Your Startup Is Like A Wet Paper Sack
Unless you abide by this lesson from New Orleans.
I’m currently attending the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. It’s a citywide expo featuring a number of pitch competitions, keynote speakers, panels, and networking. So far it’s been a good trip.
The pitch competitions are my favorite events. Over all, I’ve been very impressed by the quality of entrepreneurs participating. Multiple times this week, I have listened to pitches beginning to re-evaluate how I am approaching my own business and products. I start to rethink fundamental facets of my gameplan.
In some circumstances this is healthy. But there is a broad, gray, blurred line between taking advice, and falling away from your principles.
If I took every bit of advice I’ve gotten over the past 3 years, or even these past 3 days, my business would be in a stalemate — a no man’s land.
I would be moving completely still because of the various strings pulling me in different directions.
And I wouldn’t be the only one.
I’m not saying the advice given and lessons learned this week are wrong. I am saying that some, often good, advice is contradictory to others.
I have taken a good amount of time over the past 3 months to document principles that I find to be true in startupland. These are principles that I believe in; that work for me and my personality.
Me: I believe in speed-to-market.
Get the car moving. It’s easier to steer it that way. Lay out a list of hypotheses that you have about human behavior and how it will interact with your solution. Set metrics that define whether or not that particular hypothesis is validated.
(I love talking to other startups about this principle, by the way. If you’d be interested in me helping you develop your go-to-market or scaling strategy, I’d love to chat — email me at tristan@tarpleyholdings.com).
Startups this week:
“We’ve been working on our product market fit for a year since we finished MVP development. We have 3 paying beta users. We need your capital to finish beta testing and launch regionally.”
Me: I believe in launching before you’re ready.
“If you’re not embarrassed by your first release, you launched too late.” — Reid Hoffman, and many others.
Startups this week:
“Our 3 beta users have been with us for the last year, and they’re so excited for us to launch in 6 months when we finish our product!”
Me: I don’t believe in surveys.
“80% of college kids said that they would buy my product!”
Did they open their wallet?
Which leads me to another principle…
Startups this week:
“80% of college kids said that they would buy my product!”
Me: I believe in getting substantial revenue from day one.
All financial projections are educated guesses until you have real money in a bank account, and are paying real expenses with said money.
Startups this week:
“We’re pre-revenue.”
Those work for me. They might not work for you. I’m not saying you need to abide by these principles in order for your business to work. Clearly there are examples of each approach working.
All of those principles sound good. No, you shouldn’t completely build the plane on the way up. Yes, pre-revenue startups can sometimes get higher valuations. No, you shouldn’t release a half-baked product.
But you won’t know where you fall in coordination with those principles, unless you have a defined set of principles that you abide by.
And principles are useless without application.
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