Jan Fried is the U+ Managing Director in NYC. Since 2015, he has managed U+’s US market entry strategy and operations, business development, sales, and account management. If you want to build a startup with U+ in New York, Jan is the first person you’ll meet. He embodies the spirit of a fast-moving, motivated New Yorker, and his years of experience with startups on the East Coast make him versatile and attuned to shifts in the market.
Tend your garden
Grow and cultivate a strong network of close business friends and partners both online and offline. Meet, share, brainstorm, consult, and combine experiences, skills, and business opportunities leading to “triple-win” deals — a win for you, your partner and the “3rd party” — your community, market segment, and ultimately for the world we live in. That’s the goal for innovators.
Stay open to everything
Don’t limit your desire to learn new things, meet new people, and understand the foundations of the world. Analyze trends, market conditions, social behavior and the motivation of people and their problems — your customers, business partners, and investors.
Don’t believe what you’re told
Initiate constructive criticism of status-quo absurdities, not only in business, but also in the bigger picture of politics, local government, and culture. But respect other opinions, laws, and authorities, and be proactive to avoid conflicts and problems that waste your time and energy.
Pieces of a mosaic
Orchestrate a finely tuned team, balance internal pressures, understand the personal motivations and goals of every team member, and lead with vision on your mission to achieve the ultimate common goal. Talk more about your lives: your experiences and your dreams. That is what matters. That’s why you do what you do.
Genius is what surrounds you
Don’t be afraid to hire external professionals — lawyers, CPAs, PR & marketing experts, finance advisers or UX specialists — when you need an expert opinion from the field. Make sure the person cares about you and do a background check to avoid “schmucks.” Refer the good ones and do not hesitate to pay reasonably high fees for services that can save you a lot in the future. Remember, these people ultimately add value to your company, your team, and your network.
Restless testing before investing
Your product or service needs to be NYC-ready — hitting the key target group, well-communicated, and providing smart and easy-to-use solutions which make stressful lives easier and more effective, fancy, or luxurious. Be humble and aggressive, but mainly always think big to impress your potential investors with your unicorn scalability based on perfect-product due diligence and self-confidence.
Get and give back
Your investor must clearly understand the risk of the venture — and her active role as a strategic asset for the startup at the same time. Her experience, confidence, willingness to invest, risk tolerance, network, advice, and active participation shall be well-rewarded #asap #first.
Taking flight
Don’t waste your funding and think twice about the value that every dollar brings to the company. The “runway” should be enough to get you in the “flying position” — or it’s a red-flag for you and everybody involved. This might be the breaking point where you need to replace your stubbornness with humbleness and start reconsidering your strategic decisions. You just might have been wrong and need to build a longer runway. But you can’t go ask your mommy and daddy for more cash forever — prove yourself or go home.
Acting is reacting
Ask questions and be ready to listen and react to the market. Analyze what you do, collect data, learn, and keep continuous research of your market, and customers. Clearly define the dots that you are connecting. Activate your social skills and/or hire professionals to help you understand your customers and create ideas and solutions that you have not anticipated. This will help you provide better service to your customers while using the most innovative techniques and technologies.
You only live once
Your personal life, health, and happiness is more important than you think — your family, friends and communities may need you more than the audience at a pitch event every night. If it doesn’t make you happy, stop — there are many more ways to make money (if that’s what you’re looking for). If you do decide you want to be a successful innovator and fight amongst the other dragons in the Empire state, be sharp, strong, and ready to lose everything. You’ll either burn your wings and die young — or “triple-win” and take it to the next level.
Are you in NY? Get a front row seat to our U+UX Meets AI event here.
