Startups When someone says they work “80 hour weeks”, what does this actually mean? |
- When someone says they work “80 hour weeks”, what does this actually mean?
- 16 Inspiring Lessons from the 7 Best Negotiators in the World
- Isn’t customer dev / lean startup obvious?
- Question about the early days at Nike. (Shoe Dog)
- In which country would you create your tech company : European Union, USA, Switzerland, Singapore, Pacific Asia etc ?
- Resigned as cofounder
- Should founders be paid back for their time during the early stages of a startup?
- Those of you running app/website startups, how do you gauge if development fees are over/under actual costs?
- Am I too impatient with my potential other Stakeholders, or Not?
- Started a startup a few months ago - one cofounder has lost enthusiasm and I feel it's spreading. Advice on dealing with this?
- What's the ideal team composition for a small start up?
- I would very much like to find an efficient time management system that uses low structure and high flexibility
- Build a MVP then sell it?
| When someone says they work “80 hour weeks”, what does this actually mean? Posted: 05 Jul 2021 02:10 PM PDT I often hear people, whether small startup founders or large startup founders like Elon Musk talking about working "80 hour weeks", but what does this really mean? Does this generally only include work directly related to the company, like sales, coding, etc. Or does it also include indirectly related work like reading or taking a course on marketing? [link] [comments]  |
| 16 Inspiring Lessons from the 7 Best Negotiators in the World Posted: 06 Jul 2021 01:49 AM PDT 1: Warren BuffettWith an estimated wealth of $85.3 billion he has made no enemies and can drive around freely in his modest 2006 Cadillac XTS without a security detail. Being extremely successful and well-liked by all is a super rare combination and one that is worth studying and learning. Mr. Buffett is well known for doing his homework. He never relies on past experiences or sheer intuition, he studies. He has said his favorite activity is sitting in a quiet space, reading, studying. Many experienced negotiators are often under-prepared; instead, they rely almost exclusively on history and their "gut". This often backfires. Mr. Buffett knows that every negotiation is different, even if the negotiating parties are the same. He never trusts his past success to guarantee future success. This is very rare and admirable—and wise. What can we learn from Warren:
2: William UryWhen you're the co-founder of the Harvard Program of Negotiation and also a distinguished fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, it's hard to keep a low profile. Over the years, William Ury has become known as one of the biggest & best negotiators in the world. He has stepped in to settle all kinds of feuds, from disputes between corporate conglomerates to international conflicts in the Middle East. He's been seen around at the White House a fair bit and he offers his expertise and training to a huge range of professionals, including business executives, business leaders, military officers, and corporate organizations. What can we learn from William:
3: Herb CohenFor more than three decades, Herb Cohen has been a practicing negotiator, intimately enmeshed in some of the world's headline dramas from hostile takeovers to hostage negotiations. His clients have included business executives, entrepreneurs, sports and theatrical agents plus large corporations – as well as governmental agencies, such as the Department of State, FBI, CIA, The US Conference of Mayors, and US Department of Justice. Unlike some theorists, he was actively involved in the negotiations that settled the NFL players' strike and the General Motors Chevy mobile litigation and also participated in the START Arms Control Negotiations with the Soviet Union. He started formally teaching the subject of negotiations during a two-week course for attorneys in 1963 sponsored by Allstate Insurance Company. It was then he first used the terms "Win-Win. Win-Lose, Lose-Lose". What can we learn from Herb:
4: Theodore RooseveltTeddy Roosevelt is well known for many things; his "Citizen in a Republic Speech" is one of the most famous in American history. He also famously delivered a 90-minute speech soon after he was shot by an innkeeper in 1912. "It takes more than that to kill a bull moose," he reassured his audience, referring to the name of his Progressive independent party. Roosevelt was just that – as stubborn as a bull moose, unwilling to budge on the issues that were important to him. He also was famed for his soft side – in fact, his act of mercy toward a wounded black bear on a hunting trip made him the subject of jokes in the press and led to the creation of the "Teddy Bear." What can we learn from Theodore:
5: Henry KissingerMembers of the Nixon administration will go down in history for many things, but few of them are positive. Henry Kissinger, however, is the notable exception. In his capacity of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to both the Nixon Administration and Ford Administration, Kissinger weathered adversity and came out on top. From establishing diplomatic relations with China to diffusing geopolitical tensions with the Soviet Union, his actions ushered in peace in a time of American discord. The world's best negotiators altered the course of global history, whether through toppling evil governments or preventing potential war. Though we may not think about it often, these negotiators prevented bloodshed and ushered in eras of peace, both in America and around the world. What we can learn from Henry:
6: Nelson MandelaThe late Nelson Mandela will certainly be remembered as one of the best negotiators in history. He was "the greatest negotiator of the twentieth century," wrote Harvard Law School professor and Program on Negotiation Chairman Robert H. Mnookin. In his chapter on Mandela, Mnookin cites Mandela's patience, tenacity, pragmatism, and strategic thinking: "He rejected the simple-minded notion that one must either negotiate with the Devil or forcibly resist. He did both. He was willing to make concessions, but not about what was most important to him. With respect to his key political principles, he was unmovable." What we can learn from Nelson:
7: Chris Voss"It's not me bringing emotion in; it's already there, It's the elephant in the room. There's this monstrous creature in the middle of every negotiation: It's what we want, and it's based on what we care about. Each one of us, we make every single decision based on what we care about, and that makes decision-making, by definition, an emotional process." Voss spent more than two decades in the FBI, during which he worked on more than 150 international hostage cases. Eventually, he was chosen among thousands of agents to serve as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator–a position he held for four years. Voss fine-tuned his negotiation methods over the years, allowing him to save hundreds of lives. For example, Voss recalled one day in 1998, standing in a narrow hallway outside an apartment in Harlem in New York City. Three heavily armed fugitives were inside. Voss's job: convince the fugitives to give up without a fight and with no telephone number to call, Voss was forced to speak through the apartment door. He did so for six hours, with no response. He began to question if anyone was even inside. Suddenly, the door opened. A woman walked out, followed by all three fugitives. Not a single shot fired. No loss of life. Not even a harsh word. How did he do it? Using what he describes as his "late-night FM DJ voice," Voss repeated variations of the following: "It looks like you don't want to come out. It seems like you worry that if you open the door, we'll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you don't want to go back to jail." Afterward, Voss was curious as to what specifically convinced the fugitives to emerge. "We didn't want to get caught or get shot, but you calmed us down," they said. "We finally believed you wouldn't go away, so we just came out." This story perfectly illustrates the value of emotional intelligence, the ability to identify, understand, and manage emotions. That's why many people consider him the best negotiator in the world. What we can learn from Chris:
[link] [comments]  |
| Isn’t customer dev / lean startup obvious? Posted: 05 Jul 2021 10:08 AM PDT Sorry, I'm kind of stuck on this topic, I think maybe I'm missing something. It seems like most of the "how do you build stuff people want" discussions in the startup world center around customer development. But… isn't that obvious? I'm a software PM and I would never build a new feature without hearing about it from our users first (either they request it or we come up with it and run it by them). If the question is, "what do my customers want?" I find it painfully obvious that the next step would be to ask them. Same with all the early startup questions.
That stuff is all so straightforward. The hard part, in my experience, is coming up with a good initial idea. Once you have the idea, sure, just start asking away. But the initial idea generation has no process, no one to ask, no structure whatsoever. And to make things even more confusing to me, a good amount of the companies we all idolize seem to have done basically zero customer development before "launching" their first product. From what I can tell, the founders of Facebook, Apple, Instagram, GoPro, etc. all just came up with an idea, built it, launched it, and THEN started doing customer dev. (And by that point it's basically impossible not to - in my exp, people give feedback even if you don't want it). But by that point they were already successful. Their initial products were what people wanted, they didn't do customer dev to get there. So to me, it seems like the initial idea development is what we should be talking about, but nobody seems interested in that. Does everyone already know how to do it, or what? What am I missing? [link] [comments]  |
| Question about the early days at Nike. (Shoe Dog) Posted: 05 Jul 2021 05:14 PM PDT Hey all! I'm currently on a journey to learn more about business and entrepreneurship, and had a quick question for anybody who's interested. I just finished reading Shoe Dog. If you're familiar with the book or story, you'll know that Nike eventually got bankrolled and supported by a very successful Japanese trading company called Nissho, who agreed to work with them for a 4% revenue share. They also helped Nike find factories and suppliers in Japan who created their very first proprietary shoes. What I don't understand is how this works, essentially. Nissho was a commodities company that branched out into a whole bunch of other money making enterprises. Nike still had a bank stateside giving them loans, albeit begrudgingly. Was Nissho's financial role just another source of credit to finance the incredibly fast-growing company, since the Banks wouldn't back them with any more credit and they were living on the float? Did (do?) trading companies typically lend money like this to start-ups? Nike was clear to Nissho that equity was never going to be part of the equation. Sorry if I'm not asking great questions, the whole situation is a little unclear to me. Fantastic book though! Much appreciation for the help. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 08:29 AM PDT I am not bound to a place in particular, I would like to benefit from good graduate education in technology, vincinity to funding opportunities, incubators, customers (entreprises, read below) and a dynamic favorable business environment. In which country would you create your tech company : European Union, USA, Switzerland, Singapore, Pacific Asia etc ? My business would be selling to large companies in the tech sector, so customers could be met in any large city in the world since those companies have offices everywhere. Where did you create your company and why ? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 08:45 AM PDT I've just resigned as cofounder of an early stage pre-revenue startup. My cofounder is devastated as it was quite sudden and we were about to go for pre-seed money. I resigned because I lost passion for the business and we were not getting enough traction. We've been working on the idea for 2 years (nearly 1 year full time) without revenue. I'm feeling very guilty - is this normal? My cofounder is asking me to stay for as long as possible (months) but I'm forgoing my equity and not getting paid. Is it unfair of me to leave within a couple of weeks? My cofounder is asking me to stay for a couple of months to help out while I have suggested I leave in a couple of weeks and help out informally after that. [link] [comments]  |
| Should founders be paid back for their time during the early stages of a startup? Posted: 05 Jul 2021 08:45 AM PDT Hi guys, I'm about to start making an MVP for a startup idea for be had for a while. I have two cofounders as well. Hypothetically, say it takes us 12 months to build an MVP and enough traction to pay a liveable salary for the founders (rent/food/util etc). This is the point where we will look to raise venture capital. Obviously, until we can pay ourselves a salary, everything will be done out of our free time and pocket. Is it fair to say that we will ourselves back for time/costs? Even if it's split over 3/4 years and profitability. Or should we just swallow the loss? We don't want to be in a position where this could affect future funding. But if at all possible it would an advantage for us. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 03:59 PM PDT I may have worded that a bit convolutedly but what I'm asking is: if you're looking to get an application or platform developed, how do you know if the developer you are talking to is highballing you? How do you know if the app/website/platform you'd like developed really costs that much? How do you determine what is a fair price for what you're asking for? Really curious as to how some of you learn the fair value of development work particularly if you use domestic and international developers who's fees may vary. Thank you and any and all info is greatly appreciated :) [link] [comments]  |
| Am I too impatient with my potential other Stakeholders, or Not? Posted: 05 Jul 2021 02:51 PM PDT I feel like my potential Stakeholder/Co-Founders aren't pulling their weight or producing much verifiable output. Am I being too impatient or are my concerns legitimate? Backstory: I reached out to someone (Mr X) who had legal and relationship experience with 'Artists' and I reached out to someone (Mr Y) which Tech experience to help build the app. I'm the product expert & idea guy. Both X & Y, loved the idea and wanted to join as soon as they heard about it and experienced the prototype. It's been 2 weeks in and I have:
Mr X - has sent a list of 100 possible artists to start focusing on, he also sent a survey to 11,000 on his list and only had 40 replies. Mr Y - has put his existing team into a chat to get them aware of possible upcoming work. I'm seeking advice because it's easier to pull out now, than it will be once things are formalised with Operating Agreements and Stakeholder agreements. Advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 01:53 PM PDT Hi All, I started a company a few months ago, we are in the video game space. Right now, we've secured investments, built a small team and have been working on the prototype that we will use to shop around to gain some additional investment to work on the product. We're estimating a total of a 4-year production cycle. We started with me and my friend (the co-founder who has some developer experience) and add an excellent and experienced developer, a very experienced artist and jr artist. The structure was intended for the cofounder to work as a jr developer under the tutelage of the experienced developer, they would make up the technical team. While the two artists handle art/media creation. My role has been multifaceted, getting funding, gathering the team, managing the meetings/teams/production road map, working with the Art team and working with the developer, along with various other duties. I'm stretched a bit thin. One major goal we wanted to get out of this was to have the cofounder learn more about development. I have some experience with coding but found I was a better Projectmanager than a Developer, so I've. focused my career on that. The cofounder is the least experienced team member, but he's always been energetic, charming, and really good at selling us to investors... that is until recently. These last 5 weeks, he's majorly dropped the ball. Missing meetings, not learning/studying, not producing any work, etc. granted he's been busy in his personal life with a wedding coming up, a tragedy hitting close to him and a full-time job, I'm trying to be understanding and I am. BUT his lack of enthusiasm has caused the main experienced developer to express some frustration and is starting to kill his motivation. Without the experienced dev, the project dies for a few months until I can sort out a new one, and likely will need to start from scratch. This is something I do NOT want to do. I have a talk scheduled with the cofounder to bring this up. My gut tells me to express my understanding of his situation, but ask that he leaves the project for a few months until he gets his shit together. Maybe for 6 months. At that time, he likely won't have enough value to be a developer, even a jr one, if he's not staying on top of learning and I may struggle to place him in any role other than an assistant. To be clear, I like him and want to work on this venture for him. My questions are:
[link] [comments]  |
| What's the ideal team composition for a small start up? Posted: 05 Jul 2021 02:26 AM PDT I'm a ux designer student with a experience in web development. I have an idea for a social media app and I'm working on some lo-fi prototypes (the project it's on a very early stage). While is a social media app, it's kind of niche so it won't be a direct competitor to giants like instagram or tik tok. I confident about coding the frontend myself for the mvp but not so much the backend I'm new to the business side of app development and I'm looking for people to partner with, what roles should I look out for? Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 09:00 AM PDT Hi Friends, I am working on an exciting startup. I want to be efficient. I have read productivity and time management books. I have found a pattern for myself over the years. I create systems to be efficient and then eventually it gets over clogged and I get locked into something that becomes unproductive. I would very much like to find an efficient time management system that uses low structure and high flexibility. I have been using a rigid system and I see I would be better off with something more dynamic. Perhaps this is a tall order. Maybe not. Book or resource recommendations are welcome. Thank you [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2021 06:14 AM PDT Greetings and salutations, hustling dudes and dudettes. So this middle class chap was wondering that if he builds a MVP (a B2C), gain enough traffic to provide its viability (pun intended), then sell the whole company once it provides successful in its MVP scale, right before scaling up and expansion (which can get costy). Is it a wise move? Or I'm simply a fool, please enlighten me O' great r/startups [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Welcome to /r/startups! Where rapid growth and scaling sets us apart!. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment