Shotput Ventures - Building startups are hard work

Startups are hard work (and other lessons I’ve learned) Jeff Haynie @jhaynie

About Me • @jhaynie - twitter • blog.jeffhaynie.us • jhaynie@appcelerator.com

Some things I’ve learned over the years

You Nobody loves your business as much as you do (and you’re the #1 sales person)

Ideas Your idea sucks (it’s about execution)

The Business Plan Put it on one page (but don’t send it out to anyone)

Money You can never get enough money, fast enough (but too much will ruin you)

Investors You can’t get rid of them (and you can’t live without them)

Raising money The best time to raise money is when you don’t need it

Investments The best investments you can receive are in the form of cash from customers (and they don’t require you to give up equity)

Show me You’ll have to prove it to people (and then they’ll have known it was a good idea all along)

Partners Having a partner means you have to share in the upside (and have a friend when times are really tough)

Technology Someone else is trying to do what you’re doing right now (and you have to be better, faster and cheaper)

Analytics Measure everything (and then some more)

Change I once heard: “you’ll do 10 things, 3 will fail miserably, 3 will not be good, 3 will be OK and 1 will be great” (you just need to ﬁgure out which one)

Teams Investors, customer and employees believe in the team (and most importantly, the entrepreneur)

Relationships At the end of the day, it’s about your relationships (which isn’t networking)

Mentors Get people to tell you what you’re doing wrong (and cheer you on when you’re doing it right)

Failure Don’t stop believing (but know when to fold)

Failure (deux) Some of the best things in life come from our failures (at least you tried, most don’t)

The Valley It’s great - don’t let anyone tell you it’s not (and yes, it’s expensive and consuming)

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Shotput Ventures - Building startups are hard work

by Jeff Haynie on Aug 05, 2009

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