25 "logical" tips to creators of startups from the best investors. Part one
Unlike typical chatter about startups and investors, these tips require you to make a choice. And often this choice really baffles.
For several years I have been developing startups, I managed to talk with many investors, both Russian and foreign. Here is the most comprehensive list of tips that investors gave to the team of our project Grrow.me. I emphasize that the tips are addressed to the same startup. Many of the recommendations are quotes from the mouth of the quotations of some of the great.
1. MVP vs. “Perfect Product”
1.1.
“When launching a project, you will never be able to say in advance how the market will react to it. Your vision of your product is a hallucination. No need for fantasy. Start with MVP (minimum viable product) and then use Lean Startup (a set of short iterations). This is the only way to create all successful companies. As a result, you yourself will be surprised to see the business you created. ”
')
He was echoed by the statement:
“Only the user or your client knows what he needs. Watch users. Do not dictate your opinion to the market, but listen to the market. Obey the market, go after him like a fish sticking for a whale. ”
Smash me thunder if this advice is wrong. Absolutely all accelerators startups preach this principle, it is accepted in 99% of successful companies. You have to be stupid not to follow this advice. But:
1.2.
“People do not know what they really need. A poll of the late 17th century showed that passengers want faster horses. Only Ford, the genius of foresight, gave the world a puffing iron monster called a car. ”
“Not a single user in the world has ever seen an iPhone before the genius of Steve Jobs fully, from beginning to end, has formed and released the perfect product to the market. A few months before the iPhone was released, Jobs ordered the product to be completely redone. He did this only because the smartphone that almost went into production did not suit a single user - Steve. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, and they all failed. The reason for the failures is simple - electronic products were not good enough. Do you know what were the firms and models? True, no one remembers these names. ”
"Customers are simply not able to desire something completely new - they only know the usual things."
“In order for you to invest in such a fund as Sequoia Capital, you must have Strong Vision. Your idea should be bold, strong, initially developed, to break established stereotypes. Therefore, initially it will be taken to bayonets and will meet resistance. Forget that any user, even if he is a professor at Stanford, will give you advice on the product. People will call your service nonsense. This is normal for a breakthrough startup. New scares people. But you mustn't give up. ”
In general, do not listen to customers. Believe in yourself. You need to know what to do.
Such is the advice from respected investors, backed by facts. Very reasonable. Oldest Steve can't be wrong.
2. Quit normal work or not quit
2.1.
Want to make the world better? "Throw everything, take it and do it." Richard Branson knows what he is talking about. He launched hundreds of successful businesses under the Virgin label. Indeed, think for yourself, startups make thousands of the smartest people on the planet, giving it all their strength. Competition among startups has already surpassed competition among actors in Hollywood. A successful project is always an over-achievement. Only super efforts can give an overclocking.
If you give your old job even just 4 hours a day, this is the way to nowhere. Millions of Chinese program for food and just wait for a chance to copy your great idea for a week while you help someone else's business for a salary.
2.2.
The place under the automobile viaducts of Silicon Valley is filled with former start-ups, who move to the cardboard boxes from their cozy houses after the failure of the project, to which all forces were given.
Never give up your main job until your startup starts making a profit comparable to your salary. IT business is a game of roulette. You will be more likely to throw the dice once again if you keep the rear for yourself. It's just probability theory, math. It is impossible to believe in mathematics or not to believe. The numbers do not lie. 9 out of 10 running startups fail. Do not lie to yourself that you have more chances than 1 to 10.
Are you a student and want to start a startup? Tell your idea at the fashionable event, get drunk on the auto-party, then forget everything you’ve thought up, and the next morning apply for a job at Google, Microsoft, Yandex, Mail, well, or at the Islet at the worst. And then follow the advice 2.2. Precisely. Literally.
3. Singles against the team
3.1.
Alone you are doomed. Y-combinator (Harvard among accelerators) simply does not accept startups with less than two team members. And not without reason. Firstly, if you are alone in a team, it means that you cannot even convince your friend to believe in your product. What to say about the whole market. Secondly, the list of tasks that must be completed for a successful launch is too large for one person. There is not enough time or competence. You will have to program, draw design and sketches, prepare pitches, presentations, engage in networking, bookkeeping, open a company, and understand contracts. Is the list too large even for Alexander the Great?
In addition, Bill Gates had Paul Allen. Larry Page has Sergey Brin. Jobs - Wozniak. That says it all. Need more arguments? But:
3.2.
Nginx - a complex software product was written by one person. Dropbox, the capitalization of which exceeded 10 billion, Drew Houston launched alone, and then frantically searching for a coowner. Finally, Nikola Tesla - this name alone speaks volumes.
You must feel that you can turn the world around, even alone. Otherwise, you and with the whole team will not succeed.
4. To take or not to take money from investors?
4.1.
You commit a crime against your project and against the team, if you do not take the money of investors at the moment when you are offered them. Paul Graham. Startup Guru Master Yoda Y-combinator.
“Markets are moving in a sine wave. Periodically they are in a fever of financial crisis. There are force majeure. Hard times are coming. Even if you are doing well financially now, take the money. Then you will press, but no one will give money. The project may show a negative trend in the future. A financial cushion of banknotes will help you get through the difficult times and overcome Death Valley. Otherwise, a crisis will break out and you will die with your 100% of the company. ”
As the water looks. Valuable advice. Must follow. But:
4.2.
“Do not take the money of investors. Until the last ruble, fight for the project, not capitulating before greedy financial tycoons. Grow on your own as long as there is a crumb of bread in the house. The percentage of your company that needs to be given in return for an investment is too valuable. Today, you will give 35% for a million dollars, and tomorrow you will be begged to take 100 million dollars for 3.5%. ”
"You have to be an idiot to thoughtlessly throw shares in the project for some candy wrappers, which will still fly into the pipe."
And remember: "The temptation to surrender will be especially strong shortly before victory." Indeed, even the Buddha would not have expressed it better.
5. At what age to start?
5.1.
"The millionth online business can be built only by a person who does not yet know that this is an unattainable goal." A successful startup is always a step beyond the existing one, it is the construction of a new world. Only young people have a fresh outlook on things. Only young people see problems that people over 25 simply do not have. How can a 40-year-old man think of sharing sex photos through a mobile app? Is it possible to come up with a 40? Names such as Zuckerberg, Page and Brin, Kalkanis, give a clear signal to the market - invest in the young.
5.2.
"The old horse will not spoil the furrow." Young people learn from their mistakes for a long time, and this process is costly for the company. To build a successful business, you must have the wisdom that comes only with experience. Examples of Jack Welsh, Larry Ellison, who built a business at only 35, show the advantages of experienced people. Statistics show that people over 40 with a probability of 80% more successful than young people.
“When we invest in young people, our money goes to their education. The team does not work, business is waiting for the collapse. Then they launch a new company, taking advantage of their experience. After several similar iterations, the now-old founders of the founders finally get a successful business. A reasonable investor will only invest in this moment. ”
6. Do only what you know well. Versus. Discover the unknown: the treasures are waiting over the horizon
6.1.
“To launch a startup is like jumping from a cliff and trying to assemble an airplane in flight.” Reid Hoffman (creator of LinkedIn, a billionaire investor). Rush into battle, do incomprehensible. In today's world, competition is so great that all known problems have already been solved. If thousands of people know about the problem, then you do not have the advantages of the discoverer. The largest companies pay millions to analysts who describe known issues in their reports. After that, the giants throw thousands of their employees to solve these problems. Everyone wants to make money. You will not be able to compete with Google. Therefore, try to solve only those problems that analysts never know. How to do it? Just doing a completely new direction in which no one has any experience, including you. You are the first to get experience in the process.
6.2.
Do only what you know well. Successful startups are made exclusively on insiders, on a deep knowledge of the industry. Long work in some field gives a person an understanding of such problems that others simply do not see. You need to quickly overcome the "Valley of Death" and get a profit. Spending resources on experiments is a luxury. On one Columbus there are thousands of navigators, still feeding the fish at the bottom of the coral reefs.
7. Know your monetization or just attract users.
7.1.
Before launching a project, decide how the service will make money. Do you have a bunch of users, cool retension (recurrence) and crazy growth that Facebook never dreamed of? Wait a minute, history remembers a ton of such bankrupt companies. As a rule, they sell the ruble for 10 kopecks. For example, free services for downloading images and inserting on forums, services for free downloading files - such projects are quickly gaining popularity, but, like dvuhsotkilogrammovye boars, constantly eat server capacity and bandwidth of your communication channels. Soon losses begin to amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so it will be until you run out of money. After all, to close such a traffic project for a startup is worse than stepping on your throat.
More examples - YouTube’s appetite reached a million dollars a day, before it began to pay the first cent. It is good that Google acquired it, who had such money. Many YouTube rivals just went broke. Or recall Groupon, which sold other people's services at half the price - soon restaurants, whose revenues plummeted, refused to serve customers at half prices.
7.2.
The main commandment of Silicon Valley investors is that the project should focus on only one thing at a time. On growth or on monetization. Combination equals death. Profit from a project that does not have users is problematic. So forget about monetization and think only about the growth and retention of users. We will give you money. Look who has now captured the Internet - giants like Pinterest, which has reached billions in capitalization, without even thinking about earning. You know, when you're big, they'll buy you just for that. As it was with hopelessly unprofitable Tumbrl (Yahoo bought it for a billion). In our world it is important to be a big hippo. Nothing else matters. Instagram, Lats, WatsApp, Viber and their ilk. There is a tendency that is criminal to ignore. The rest of the world simply does not understand anything on the Internet. Just make a project that users will love, and the money will come to you.
8. Is a technical director needed right from the start?
8.1.
From the very first day of the startup foundation, you need a good technical director. It is better if it is a genius with Asperger syndrome. A little talkative person, who avoids people and spends the whole day at the computer simply because he has nothing more to do. This can hack the Pentagon network for three days, asking only two burgers and a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola.
If you start without those. Director, then your project is waiting for the collapse. You just spend a lot of time, initial motivation (the fuse is very important), but you can never make cool technical pieces, and your service will fall at the first load. We'll have to write all the code again, and this is at the moment when the money has run out, and the competitors saw your takeoff and copied your service in two and a half days.
Freelancers will blackmail you, realizing how much new function you need, and take the project hostage. One sly freelancer is able to dry out the wallet of an unlucky start-up. As a result, the latter will travel the world with a cart, taken away from the nearest supermarket.
High-quality hired development is a utopia. For example, Hindus (inexpensive literate freelancers) confuse the footer with the heder. Think for yourself, you have an English non-native language and they, too. Broken phone in a square. Belarusian developers will take the money and disappear, realizing the opacity of the legal boundaries.
In the end, gifted technical directors are many times more than good entrepreneurs with ideas. I'm telling you exactly. Look at least at GitHub - how many talents are there who mold beautiful dummies and do not find use for their technical genius. They need an entrepreneur with an idea, they are looking for such.
8.2.
Why do you need a technical director? You can always hire a freelance student or run a startup on WordPress, as Groupon did. Jumla to help you. Not serious talking? Are you a serious entrepreneur yourself? Most hypotheses are tested on DruPal.
Pinterest did non-technical guys. Yes, they changed several development teams, but they knew what they were doing, and eventually they won. As the project grows those. you will need a director, but first you need to do more realistic things. Good programmer in the afternoon with fire not to find. Literate guys work for large companies. Headhunters from IT giants establish surveillance and round-the-clock monitoring of the homes of specialist coders. As soon as programmers go beyond the threshold of their home, they immediately begin to be seduced by multimillion-dollar contracts. Recruiters shake puffy checkbooks in front of them and even show pictures of yachts, which will become the property of programmers after just three years of work on Google. So do not even dream. Look, the Silicon Valley forums are filled with the sobs of the founders who can't write code. It comes to the fact that the founders with a design or economic education begin to learn Ruby or Pyphon themselves. There is nothing to do. The best way is friendly guys from India. Take inexpensive.
Such is the advice. Sounds reasonable. It looks logical, especially if we recall 8.1.
9. Work with rest or without
9.1.
Work all the way round the clock, otherwise you will achieve a result called “nothing”. Bloomberg, who became the billionaire and mayor of New York, worked at a brokerage firm at the beginning of his career even at lunchtime, when everyone else went to eat hot dogs and drink coffee. What do you think, how many of his colleagues became millionaires? That's right, only he is alone.
In the Y-combine, in the first couple of months of work on the project it is recommended to close the house and not go outside. Don't go out at all. Order food at home and invite housekeepers. Of course, do it through the Internet.
Do you have family or girlfriend? Startup is prohibited to know these terms.
9.2.
Keep a balance. Obligatory time to rest, family and friends is necessary - this will allow you to collect your thoughts and simply increase the efficiency of work.
Do you know the story of a driven horse? Or about sharpening an ax. Two foresters argued, who quickly cut down 10 larches. One rolled up his sleeves, and only slivers flew. And the second will chop, chop, and then the ax sharpens. So the second won. It says a lot.
Not only that in case of failure you will be left with nothing, without money, you will also lose all your friends and relatives. Think about it. It is impossible to overestimate the moral support provided by the family.
About the family and girls, we will have a separate council at number 17.
10. Do I need a startup Adviser (Advisor)?
10.1.
Advisors receive a share in the project, and in return give their valuable experience, advice and connections. Sometimes these people are called mentors.
“Never, remember, never give a stake in a project to someone who does not invest his own money in a project. It happens that a large fund invests 10 million in a startup, and then simply forgets about it and does not move a finger for the sake of salvation from a crisis situation. Do you think that a person who has not invested a penny, that is, that does not risk anything, will bring you some kind of benefit? ”
“First of all, one cannot foreknow beforehand whether the mentor will help you and put some effort. Secondly, it is unknown whether these efforts will benefit the project.It's just that this is unknown. ”
“Counselors are able to speak - well, otherwise you would not be asked to become advisors. But whether they are able to do something is not at all a fact. ”
Mentors, using their fame, can simply play roulette - they become advisors to all startups who turn to them with such a proposal. For example, it is not uncommon when an adviser participates in 20–25 projects. Such information can be viewed on AngelList. In addition, the adviser, as a rule, holds a position in a large firm, is on the board of directors of other companies or is engaged in his project. It is easy to calculate how much time he will be able to devote to your project. This amount of time is difficult to distinguish from zero.
If you need advice on your project, consider whether you are on the right path? After all, you are engaged in the project 24 hours a day, rummaged through all possible information on the topic. What can help you advice mentor, who is simply not in the subject, because he is passionate about other things?
In general, advisors are simply trying to convert their popularity into their money. Convincing words? But:
10.2.
Be sure to involve advisors. The percentage of the project they are given a small - usually about 1%. But the big name in your project immediately attracts attention. Only the name of the mentor can open the doors to the best venture capital funds and guarantee getting into the top media. Do not stint - no one was hurt by an oversupply of expertise. You are immersed in the project and do not see many things. You just need a look from the side.
Still in doubt?About.me began by inviting 30 people to become advisors on the network, including Kevin Rosa himself. And he offered them a stake in the project. After the opening, the mentors started pages on the project and invited their followers. Tons of press hit About.me. Now the project is included in the thousand most visited sites in the world and has become a multimillion-dollar business. And all thanks to the tactics of attracting mentors.
The startup attracted only $ 17.1 million in investments. Imagine what its capitalization is.
These are only 10 tips. In the second part of the article, you will find even more discouraging advice from real investors. And a paradoxical conclusion in the end.
For several years I have been developing startups, I managed to talk with many investors, both Russian and foreign. Here is the most comprehensive list of tips that investors gave to the team of our project Grrow.me. I emphasize that the tips are addressed to the same startup. Many of the recommendations are quotes from the mouth of the quotations of some of the great.
1. MVP vs. “Perfect Product”
1.1.
“When launching a project, you will never be able to say in advance how the market will react to it. Your vision of your product is a hallucination. No need for fantasy. Start with MVP (minimum viable product) and then use Lean Startup (a set of short iterations). This is the only way to create all successful companies. As a result, you yourself will be surprised to see the business you created. ”
')
He was echoed by the statement:
“Only the user or your client knows what he needs. Watch users. Do not dictate your opinion to the market, but listen to the market. Obey the market, go after him like a fish sticking for a whale. ”
Smash me thunder if this advice is wrong. Absolutely all accelerators startups preach this principle, it is accepted in 99% of successful companies. You have to be stupid not to follow this advice. But:
1.2.
“People do not know what they really need. A poll of the late 17th century showed that passengers want faster horses. Only Ford, the genius of foresight, gave the world a puffing iron monster called a car. ”
“Not a single user in the world has ever seen an iPhone before the genius of Steve Jobs fully, from beginning to end, has formed and released the perfect product to the market. A few months before the iPhone was released, Jobs ordered the product to be completely redone. He did this only because the smartphone that almost went into production did not suit a single user - Steve. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, and they all failed. The reason for the failures is simple - electronic products were not good enough. Do you know what were the firms and models? True, no one remembers these names. ”
"Customers are simply not able to desire something completely new - they only know the usual things."
“In order for you to invest in such a fund as Sequoia Capital, you must have Strong Vision. Your idea should be bold, strong, initially developed, to break established stereotypes. Therefore, initially it will be taken to bayonets and will meet resistance. Forget that any user, even if he is a professor at Stanford, will give you advice on the product. People will call your service nonsense. This is normal for a breakthrough startup. New scares people. But you mustn't give up. ”
In general, do not listen to customers. Believe in yourself. You need to know what to do.
Such is the advice from respected investors, backed by facts. Very reasonable. Oldest Steve can't be wrong.
2. Quit normal work or not quit
2.1.
Want to make the world better? "Throw everything, take it and do it." Richard Branson knows what he is talking about. He launched hundreds of successful businesses under the Virgin label. Indeed, think for yourself, startups make thousands of the smartest people on the planet, giving it all their strength. Competition among startups has already surpassed competition among actors in Hollywood. A successful project is always an over-achievement. Only super efforts can give an overclocking.
If you give your old job even just 4 hours a day, this is the way to nowhere. Millions of Chinese program for food and just wait for a chance to copy your great idea for a week while you help someone else's business for a salary.
2.2.
The place under the automobile viaducts of Silicon Valley is filled with former start-ups, who move to the cardboard boxes from their cozy houses after the failure of the project, to which all forces were given.
Never give up your main job until your startup starts making a profit comparable to your salary. IT business is a game of roulette. You will be more likely to throw the dice once again if you keep the rear for yourself. It's just probability theory, math. It is impossible to believe in mathematics or not to believe. The numbers do not lie. 9 out of 10 running startups fail. Do not lie to yourself that you have more chances than 1 to 10.
Are you a student and want to start a startup? Tell your idea at the fashionable event, get drunk on the auto-party, then forget everything you’ve thought up, and the next morning apply for a job at Google, Microsoft, Yandex, Mail, well, or at the Islet at the worst. And then follow the advice 2.2. Precisely. Literally.
3. Singles against the team
3.1.
Alone you are doomed. Y-combinator (Harvard among accelerators) simply does not accept startups with less than two team members. And not without reason. Firstly, if you are alone in a team, it means that you cannot even convince your friend to believe in your product. What to say about the whole market. Secondly, the list of tasks that must be completed for a successful launch is too large for one person. There is not enough time or competence. You will have to program, draw design and sketches, prepare pitches, presentations, engage in networking, bookkeeping, open a company, and understand contracts. Is the list too large even for Alexander the Great?
In addition, Bill Gates had Paul Allen. Larry Page has Sergey Brin. Jobs - Wozniak. That says it all. Need more arguments? But:
3.2.
Nginx - a complex software product was written by one person. Dropbox, the capitalization of which exceeded 10 billion, Drew Houston launched alone, and then frantically searching for a coowner. Finally, Nikola Tesla - this name alone speaks volumes.
You must feel that you can turn the world around, even alone. Otherwise, you and with the whole team will not succeed.
4. To take or not to take money from investors?
4.1.
You commit a crime against your project and against the team, if you do not take the money of investors at the moment when you are offered them. Paul Graham. Startup Guru Master Yoda Y-combinator.
“Markets are moving in a sine wave. Periodically they are in a fever of financial crisis. There are force majeure. Hard times are coming. Even if you are doing well financially now, take the money. Then you will press, but no one will give money. The project may show a negative trend in the future. A financial cushion of banknotes will help you get through the difficult times and overcome Death Valley. Otherwise, a crisis will break out and you will die with your 100% of the company. ”
As the water looks. Valuable advice. Must follow. But:
4.2.
“Do not take the money of investors. Until the last ruble, fight for the project, not capitulating before greedy financial tycoons. Grow on your own as long as there is a crumb of bread in the house. The percentage of your company that needs to be given in return for an investment is too valuable. Today, you will give 35% for a million dollars, and tomorrow you will be begged to take 100 million dollars for 3.5%. ”
"You have to be an idiot to thoughtlessly throw shares in the project for some candy wrappers, which will still fly into the pipe."
And remember: "The temptation to surrender will be especially strong shortly before victory." Indeed, even the Buddha would not have expressed it better.
5. At what age to start?
5.1.
"The millionth online business can be built only by a person who does not yet know that this is an unattainable goal." A successful startup is always a step beyond the existing one, it is the construction of a new world. Only young people have a fresh outlook on things. Only young people see problems that people over 25 simply do not have. How can a 40-year-old man think of sharing sex photos through a mobile app? Is it possible to come up with a 40? Names such as Zuckerberg, Page and Brin, Kalkanis, give a clear signal to the market - invest in the young.
5.2.
"The old horse will not spoil the furrow." Young people learn from their mistakes for a long time, and this process is costly for the company. To build a successful business, you must have the wisdom that comes only with experience. Examples of Jack Welsh, Larry Ellison, who built a business at only 35, show the advantages of experienced people. Statistics show that people over 40 with a probability of 80% more successful than young people.
“When we invest in young people, our money goes to their education. The team does not work, business is waiting for the collapse. Then they launch a new company, taking advantage of their experience. After several similar iterations, the now-old founders of the founders finally get a successful business. A reasonable investor will only invest in this moment. ”
6. Do only what you know well. Versus. Discover the unknown: the treasures are waiting over the horizon
6.1.
“To launch a startup is like jumping from a cliff and trying to assemble an airplane in flight.” Reid Hoffman (creator of LinkedIn, a billionaire investor). Rush into battle, do incomprehensible. In today's world, competition is so great that all known problems have already been solved. If thousands of people know about the problem, then you do not have the advantages of the discoverer. The largest companies pay millions to analysts who describe known issues in their reports. After that, the giants throw thousands of their employees to solve these problems. Everyone wants to make money. You will not be able to compete with Google. Therefore, try to solve only those problems that analysts never know. How to do it? Just doing a completely new direction in which no one has any experience, including you. You are the first to get experience in the process.
6.2.
Do only what you know well. Successful startups are made exclusively on insiders, on a deep knowledge of the industry. Long work in some field gives a person an understanding of such problems that others simply do not see. You need to quickly overcome the "Valley of Death" and get a profit. Spending resources on experiments is a luxury. On one Columbus there are thousands of navigators, still feeding the fish at the bottom of the coral reefs.
7. Know your monetization or just attract users.
7.1.
Before launching a project, decide how the service will make money. Do you have a bunch of users, cool retension (recurrence) and crazy growth that Facebook never dreamed of? Wait a minute, history remembers a ton of such bankrupt companies. As a rule, they sell the ruble for 10 kopecks. For example, free services for downloading images and inserting on forums, services for free downloading files - such projects are quickly gaining popularity, but, like dvuhsotkilogrammovye boars, constantly eat server capacity and bandwidth of your communication channels. Soon losses begin to amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so it will be until you run out of money. After all, to close such a traffic project for a startup is worse than stepping on your throat.
More examples - YouTube’s appetite reached a million dollars a day, before it began to pay the first cent. It is good that Google acquired it, who had such money. Many YouTube rivals just went broke. Or recall Groupon, which sold other people's services at half the price - soon restaurants, whose revenues plummeted, refused to serve customers at half prices.
7.2.
The main commandment of Silicon Valley investors is that the project should focus on only one thing at a time. On growth or on monetization. Combination equals death. Profit from a project that does not have users is problematic. So forget about monetization and think only about the growth and retention of users. We will give you money. Look who has now captured the Internet - giants like Pinterest, which has reached billions in capitalization, without even thinking about earning. You know, when you're big, they'll buy you just for that. As it was with hopelessly unprofitable Tumbrl (Yahoo bought it for a billion). In our world it is important to be a big hippo. Nothing else matters. Instagram, Lats, WatsApp, Viber and their ilk. There is a tendency that is criminal to ignore. The rest of the world simply does not understand anything on the Internet. Just make a project that users will love, and the money will come to you.
8. Is a technical director needed right from the start?
8.1.
From the very first day of the startup foundation, you need a good technical director. It is better if it is a genius with Asperger syndrome. A little talkative person, who avoids people and spends the whole day at the computer simply because he has nothing more to do. This can hack the Pentagon network for three days, asking only two burgers and a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola.
If you start without those. Director, then your project is waiting for the collapse. You just spend a lot of time, initial motivation (the fuse is very important), but you can never make cool technical pieces, and your service will fall at the first load. We'll have to write all the code again, and this is at the moment when the money has run out, and the competitors saw your takeoff and copied your service in two and a half days.
Freelancers will blackmail you, realizing how much new function you need, and take the project hostage. One sly freelancer is able to dry out the wallet of an unlucky start-up. As a result, the latter will travel the world with a cart, taken away from the nearest supermarket.
High-quality hired development is a utopia. For example, Hindus (inexpensive literate freelancers) confuse the footer with the heder. Think for yourself, you have an English non-native language and they, too. Broken phone in a square. Belarusian developers will take the money and disappear, realizing the opacity of the legal boundaries.
In the end, gifted technical directors are many times more than good entrepreneurs with ideas. I'm telling you exactly. Look at least at GitHub - how many talents are there who mold beautiful dummies and do not find use for their technical genius. They need an entrepreneur with an idea, they are looking for such.
8.2.
Why do you need a technical director? You can always hire a freelance student or run a startup on WordPress, as Groupon did. Jumla to help you. Not serious talking? Are you a serious entrepreneur yourself? Most hypotheses are tested on DruPal.
Pinterest did non-technical guys. Yes, they changed several development teams, but they knew what they were doing, and eventually they won. As the project grows those. you will need a director, but first you need to do more realistic things. Good programmer in the afternoon with fire not to find. Literate guys work for large companies. Headhunters from IT giants establish surveillance and round-the-clock monitoring of the homes of specialist coders. As soon as programmers go beyond the threshold of their home, they immediately begin to be seduced by multimillion-dollar contracts. Recruiters shake puffy checkbooks in front of them and even show pictures of yachts, which will become the property of programmers after just three years of work on Google. So do not even dream. Look, the Silicon Valley forums are filled with the sobs of the founders who can't write code. It comes to the fact that the founders with a design or economic education begin to learn Ruby or Pyphon themselves. There is nothing to do. The best way is friendly guys from India. Take inexpensive.
Such is the advice. Sounds reasonable. It looks logical, especially if we recall 8.1.
9. Work with rest or without
9.1.
Work all the way round the clock, otherwise you will achieve a result called “nothing”. Bloomberg, who became the billionaire and mayor of New York, worked at a brokerage firm at the beginning of his career even at lunchtime, when everyone else went to eat hot dogs and drink coffee. What do you think, how many of his colleagues became millionaires? That's right, only he is alone.
In the Y-combine, in the first couple of months of work on the project it is recommended to close the house and not go outside. Don't go out at all. Order food at home and invite housekeepers. Of course, do it through the Internet.
Do you have family or girlfriend? Startup is prohibited to know these terms.
9.2.
Keep a balance. Obligatory time to rest, family and friends is necessary - this will allow you to collect your thoughts and simply increase the efficiency of work.
Do you know the story of a driven horse? Or about sharpening an ax. Two foresters argued, who quickly cut down 10 larches. One rolled up his sleeves, and only slivers flew. And the second will chop, chop, and then the ax sharpens. So the second won. It says a lot.
Not only that in case of failure you will be left with nothing, without money, you will also lose all your friends and relatives. Think about it. It is impossible to overestimate the moral support provided by the family.
About the family and girls, we will have a separate council at number 17.
10. Do I need a startup Adviser (Advisor)?
10.1.
Advisors receive a share in the project, and in return give their valuable experience, advice and connections. Sometimes these people are called mentors.
“Never, remember, never give a stake in a project to someone who does not invest his own money in a project. It happens that a large fund invests 10 million in a startup, and then simply forgets about it and does not move a finger for the sake of salvation from a crisis situation. Do you think that a person who has not invested a penny, that is, that does not risk anything, will bring you some kind of benefit? ”
“First of all, one cannot foreknow beforehand whether the mentor will help you and put some effort. Secondly, it is unknown whether these efforts will benefit the project.It's just that this is unknown. ”
“Counselors are able to speak - well, otherwise you would not be asked to become advisors. But whether they are able to do something is not at all a fact. ”
Mentors, using their fame, can simply play roulette - they become advisors to all startups who turn to them with such a proposal. For example, it is not uncommon when an adviser participates in 20–25 projects. Such information can be viewed on AngelList. In addition, the adviser, as a rule, holds a position in a large firm, is on the board of directors of other companies or is engaged in his project. It is easy to calculate how much time he will be able to devote to your project. This amount of time is difficult to distinguish from zero.
If you need advice on your project, consider whether you are on the right path? After all, you are engaged in the project 24 hours a day, rummaged through all possible information on the topic. What can help you advice mentor, who is simply not in the subject, because he is passionate about other things?
In general, advisors are simply trying to convert their popularity into their money. Convincing words? But:
10.2.
Be sure to involve advisors. The percentage of the project they are given a small - usually about 1%. But the big name in your project immediately attracts attention. Only the name of the mentor can open the doors to the best venture capital funds and guarantee getting into the top media. Do not stint - no one was hurt by an oversupply of expertise. You are immersed in the project and do not see many things. You just need a look from the side.
Still in doubt?About.me began by inviting 30 people to become advisors on the network, including Kevin Rosa himself. And he offered them a stake in the project. After the opening, the mentors started pages on the project and invited their followers. Tons of press hit About.me. Now the project is included in the thousand most visited sites in the world and has become a multimillion-dollar business. And all thanks to the tactics of attracting mentors.
The startup attracted only $ 17.1 million in investments. Imagine what its capitalization is.
These are only 10 tips. In the second part of the article, you will find even more discouraging advice from real investors. And a paradoxical conclusion in the end.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/291560/
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