Startups
Like,reallyhard.
arehard.
69 Startup and Life Tips for Entrepreneurs
@luketucker

This list is more or less a curation of tips I've surfaced from
my reading or research and from what I've observed from
being around some incredible investors and successful
entrepreneurs. Note, this advice is geared towards ideation
through product-market fit level startups, but the life
tips are universally applicable I would say.
When possible, I tried to make the tip "actionable",
which I define as something that's able to be done;
or an action having practical value.
So, in no particular order, I give you the Startup and
Life Tips for Entrepreneurs: a Journal of Thoughts...

1Tellalotofpeople
aboutyourideas.
I see too many people that are afraid to talk to
others about their ideas.

"Don'tworryaboutpeoplestealing
youridea,worrythatnoonewillcare."
- Dharmesh Shah

2Chooseanideayou'repassionateabout.
Life is too short to spend your time building something you don't have a passion for.

The Ycombinator maxim is brilliant and words to live by for any maker and entrepreneur.
3Buildsomethingpeoplewant.

4Findoutifpeople
wantsomethingby
interviewingthem.
Not a novel idea anymore, but the lesson is
don't just stop at the initial interviews. Ash
Maurya talks in his book Running Lean
about the whole lifecycle of interviews.Also,
use a tool like Intercom to keep a regular
dialogue going with your customers.

It's so much better when you
can empathize with your users.
Not 100% necessary, but helpful.
5Whenpossible,
solveyour
ownproblem.

6Tacklehardproblems
thattheworldisfacing.
Please don't build just another Social-Mobile-Local app.

For more on this, read Peter Thiel's Zero To One book.
7Focusonmarkets
thatyoucandominate
early(monopoly).

8Knowthepotential
growthmarkets
ofyourcompany.
You should be the expert of your market.
Show off big picture thinking and make sure
"the juice is worth the squeeze" both for your
time and your potential investors capital.

Self-awareness is a trait that
shows maturity and humility.
9Knowyour
strengthsand
weaknesses
asafounder.

10Findaco-founderwith
complementaryskills.
Kind of obvious, but once you know your
weaknesses, choose someone that has a strength in
that area. The big lesson is: choose your co-
founder(s) wisely because you'll be spending a whole
lot of time together: do the 6-hour road trip test: can
you stand being in the car with someone for 6-hrs?

You can have "too many cooks in the kitchen" and
too many shares spread across the large founder
group making it harder for a sizable return. This is
not a hard and fast rule, but from what I hear from
seasoned investors 4+ is problematic, 1 is a basic
non-starter but can be done at least at the beginning.
11Trytonothavemore
than3co-founders.

12Getaccountabilityearly.
Noah Kagan recommends setting a goal and emailing a
friend every day to benchmark your efforts and maintain
social motivation and pride to Get Stuff Done. He did this
with his friend Neville Medhora as discussed in the
#coconog webinar this past holiday season.

Seems obvious, but often times I think
it's overlooked and/or undervalued.
13Pursueadvisorsand
advicefromthosewho
havecomebeforeyou.

14Readlotsofcontent.
Knowwhothebestare.
Curation is king. Knowing where resources
can be found and having "a guy" (or gal for
that matter), who are specialists or mavens in
an area is smart. Conscious ignorance of
certain things to save space and retain focus.

Someone is building what you are building,
you probably just don't know it. It's
shocking how little people actually
spend searching for information on
their idea or company. They assume
that if they've never heard of it, it
can't be that big. Don't be that guy.
15Getreallygood
atgooglingstuff.

16Payattentiontoyour
competitorsearly.
They impact your customers. I think this is more true
today than maybe 5 years ago. Hiten Shah recently
talked about this in a 20 Minute VC episode as well.
The ease of which people can launch software now,
means competition can crop up real quick.

It's called the lean startup methodology, you may have heard of it:
applying the scientific method to startups. Instead of bunsen
burners and beakers in a lab; markets and customers are subject to
testing as well. This advice is applicable at any stage of a company
as scrum and agile deployments (micro projects and teams)
statistically outperform bloated, waterfall developments.
17 Build something. Measure it.
DocumentyourLearning.Repeat.

18Pivotbeforeit's
toolateifyouhavenot
validatedyourhypothesis.
Set go/no-go criteria for testing. Can't over emphasize
that you should make go/no-go criteria. Not an arbitrary
number, but have some discipline and awareness to cut
your losses if certain benchmarks aren't set.

Best way to see if someone really wants
to use your product is to ask them for
money. If they're willing to pay, others
will be as well and you're on to
something. This de-risks the idea and
development investment cost.
19Chargeforyour
productearly.

20.Trynottohaveamarketing
budgetforaslongaspossible.
Do your best to let the product speak for itself. Focus your time on
finding the online communities where your customers hangout
and be a contributing member of those communities. Then reach
out to patronage opinion leaders who have a following to try out
your product, you can be a blog first company too (like these
guys). So much "free" and unpaid efforts that can have high
return. And of course, focus on building a bomb diggity product!
Because if you don't have that right, no amount of marketing
gasoline will help; it will just burn cash.

Control your own destiny, utilize revenue to grow
your business. Shows you have a real business.
Gives you leverage as the entrepreneur. Ultimately
it can come down to what your goals are and how
fast you want to grow. In order to grow fast, you'll
probably need to take outside investment. But a
lifestyle business can be a beautiful thing.
21.Bootstrapifyoucan
foraslongasyoucan.

22Ifyouhavetopursueinvestment
capital,fundraisewhenyoudon'tneedit.
Ideally, you have the leverage when your company is doing well and you don't need
the cash now, but you want the infusion of capital to grow and penetrate new markets.
Get 18+ months of runway when you do raise (see #26).

Investors see too many deals and are in no way
interested in having to sign an NDA to have a
conversation about your business.At some point,NDA's
may come into play but definitely not in the initial
conversations. Just shows naivete and is a red flag.
23Neveraskan
investortosignanNDA.

24Readpitchhacks
beforeyoupitchyour
ideatoanyinvestor.
90 or so pages of this e-book by the
guys behind Angel.co. Great resource.

Just seems a shystery thing to me. There's enough
opportunities to develop real relationships with
investors that this just seems like nonsense IMHO.
25Don't"paytopitch".

26Raiseatleast18-monthsofrunway.
Just a rule of thumb. Might consider getting more than 18-months
if you can especially in the slowing fundraising environment.

Read @Jason's post on Why investor
updates are really important.
27Updateyour
investorsmonthly.

28Treatyourearly
customerslikethey're
greekgodsorgoddesses
(conciergeservice).
I believe this was a Paul Graham, Ycombinator
maxim about doing things that don't scale a the
beginning of your startup. These early adopters
are probably fringe users anyhow, so treat them
well as they're taking a chance on you.

Everyone on the team should take
turns through customer support.
Keep your users happy.
29Beradicalabout
customerservice.

30CreatealistofKPIstotrack
(remember,accountability).
What gets measured gets managed is the old saying. How do you
measure success and keep accountability? Data and numbers that
will meaningfully drive your business forward and can tell you right
away the health of your business at any given point in time. There's
leading indicators and lagging indicators. Know the difference
between the two and make sure you're KPI's are a short list at the
beginning, not a spaghetti on the wall approach.

Be HOT: Honest, Open, Transparent. Like Buffer.
31Betransparent.

32Determinewhatyour
onemetricthatmatter's
mostisandoptimize
everythingforthat.
The authors of Lean Analytics preach this hard and
I'm a believer. It forces focus, and keeps that beacon
of light for everyone to drive efforts towards.

Fun project and something that has both
internal team benefits, as well as ease
of use when sharing investor updates.
33Createalivedashboard
ofyourcompanyKPIsand
displayitprominently.

34Conductdesignand
developmentsprints.
Just a plug for lean / agile development
of ideas and products. Google has some
good tips on doing Design sprints.

Or maybe this is better put by Buffer
when they say in their core values "You
ship code immediately when what you
have is better than what's live".
35Shipcodedaily.

36Carefullycraft
whattypeofcompany
cultureyouwant.
Some good stories from Airbnb Founder Brian
Chesky in Startup Class video 10 and the
Stripe Founders in the Startup Class video 11.

Early employees are like your co-founders / owners and are taking risks to
join you. They should believe in your vision and be aligned with the founders.
37Spendalotoftimehiringthebest
people(talent,andculturalfit).

38Buysaidemployeescoolthings;
likecomputers,fitbits,andbeer.
Make people feel a part of the team, something greater than
themselves with purpose and value. And, cool swag and free
stuff is the icing on the cake. In short, make them feel special.

This I found in the Greylock Partners video on Technology enabled Blitzscaling
Lecture 01. Their Greymatter series is a podcast / video series of a Stanford
course by Reid Hoffman and crew.
39Remember:Family,Tribe,Village,
Citywhenyourstartupscales:
Beadvisedyourprocesseswillbreak.

You're replaceable and likely will be.
The best know when to step down.
40Don'tthink
you'reirreplaceable.

Success in life will be determined more by
what you say no to, rather than what you
say yes to. A maxim my father taught me.
41Say"no",more
thanyousay"yes".

42Autoemailresponders.Usethem.
The technology deluge can take over your life. Don't let email control you.

Tim Ferriss has a good recipe for being efficient
and doing more with less. Read his book. Despite
it's over-marketed hype, it's very tactful and
practical and Tim's got a bigger vision at play
when you look at all the things he's got going on.
43Delegate,Eliminate,
Automate,Liberate.

44.ListentoTim
Ferrisspodcasts.
Probably at the top of his game in terms
of value and quality in his long-form
interviews. Just plugging it because I
get a lot of value from it. I'm a big Tim
fan if you can't tell. #mancrush

The ancients did it. The top performers do it. You should do it. A brief philosophical
point: I see prayer as a "checking in for duty" with the Lord, not a laundry list of what
He needs to do for me. The Christian perspective on prayer in some sense I see is seen
in the apostle Paul when he says, "I die daily". Another scripture says "Humble yourself
in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up." Prayer inherently is a humble activity
and an emptying of your heart to the Lord so that he may fill you with his Holy Spirit.
There's a mindset that you should "pray without ceasing", which is another Scripture.
But purposeful time set apart is what I'm talking about here. Meditation, on the other
hand, I see as emptying yourself of distractions through incantations, practices, etc. I'm
of the opinion, both have a place, when employed with the right heart and perspective.
More to come on this in another post. Ok... moving on.
45Prayand/ormeditatedaily.

It's a discipline that teaches you to deny yourself of the luxury of eating food every meal.
46Fastregularly(foodandotherthings).

47Getagymmembership.
Gotosaidgym.
Basically this whole section is about taking care of your
mind, body, and spirit. Prioritize! My priorities I distill
down to: Faith, Family, Fitness, Friends, Finances, Fun.

It saves money and will make you eat healthier.
Eat your lunch outside, weather permitting. Or you
can work for a startup that has bomb lunch plans
and a gourmet chef, that works too.
48Planaheadand
packyourownlunches.

Hire people for their talent and passion for your company. Give
them a beautiful and inspiring place to work, but don't make it
such a point with the management team in the early days that
it's distracting and detracting. Design of an office can be additive
and highly relevant to how your culture is. Make it reflect that,
but don't spend $1,000 on the perfect stools for the kitchen. I
heard a story that Amazon took old doors and put them on work
benches. That's scrappy and awesome.
49Don'tpayforofficespace
untilyouabsolutelyhaveto
(andwhenyoudo,staycheap).

50Taketimeto
dothingsthat
makeyouhappy.
Take walks! Go to the park.
Explore your neighborhood. Treat
yourself every Friday to a donut.
Live life on the happy side!

Just something I've heard over and over that it's very gratifying to have a physical
thing that you've created. Near immediate gratification / sense of accomplishment.
Oddly enough, I think those in the ministry or psychology are similar. They work on
building people and sometimes you don't see progress at all so it can be frustrating.
But hey, I built that lego train set today with my own hands!
51Ifyou'reinasoftwarestartup,
haveahobbythatyouuseyourhands
tobuildsomethingtangible/physical.

52Neverstoplearning.
Curiosity is one of the most important traits I think
all high performing entrepreneurs have in common.

User OKR's. Google does this.
Originally introduced I think
at Intel, a framework of
accountability that works.
53Setgoalsfor
yourselfand
yourcompany.

54UseGooglesheets
andlaughateveryone
whostilluses
MicrosoftWord.
I've developed an acute allergic reaction
to Microsoft Office. Maybe you have too.

For instance, "I'm going to work out of the
Tokyo office this week". Which is a personal
favorite of mine, and was originally quoted by
Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote on a TWIST episode.
55Havealistof3-
phrasesyouwantto
beabletosayoneday.

56Taketheeffortto
buildapersonalbrand.
It will be more important than you realize. This is
just a general tip. It shouldn't be an over-emphasis,
I just see it as a must for any workers in this day
and age. You don't have to actively do the over the
top branding, just own a web presence that you can
show the world who you are.

Getting all spiritual on you again, but it's so
important to take regular times to review.
Reflection and introspection are marks of maturity.
57Taketimetoreflect.

58 Spend quality time
withpeopleyoulove.
No matter how busy you are, and how crazy
things are; invest in people. You make time
and prioritize what's important.

“Don'tlettheimmediate
crowdouttheimportant.”

I've been reading in Joshua in the Bible
recently, and in like 5 chapters there's
literally half a dozen references to
"And Joshua arose early in the
morning". Look at most successful
people: they get up early. Now, you may
say that you work best at night - and
that's fine, again this is a general piece
of advice. It also has to do with the
principle of "first fruits" which I won't
get into here but maybe at a later date.
59Wakeupearly.

60Wakeupatthe
sametimeeachday.
We are creatures of habit, develop a
routine and stick to it. Test out
different times and habits to see
what works best for you. Iterate your
life just like you iterate your product.

Get stuff done that's individually important to
you. I don't check email until after I've read
my Bible and prayed. I'm trying to write more
in the mornings. I would venture to say almost
every daily blogger / vlogger does this.
61Designateyour
morningsas"metime".

62Keepmeticulousrecords.
It will pay off. Setting up processes and structures
both in personal and professional record keeping will
make your life so much easier when tax season rolls
around or for those times when you need to find that
one invoice. Easier said then done, for sure.

Both personally and as a company! If
you're not slightly uncomfortable and
scared at what you're doing, then you are
not pushing the boundaries and getting
outside your comfort zone enough.
63Getoutsideyour
comfortzone.

64Travel.
Ah, Venice! Travel provides
perspective and stories.
Irreplaceable, really. Now,
there is a time and season
so don't go galavanting to
conferences or on a 4-
week trip through South
America right before a big
product launch.

By incorporate, I mean as a business. It's
such a small thing, just do it right, and
don't rush it though. When you take
investment, you'll have to incorporate and
you'll need to do it regardless at some
point for legal and practical purposes but
don't rush to do all the paperwork when
you should be building an MVP and proving
if your idea should be a company at all.
65Don'tincorporate
untilyouhavetoo.

67Whenyoudoincorporate,
doaDelawareC-Corp.
Use a service like Clerky. Makes it pretty easy.

I listen to lots of podcasts
and talk to high performers.
Almost to the man, they all
do the 2x audiobook speed
and most of their content is
being read to them through
the illustrious ear buds.
68Listento
audiobooks
on2xspeed.

69Remember,you'renot
onthisjourneyalone.
Entrepreneurship and founding a company can be
lonely. Keep in mind many others have gone through
or are going through similar experiences as you.
Find a tribe and keep your sanity.

This list is more of a running note pad of things that
I've seen, heard, read, or observed. It's in no way
meant to be me preaching as I don't have the soap
box to do so, but as I've said before I hope my blog
can be a resource - One beggar telling another
beggar where they found food. So, here's 69 morsels
of bread that I've found. Go forth and prosper.
Until next time,
@LukeTucker - Sultan Ventures, CEO Aloha Squared

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