Startup Advice

Both True: “The customer is always right” and “The audience doesn’t know what they want”

Your probability of winning a hand always depends on having multiple ways to win.

I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of ads trying to sell you the greatest new tactics to get more customers, make more sales, and earn a bazillion dollars while you sleep. 

The problem with most of these ads is that they’re selling you recycled tactics with new catchy names pulling you away from your goals. 

I say this because tactics without a... See more

It can help to reverse the polarity of our relationship with new ideas. We often treat them with reverence; before long, confirmation bias sets in and we begin looking for reasons why they will succeed and ignoring evidence suggesting they might fail. A common failure mode is to jump on the first idea and get started—this is probably the worst... See more

One of the best ways to introduce a sense of urgency is to create a series of forcing functions: deadlines, milestones and goals with clearly-defined objectives,” Palan writes in a Medium article about the experience. “TechCrunch Disrupt was just the forcing function we needed. It forced us to tackle many of the things we’d been postponing. We... See more

When you’re an early stage startup, your most important job is to get clarity on what you’re building. When your product is buggy and low quality and the first mile of the product is ignored (the welcome/tour, the onboarding, the explanatory copy, the empty states), you won’t know if the poor retention numbers are due to a bad product or a bad... See more

People act like having a startup fail is the worst thing that can happen to you. And man, that's not even in the top 10. It's bad, I've done it, it's awful. It's really bad, but far worse is to be in a company that won't die, a zombie, undead company that you hate, but you can't leave. Oof, have I met people like that, and we're having a mental... See more