A Quote by Justin Kan
It helps tremendously to have operating startup experience when advising startups. It is much easier to tell people how to talk to customers, build product, manage an engineering team, raise money from investors, and talk to press when you've done it before yourself.
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If you have a strong business idea, then it is comparatively easy now to get capital. It is a positive thing that increasingly more people want to join the startup bandwagon. However, to build a successful business, focus on creating more value through the product, and direct your efforts on solving real issues. If you manage to build a sustainable product, revenue will follow. A lot of startups fail because they concentrate on incremental innovations, increasing user base, and monetisation before strengthening the core of their business.
Because startups often accidentally build something nobody wants, it doesn’t matter much if they do it on time and on budget. The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build - the thing customers want and will pay for - as quickly as possible.
It is easier to talk about money -- and much easier to talk about sex -- than it is to talk about power. People who have it deny it; people who want it do not want to appear to hunger for it; and people who engage in its machinations do so secretly.
The thing about startups is you can make it, and if it's wrong you can remake it, and you can build a team that you want to have, a product that you want to have. You're utterly focused on your users or your customers and their needs, and trying to figure out how to meet those needs.
When I started to go out there and listen to different startups or different CEOs talk about how you build this company from a two-person team to a team of 500, I really just stepped back and was like, 'Well, it's not necessarily a business, but football has a lot of similarities to that.'
Too many companies believe that all they must do is provide a 'neat' technology or some 'cool' product or, sometimes, just good, solid engineering. Nope. All of those are desirable (and solid engineering is a must), but there is much more to a successful product than that: understanding how the product is to be used, design, engineering, positioning, marketing, branding-all matter. It requires designing the Total User Experience.
Power is America's last dirty word. It is easier to talk about money - and much easier to talk about sex - than it is to talk about power.
When you're playing in a good team where you're confident in yourself and your team-mates, when you've done the business before, it makes it so much easier.
Interesting thing that is happening in American society is that people are starting to talk about money. I don't know how you feel about this, but for a long time, nobody was talking about money. It was a secret. And it's kind of very interesting because we do lots of stuff to portray to people about how much money we have, the clothes we wear and the cars we have and the house - they all kind of depict to other people, signal how much money we make, but we don't talk about it specifically.
When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.
With tech startups, it's all loose-goosie. You raise money as you go, often from friends, family and investors.
The most common way customer financing is done is you sell the customer on the product before you've built it or before you've finished it. The customer puts up the money to build the product or finish the product and becomes your first customer. Usually the customer simply wants the product and nothing more.
In the startup work environment, you get to have a relationship with your boss, the investors, and the key members of the team. Startups are like families - you see the good, the bad and the ugly, but in the end, you've got each other's back.
It is one thing to talk about fundraising and another to do it as a candidate, and I have learned so much about how much money it costs to run a campaign and what it means to raise money.
People talk about how you make team spirit - is it golf days or going out drinking together? That doesn't count. When you drink, you just tell lies to each other anyway and talk rubbish.
I think one of the things people don't understand is we can build more shareholder value by lowering product prices than we can by trying to raise margins. It's a more patient approach, but we think it leads to a stronger, healthier company. It also serves customers much, much better.
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