signed up for Stipe and GetResponse and set it all up. This was the night me and my partner + 2 others stayed up until about 1:30 in the morning. That was the only late night.

THAT’S IT!
In only four days we went from IDEA to COMPANY!

Now, it’s on the next phases of company development.

Phase 3: Ramp-Up

DAY 5–90

We’ve just entered this stage.

It took about a week and lots of calls, but we have presentations scheduled right now with a hand full of targeted and qualified leads and marketplace champions that we want to partner with and create affiliate agreements with.

All we have to do now is present our solution, on-board some affiliate partners and create our network and basically start our marketing / sales campaign(s).

This is critical to note: Day #5 (day 1 was idea) we got a call from a possible high value partner company that had a need for our solution right then. If we hadn’t done all that setup work, we would have missed a huge opportunity that opens the door to over 3,000 customers right now!

Day #7

It’s important to mention that we just now got the paperwork back and I rushed to the mail, grabbed it — ran to the bank and created a bank account so that I could turn on Stripe and PayPal and get the eCommerce part of the site working.

Prior to the banking info, we decided to just take checks and deposit them once the bank account was ready. No problem.

Don’t let problems stop you from executing.
Work on solutions, instead of worrying about problems.

Today, I’m walking to bank to setup a bank account that I have checks to deposit into. How’s that for EXECUTION!

We will spend the next 90 days dedicated to building this company. At the end of 90-days we’ll review it’s trajectory and see if we’re on target, or not.

The Ramp-up Decision Point

At the end of 90 days we are either working or we’re not. So far, it looks good. Once the model has proven itself and we have 90 days of running this company under our belt we’ll ask ourselves these questions…

• Are we on track to generating our target revenue goals?
• Should we re-brand? (logo, website, videos, etc)
• Who do we need to hire to scale?

Zig Ziglar said it best when he said “A plane takes off from Dallas headed to Denver and mid way they hit massive turbulence. What do they do? Do they turn around, go back to Dallas and then re-take off and try it again? NO! They adjust their course. It’s never a straight line. The entire flight is full of little, sometimes large course corrections.”

Often times people give up at this point right here. The moment something looks it’s getting hard, tough, not working — they give up and try and start over. In reality, a minor course correction can mean the difference from failure and massive success.

When the going gets tough — don’t give up on your idea, make it better.

Phase 4: Scale

DAY 90+

This is the phase that excites me, but I’m not even worried about it right now. We’re going to learn and improve so many things over the next 90 days that to allow this to take up brain space now would be cheating myself. And, it’s a waste of valuable time!

We’ll get there in 90 days and then, we’ll scale. Right now — we’re in RAMP UP mode.

The Harder I Work, The Luckier I Get

The moral of this little story is to hopefully push others to follow me lead. The truth is, the harder I work, the luckier I get. When you’re out there creating things, things happen.

Businesses are not built from behind a computer screen, they are built on relationships. Simply put, the more conversations you have, the more sales you make.

We didn’t have time to waste — we needed to get this done. In fact, during this process, my busienss partners wife gave birth to a baby girl! The point is, we both had stuff going on. We both have families, lives, hobbies, etc. Just like you. So, if we can do this — you can too!

If you’ve got an idea for a company or have a company you’re trying to grow — get out there and make shit happen. Stop stalling and getting stuck on the easy stuff. Get that stuff done and start making your mark. This is not as hard as you think it is. We make it hard.

Push through, and get shit done.
That’s today’s message.

The 2 companies we created are live now, but I don’t want to use this platform as a plug tool. I just wanted to give you some solid information! If you’re curious — hit me up on twitter @jonathanhinshaw :)