I've collected over 500 pages of notes from meetings with various VCs, fellow entrepreneurs and Fortune 5000 CEOs. Following presentation includes the most important tips and habits that helped us to scale our company by 200% annually for over 5 years and raise over $2.5M from prominent VCs and angels.

1. 100+ tips and habits for building a successful
startup I learned from 100+ mentors
Vit Horky,
Co-founder & CEO of Brand Embassy
horky@brandembassy.com

2. 2
Over years, I have had the privilege, and honour, to meet, share insights and
receive invaluable feedback from hundreds of mentors, accomplished
entrepreneurs and investors across the globe on what makes a (startup)
business successful.
I've collected over 500 pages of notes from meetings with various VCs, fellow entrepreneurs and Fortune 5000
CEOs. Although I tried to remember the important learnings, I found it impossible to recall them at the time
I needed them most - when I had to make decisions swiftly.

3. 3
I went through all of my notes recently and selected 100+ tips and habits
that works for me best. Many can be considered as no brainers, some may
perhaps suprise you.
Either way, they helped me and my fellow partners at our company to build our startup from 0 to 200%+
consecutive revenue growth over 5 years, gain 150+ enterprise customers in 30+ countries and raise over
$2.5M from prominent VCs and angels.
Whether you are a startup founder, company manager or an aspiring entrepreneur, I believe you will find it
useful. And if you apply just a small part of it tomorrow, I bet you are closer to achieving your goals.

4. Brand Embassy Inc.
620 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
United States
About Author:
Vit Horky is the co-founder and CEO
of Brand Embassy, a Top-Rated
customer service platform with
customers in 30+ countries.
Vit gained BSc. (Hons.) at University of
Teeside (UK) before he drop out from
college.
In past, Vit founded a leading European
digital marketing agency (successfuly
exited) and a software distribution
company (failed with style).
Vit on the picture with Damian, a co-founder of Brand Embassy

5. By the way, not every mentor we met shared our specific outlook or values (of course!).
Over time, we developed a filtering process for implementing the best and the most relevant mentor recommendations
into practice.
5Mentor Feedback Filtering Process, Vit Horky

6. 100+ Tips and habits for
building a successful startup
I learned from 100+ mentors
6
Maintain safe cashflow
Lead by example
Build close investor relations
Deliver on key metrics
Build stable legal basics
Learn every day and inspire others to
do the same
Build agressive and predictable sales
Build customer-led product
development
Scale result-oriented marketing
Build crazy buzz around the company
Hire right, fire fast
Stay obsessed by productivity
Download and print the High-resolution Mindmap including all tips or just read the following slides in this document.

7. Maintain Safe Cashflow
7
Raise funds whenever possible
Investors often say you are
either too early or too late to
raise, don’t worry, the right
investors will be eager to
invest anytime.
Founders to maintain equity
and voting majority through
Seed and Series A.
Convertible notes for Seed /
Pre-Series A is convenient
and fast fundraising method
Raise Seed round pre-revenue
to avoid discussions over
whether current revenues are
good enough.
Plan cashflow on 50% of the realistic sales plan
Plan cash on doubled sales cycle than in a realistic sales plan

8. 8
Forget Macbook Pros and PAs
Don’t spend the money from investors on unnecessary equipment and staff
- Increased spend must follow increased revenue within few months

9. Lead by Example
9
CEO updates entire company continuously
Founders avoid being
representatives of just certain teams
Travel and meet new people every month
Get a fresh feedback and motivation continuously
CEO re-iterates and explains the
vision and reason of existence min
1x month
Support your team
members unconditionally
or let them go
Acting otherwise damages
culture and performance

10. Lead by Example
10
Divide clear responsibilities between founders
CEO to build sales, partnerships and get investors
COO to manage company internally and keep
morale high

11. Lead by Example
11
When travelling often or working across continents, apply following habits:
1. Set smart goals with your partners 2. Make routine daily status calls 3. Respond early to emotions and
signals from the team
4. Get involved in daily topics via team
chat
5. Frequent report both successes and
failures to the entire company
6. Grow a relevant network through
introductions
7. Travel home regularly and have fun
with your colleagues
8. Continuously explore unique local
opportunities
9. Meet new friends, keep an exercise
routine and read every day
Share your progress and ideas regularly to receive feedback and intros to job candidates
With business partners
With family and friends
With random people you trust

12. 2 31
Build Close Investor Relations
12
Communicate failures and
under-delivery fast and straight
Ask investors for introduction to prospects
Keep investors involved on topics
that matter to them and that they can
help with
Don’t cold call, get new investors only
through current investor introductions
Prepare investors to help with
additional funds when needed
Offer 5-10% commission Offer 3-5% finders feeSend monthly report to
investors and advisors

13. 2 31
Deliver on Key Metrics
13
Set one key metric as a mantra in
the company
● Product user engagement
● Customer Retention (churn)
● Satisfaction (NPS, CSAT)
Set up secondary “Health check”
metrics
Exceed your goals sometimes to
improve morale and make investors
excited
Improve goal setting every quarter
Booking revenues (enterprise sales)
or monthly recurring revenue
(SME/B2C sales) in revenue
generating companies

14. Build Stable Legal Basics
14
Incorporate British Ltd. or Inc. in Delaware (USA) -
Investors like it, customers respect it
Document all your IP (code) continuously,
you will not have time when investors demand it
That's David, our lead developer, printing over 5,000 pages of our IP documentation over
one night before we signed new investors. Not recommended.

15. 15
Create 8-12% employee stock
option plan before first
investor round
Grant stock options to employees based on:
Relevant experienceStrategic importance
for company future
Job Seniority Job Role
Vesting 3 years
Cliff period 6 months

16. Learn Every Day And Inspire Others To Do The Same
16
Spend one hour a day on learning something new
Define 3 learning goals for every year: Choose the most appropriate learning form for
you and your goals:
To achieve your work goals
To feel better every day
To fulfil your dreams
Books
Audio Books
(Video) Lectures
Coaching

17. Learn Every Day And Inspire Others To Do The Same
17
2 31Find a mentor you trust Read a book every week Read weekly in-depth news and
editorials, avoid distracting daily news
Each founder to spend 1-2 hours
a month with a mentor or a coach
Offer stock options if you lack
cash
You don't have to finish all, take
notes and implement at least one
thing from each non-fiction book.
TIP: The Economist has an awesome
audio version and iPad/Iphone app.
Share book recommendations
with your team

18. Build advisory board early
18
Meet 1-to-1 or via
Skype group call
Giving stock options not necessary, offer opportunity
to learn, network, being part of something big
Change members annually based on the current needs
Finance Sales
Business Dev.
Product
Development
Marketing
E-Commerce
Strategy
Fundraising
M&A
To help to perfect the go-to-market strategy To receive a reality-check To get introductions
YOU &
your partners

19. Build Aggresive And Predictable Sales
19
2 3Read a book every week
You don't have to finish all, take
notes and implement at least one
thing from each non-fiction book.
Build predictable pipeline by
OUTBOUND sales
CEO to create and update the
winning sales methodology
CEO to ensure all sales people
qualify deals the same way
CEO to drive learning on repeating
sales successes and avoiding sales
dead-ends
Focus on month-to-month %
progress rather than
absolute goals
Build INBOUND lead generation
with minimum spend, prove ROI,
than increase budgets

20. Build Aggresive And Predictable Sales
20
Don’t ever take “No” from a prospect for an answer.
A door was closed? Get in there by window.
Create TOP 100 customers to win and work on them
fanatically
A prospect not interested? Amaze them with a
customer insight.

21. 54
Build Customer-Led Product Development
21
2 31Build agile product development
early, make developers responsible
Ask leaving customers and lost deals
for feedback on informal 1-to-1 basis
Insist on developers attending min.
1x demo or trial a month
Insist on all developers working directly
with customer support feedback
Spend 10-20% of development time on
technical debt.
Ask developers continuously if there is
something the leadership ignores.

22. Build Customer-Led Product Development
22
GET CUSTOMERFEEDBACK
MIN 2x A YEAR
FROM 70% OF
CUSTOMERS
Request testimonials and
introductions from promoters
Make turning key detractors to
promoters the key company priority
Don't get dependent on key
customers in product development

23. Scale Result-Oriented Marketing
23
2 31Focus 70% of efforts on delivering
marketing qualified leads
Attend / Sponsor only conferences
that bring sales qualified leads within
2 weeks
Build close relationship with 3 selected
journalists / market influencers
Don’t pay analysts for featuring you in studies,
build a personal relationships instead.
Forget brand-awareness building
with no direct performance results
Change them if they don’t cover you
continuously

24. Build Crazy Buzz Around The Company
24
Share successes and
announcements monthly
Stand out by language tonality - use full
spectrum of language, appeal to emotions.
Share authentic stories
Position the company as a category owner
Position your CEO as a spoke-person of your
market category

25. Build Crazy Buzz Around The Company
25
Share failures openly and how you support
“failing forward” attitude
In October 2015, we had one of the worst days in
the history of our company. We openly shared
our struggle and people loved it - Customers
reported increased satisfaction, many supporters
have shared our story, our team turned distaster
into an advantage.

26. Hire Right, Fire Fast
26
HIRINGHire sales hunters, not farmers,
you need to focus on new sales
Hire senior engineers, there is no time
for training
Hire key people that can become C-level
gradually
CULTUREDon’t create culture, it’s made by
who the founders and early
employees are
Prioritise hiring the right character and
culture fit over hard skills, focus on:
Coachability
Curiosity
Respect to Culture
Intelligence
Prior SuccessImprove things based on early
feedback of a new hire
Let go if clearly set KPIs are not met
within 3 months + 1 “last chance” month

27. Stay Obsessed by Productivity
27
BLOCK BREAK
Schedule your day into a time blocks
25 min - suitable for most individual
meetings and statuses
50 min - suitable for most individual
activities, when you need to product
something
1:20 hod - only for workshops, typically
50 min is more productive
Schedule 5-10min breaks after
each activity
REFLECTION
Schedule a time for reflection after
every 3 blocks
How do you feel about the progress?
Re-read notes
Think about how it went
Plan how to improve next time

28. Stay Obsessed by Productivity
28
Prepare what are you going to do before you turn on your laptop
At home:
What I want to do
today?
On the way:
How am I going to
do it?
In office:
Just do it.

29. When you get stuck
Redirect > Reflect > Finish later

30. What’s the point of a Vision?
Problem: BEEs want to
improve in time
management.
Idea: We are going
to make a
workshop.
Goal: BEEs will feel great about being
in better control of their time, they
have more fun, they will appreciate
our effort.
W
E A L L L
O V E Y O
U
Envision how your team / customer will be happy once you achieve your goal.
Say NO to most of the things that can distract you.

31. Stay Obsessed by Productivity
31
Reward yourself for achieved goals
Small rewards for daily
achievements
Medium rewards for monthly
achievements
Big vacation or similar for
a game-changing successes

32. Stay Obsessed by Productivity
32
Apply strict prioritisation process
1. What are the tasks
someone else is waiting
for?
2. What will help me to get
closer to achieve my
current goals?
3. What simple urgent
tasks can I resolve
immediately?
4. What tasks will I
enjoy working on?
5. What tasks will help
me to learn in the area
I am interested in?
+ Delegate: What are the tasks someone else will do better?

33. Reflect the day before you go to sleep
What have you done you have positive feeling about?
And negative feeling?
What are you going to change tomorrow?

34. Thank you, my partners, mentors and advisors.
The names of all the great mentors and experts I’ve met and I am grateful for their time and feedback would
make another blog post, here’s just a short and definitely not definite list of those I would like to thank especially:
Terry Valeski (T-Mobile, Pacific Bell), Jiří Pavlicek (J&J, Orthimo), Ondřej Bartos (Credo Ventures), Alex Reidl
(Volvo, Mercedes-Benz), Jiri Sýkora (Wood & Co), Sherylin Shackel (Marketing Academy), Jakub Havrlant
(Allegro, Rockaway), Ondřej Fryc (Netretail Holding, Spread Capital), James Hart (AVG, Jabra), Andrej Kiska
(Credo Ventures), Vojtech Horna (Index Ventures), Peter Gajdos (Presidio Partners), Peter Irikovsky
(LRJ Capital), Rasta Turek (Pexeso), Simon Vostry (Zoom Int.), Tomas Laboutka (Hotel Quickly), Alfonso de la
Nuez (UserZoom), Karel Obluk (AVG, Evolution Equity Partners), Tony Kypreos (DUPL, INSEAD, Springboard),
Petra Hubacova & Nikola Rafaj (TechSquare), Petr Ocasek & Lukas Hudecek (StartupYard, Node5).

35. Brand Embassy Inc.
620 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
United States
Thank You!
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Vit Horky,
Co-founder & CEO
horky@brandembassy.com