Startups Anyone read John Maxwell's "360 Degree Leader"? It's about how to lead up, across, and down any given competence hierarchy; I've summarized it here. |
- Anyone read John Maxwell's "360 Degree Leader"? It's about how to lead up, across, and down any given competence hierarchy; I've summarized it here.
- A question for startup owners with experience: How did you find people for you team?
- Advice and help required on making business reports
- If a founder were to leave a Series B company that’s raised $50M in funding today, or in three years, how much (if any) money would they be able to leave with?
- How Past Experience Gave Me a Cause to Startup
- Looking at different user payment models
| Posted: 02 Oct 2018 06:26 PM PDT This is a transcript for a video I recorded, so please forgive any grammar issues :). A bit about John C Maxwell - he's known as America's expert on leadership and communicates his principles to Fortune 500 companies, the US military academy at west point, and even sports organizations like NCAA, NBA, NFL. He knows his stuff. The reason this book is called 360 degree leader is because John believes the most effective leaders are able to lead up, lead across, and lead down. Leading up is the process of influencing above you in any given competence hierarchy by making their life easier by taking something off their plate that nobody else wants to take, for example. Leading across is when you lead your peers - people at the same level within whatever competence hierarchy you're in. And leading down is when you help people below your level within any given competence hierarchy realize their potential and encourage others to discover their higher purpose - their why. Which is really the gist of the book "start with why" - don't just pursue measurable, externally manufactured targets, pursue a purpose from within the depths of you and whatever it is that genuinely fires you up. I've mentioned competence hierarchy here and that's a term borrowed from Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who wrote the 12 Rules for Life, another book I've summarized. Part 1. The Myths of Leading From the Middle of an Organization The first section is about the relationship between your title and your ability to lead - and there is none. Leadership is a skill that you need to exercise just like when you're doing curls at the gym. And you gotta get those reps in all day bro. It's not just at work - it's all day long. In my opinion, the best leaders are the ones who are constantly scanning their position for moves to make that elevate their peers. If you pull someone up, no matter your position or title within a competence hierarchy, that's a net positive impact you've had on the world. And the bigger your gains, the stronger you become. So just look for ways to help people out! Just like how cold-approaching someone attractive on the street conditions a deep-seated inclination towards risk-taking and an openness to rejection that positively impacts every other area of your life, going out of your way to help strangers out - holding doors open, carrying heavy things for them, asking them how they're doing when they seem down - that proactive sense of good-will towards strangers, friends, and family is a great first step as far as instilling a deep-seated inclination towards pulling up your peers in any environment. You don't need to be known as a leader to lead. Your actions are the only thing that earn you that association over time. And you can improve your actions through some fun, pleasant self-guided behavioral conditioning! Part 2. The Challenges 360 Degree Leaders Face This section is about some of the challenges you may face as you attempt to exercise your leadership skills. Sometimes you may encounter tension as you stretch beyond your comfort zone and the way to mitigate that is by building genuine relationships and maintaining trust. To build genuine relationships you have to be authentic and tactfully and carefully reveal the rough edges that make you who you are - a topic discussed in another book I've summarized called Models. You also have to shield yourself against emotional instability, frustration, and impulsive, ego-driven action. This can all be approached from a holistic, lifestyle perspective - ensure that you have a solid framework set up that keeps your head straight. If you're not exercising and if you're drinking and feeling miserable all the time then your ability to consistently pull people up will be significantly reduced. You also want to operate without ego - don't promote yourself. Promote others. Publicly praise them and if you must criticize, do that privately. Your ability to truly influence is based on your reputation for success and elevating others; people want to be around people who bring them more satisfaction - whether that's in the form of clear, concise strategy, alignment to a mission beyond numbers, consistently solving difficult problems, or strong character. Part 3. The Principles 360 Degree Leaders Practice to Lead Up This section is about how you can influence the leaders above you. John talks about the importance of leading yourself. This is related to one of Jordan Peterson's rules - you want to treat yourself like you'd treat your child. You'd enable them, establish some guardrails and a lifestyle framework, discourage the bad and especially encourage and reward the good. Do that with yourself. This way you can become someone who you would follow. Teach yourself how to effectively manage your time and priorities, your emotions and energy levels. These are all things that you need to pursue deliberately; they won't just fall into place. They require effort. Good leaders notice when people continuously manage, nurture, and invest in themselves. It's also a good practice to just ask the people around you how you can help them. This isn't just for upward mobility; ask this question to everyone around you because remember, the goal here is net positive impact. And you might get the biggest chunks of positive impact from people above you, but don't discount the value of asking folks how they're doing and if they need a hand with anything, and then actually follow through with helping them. Another thing to remember is that someone above you in any competence hierarchy is likely to form the best connections with people who provide a high return on their investment in them. So you ought to prepare for meetings ahead of time, respect their time, follow through on your commitments, and empathize with their needs so you can help the organization succeed by helping its leaders succeed. If you do this consistently, the only way you'll go is up, and quickly. Part 4. The Principles 360 Degree Leaders Practice to Lead Across A quote - "Leaders must be able to lead other leaders - not just those below them, but also those above and alongside them." John explains how the leadership loop is critical - caring, learning, appreciating, contributing, verbalizing, leading, and succeeding. Ask yourself - how can I incorporate all of these things into my interactions with everyone in my life, even strangers? This is the kind of thing that I think is healthy to have printed out and hung up so you can force it into your subconscious. What I really like about this part too is that John emphasizes the importance of friendly cooperation and competition - and that means you have to actually be a friend to the people in your life. Listen to them, be available for them, find common ground, have a little fun, and reveal your rough edges to them a little. Show that you're imperfect and be vulnerable, but tactfully. You want to be wary of people who will use this to hurt you in pursuit of that low-eq growth. Engage as a friend, not as an authority, and be humble and admit your faults. This way it's not about your ideas being better because they're yours, it's about us working together to uproot and accelerate the best ideas together. John also talks about the importance of continuously exposing yourself to new people because new people bring with them new ideas and ways of thinking and living that will more likely than not somehow positively impact you. Part 5. The Principles 360 Degree Leaders Practice to Lead Down John talks about the importance of helping people realize their potential, becoming a strong role model, and encouraging others to become part of a higher purpose. To pull this off, you have to be in the weeds with the people in your life, regardless of whether they're above, below, or alongside you. Be accessible. Walk the halls. Try to create a nice balance between personal and professional interest. It's also important to really dig in and figure out what makes someone who they are, and that often lives right at the top of someone's hierarchy of needs - their need to actualize some deep component of their identity that gives them dreams and aspirations. You need to crack this open so you can discover someone's strengths, interests, and passions and align their responsibilities accordingly. Also important is the ability to inspire by communicating a vision - and this means you need to be able to concisely communicate a mission that connects with the past, present, and future - not just the short-term future. John also talks about the importance of praise. This applies not just to leading down but even personal and intimate relationships. If someone in your life does something that you know to be good - praise them! Articulate that you see what they did, how much effort and thought it took, and why it was such a good thing to do. "Whatever action leaders reward will be repeated." Part 6. The Value of 360 Degree Leaders John wraps up by emphasizing the importance of becoming a well-rounded, 360 degree leader. Tomorrow's leaders are the ones who will decide whether or not we sacrifice social or environmental health in the name of short-term profits. They decide whether or not to lobby the government to impose restrictions on free speech, freedom of information, or sustainable energy and automation. They're the ones who decide between squashing competition at the cost of their ethos, or embracing and encouraging competition in the name of social progress. They're the ones who decide whether or not to invest in their children, leading by example to show them how to become tomorrow's Elon Musk. That's about it for John Maxwell's The 360 degree leader. As far as my impressions of the book - get it. Read it. Reread it. You'll become a better employee, entrepreneur, partner, parent, and friend. Guaranteed. My only complaint about the book is that it really limits its scope to organizations where I think a bit of emphasis on the fact that this stuff applies just as much, if not more outside of the workplace, could have pulled it up from an A+ read to an A++ read. As far as the book's impressions on me - it's a huge dose of encouragement to double down on the path that I'm on right now. I'm trying to figure out my place in life and what makes me happy and how to build a spiritually sustainable lifestyle and I'm falling in love with this whole cycle of learn > grow > teach. I can feel my mind sort of evolving and I think the reason it's so satisfying to be doing this stuff is because of the things John says - elevating others is just the right thing to do and everyone stands to gain from it. In a professional context, I actually sent a transcript of this book summary off to my boss. He's the one who suggested that I read this and I figure it's probably been a minute since he picked it up, so in the name of helping someone out who's above me in my professional competence hierarchy, I figured why not. It would take a lunch break to read, shows him that I'm interested in continuous growth, and gives him a solid return on the investment he made in the form of meeting with me last week. I also opened up a bit to him and shared a bit about my newfound passion for learning and teaching others, and we had a great conversation about the ways in which I might be able to integrate that into my work. /fin [link] [comments]  |
| A question for startup owners with experience: How did you find people for you team? Posted: 02 Oct 2018 04:52 AM PDT It's a well known fact that you shouldn't hire relatives or very close friends. I have some ideas, mostly for softwares, I have my plan for realisation and my work process is moving on rapidly. But the missing piece of my plan is the team. There is no way to succseed without people on your back. I can do much of the work, but like every normal man, I will burn out. Other question that is on my mind is which niche requires a big organised team and which can be done by a small team (arround 4-5 people). I want to improve some niches that we already have with my future team. So what's the way? Making announcements, speaking with many people or just praying to meet the right ones? [link] [comments]  |
| Advice and help required on making business reports Posted: 03 Oct 2018 02:31 AM PDT So, I am a new guy in the startup town. Still in the 'figuring-out' stage to start a business. I don't mean to take the company world-wide. Just want to start a manufacturing and design services company which would serve companies like OEMs or other manufacturers locally. I am looking for funding and whilst doing that I visited a bank for a loan and I was told to make a project report and a business plan for the same. Any kind of help would be great! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Oct 2018 11:08 PM PDT A coworker's brother mentioned offhand that if he cashed out of his startup that he founded today, he could leave with a good sum of money. I'm curious what that actually means - and if a founder's stake is worth anything if the company is still relatively early stages. Would anyone here have insight to satisfy my nosy curiosity? What I know is: -The company is five years old -They have 50 employees -There are two founders in the company -The company has raised a total of $50M in Series B (and prior) funding from investors -The company is profitable but not excessively so I'm not sure how much equity the founders have left per person but I assume it's standard. If someone were to cash out of this startup, now or in three years, how much money would they make? What does it mean to quit a reasonably up and coming startup as a founder financially? [link] [comments]  |
| How Past Experience Gave Me a Cause to Startup Posted: 02 Oct 2018 06:09 PM PDT Hi Redditors, as many of you know, entrepreneurship is tough. It is especially tough when there is no clear cause for doing so and the only motive is to make money. I would just like to share a story of how my past experience gave me a just cause for my startup project. But before I got to the actual content, please allow me to just share the idea so the rest will make more sense:
Now to the story... My family moved to Canada back in 1995 through the Immigration Investment Program. The main requirement for this was to invest and own a business in Canada for a period of time. We ended up buying a small photo finishing store a city around Toronto, Canada. I witnessed the hard work they put into every photo film and always strives for the truest colors of each image. They would actually throw out an entire set if the color was a bit off. They took pride in their work and services. But it was a very tough business to be in. In fact, we were losing $3–5,000 a month running that place. On top of the rent, utilities, and inventory, we also had an old photofinishing machine that was worn out and costed a fortune to fix. They were left with little-to-no money for advertisement and marketing. The lack of growth was slowly killing the business. The overwhelming stress even caused my mom to faint a few times. The financial stress was really caused by low revenue, which resulted from a lack of exposure and traffic from the community. Even though the store had been there for a few years, very little people knew of us. The bigger franchises were often the top choices for people. They had more marketing dollars to be on TV, magazine, and radio. They had the budget to work with postal offices to distribute flyers and coupons. They were well known and popular. Trying to take their businesses meant we had to drop our prices even further, which made things even worse. This went on for about 3 years and we sold the business as soon as we met the immigration requirement. It was just not a sustainable investment. If only there were easier ways for others in the community to see the quality and heart that my parents put into their work… Well, that thought stayed with me. After 20 years, even in the days of social media and everyone being more connected than ever, the same lack of exposure problem still exist for small businesses. It has motivated me to pursue a career in marketing. In fact, experiencing the problem first hand became my cause for the my startup project. Thanks for reading! -------------------------------------------------------------- Original content came from -> https://theascent.pub/how-past-experience-gave-me-a-cause-to-startup-4ad39bf70ac8 [link] [comments]  |
| Looking at different user payment models Posted: 01 Oct 2018 08:52 PM PDT I'm considering using the kind of credits model found on stock photography sites. My product is a data platform that allows people to buy various bundled insights from that data relevant to them. To that end, I have been considering using a credits model where users purchase a set number of credits instead of purchasing items direct with cash. My problem is that the cons on my list against doing this are all hypothetical, as I have not done this kind of payment model before. I'd love to hear from anyone on this sub who has done such a model and what was good vs bad, and whether if having a do over they would use it again. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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