Before becoming a start-up founder here's a list of things I wish I knew! Presentation made to a start-up innovation hub in Ireland.

1. Running a Start-Up
What I Wish I Knew Before I Started

2. About Me
Programmer
Accountant
Masters Degree
Corporate
Finance
Finance Theory
Research
MBA
Strategy
Consultant
Start-Up
Founder

3. On Paper…

4. The Reality…

5. The First Takeaway
You’ll never be fully ready to start a
company, regardless of background

6. Sun
14
Mon
15
Tue
16
Wed
17
Thu
18
Fri
19
Sat
20
Focus
00:00
50%
100%
12:00 24:00
13 AfternoonActive Hours
Average Rate 52%
M A E
Most Active
PoorWork Life Balance
ACTIVITY RATE
D W
FOCUS LEVEL
Your data is only viewable by you
Monday, 17 October 2018
DAILY TIP 07:20
11:20
THE RULE OF 3
Fast forward to the end of the day, ask
yourself, what 3 things will I want to
have accomplished. Write those things
down.
BOOST
Don't aim for inbox zero, take a break
between responding to emails
15:20
EMAIL CLUTTER
Don't forget to build 10 minutes quiet
time into your busy schedule, it’s
important to block out time for yourself
BOOST
BLOCK OUT TIME
Coaching
Your data is only viewable by you
What is Stroofy?
10
Goal
Active Hours
11
Screen Time
5.2
Work Life Balance07:00 12:00 17:00
Okay
07:00 12:00 17:00
Activity Rate
65%
18:00 - 19:00
55%
Today
00:00 12:00 23:00
Task Switching
Task Switch Rate
Focus Level
Okay
10.8
Coaching
Top 3 Actions
Fast forward to the end of the day, ask yourself,
what 3 things will I want to have accomplished.
Write those things down.
Personality
Next
Back
First Up….
Describe how you see yourself
Extraverted, Enthusiastic?
Slightly Disagree

7. Company-wide Insights

8. Where We Operate

9. Multi-Office Start-Up
Positives
Wider Client Pool
Negatives
Wider Investor Base
Cheaper to Operate
Can restrict iteration
Often impacts idea flow
Co-ordination is hard
at times
Out of Ireland

10. What I would change…
One / Two Locations. We thought we knew better…

11. BUILDING A PRODUCT
Don't forget to build 10 minutes quiet
time into your busy schedule, it’s
important to block out time for yourself
You're in a state of flow! Use your current
focus level to complete those really
difficult and important tasks. When you're
like this, tough tasks become easy!
KEEP GOING
FOCUS LEVEL
Good
BLOCK OUT TIME

12. M.V.P versus M.V.P
20+ weeks1 day

13. M.V.P… Filter the noise
… Test one aspect

14. MVP: Errors Made
Find the Balance… Quickly
Biased ourselves with test users
We tested with high performers both
academically and in the workplace, didn’t
truly understand our target market
Too much focus on technical MVP
Spent far too long coding the MVP to get the
feedback needed to iterate the product

15. 20 28 40 52
Quantify Focus FitBit for the Office Enterprise Insights 3 Tiers - Nudge!
Version One
Testing whether people wanted
to quantify their day, and
understand certain patterns
Version Two
Making the UI more acceptable
to individuals leveraging the Fitbit
for the office model
Version Three
Delivering a company end for
aggregated insights and team
wide analysis
Current Version
Personalised coaching tool with
focus insights. Aggregated and
anonymised people analytics and
work life balance
Product Iteration
My Coach
COACHING
Don't forget to build 10 minutes quiet
time into your busy schedule, it’s
important to block out time for yourself
BLOCK OUT TIME
NEXT UPDATE
FOCUS AND ACTIVITY
FOCUS LEVEL
15:00
15:20
16:00
ACTIVITY RATE
92%
Great
14:00 to 15:00
More
View

16. Lean Loop… The Theory

17. Lean Loop… Reality
What do we change? Time
cost to change it.. what’s the
right thing to build?
What change do we measure,
time and cost to change it.. is
the feedback right?
Some people won’t bother, or
worse will be afraid to hurt your
feelings. Be Brutal!
Can you convince
companies to trial it?…
This takes time!

18. Lean Loop… Takeaway
STEP 1 STEP 2
Sell the product
before you build it
Find a Co-Development
Customer
…………

19. TIPS & INSIGHTS

20. Tip 1: Solve a Problem
When we started Now

21. Is it worth solving?
50%
Employees say they are significantly
less productive and stressed due to lack
of focus and distraction
(Udemy research)
$10,000
Per Employee, Per Annum in lost
productivity
(stroofy estimate based on basex research)
2 hours
How much is lost to digital
distraction on a daily basis
(Deloitte research)

22. Scaling: Chance of success is small, so target large
and growing markets.
Tip 2: Market Size, Trends & Risks

23. Stroofy’s Target Market
Lost productivity to digital distraction in
the US & UK market alone, Per Annum
(Basex & others research)
$668 Billion $14 Billion
HRM Performance Management
$4 Billion
Enterprise Spend on Productivity, and
Growing 14% Annually

24. When Apple & Microsoft Enter…
Screen Time MyAnalytics

25. Graveyard for Start-Up’s
For new concepts, beware the behemoths… know your competitive advantage
Competitor Graveyard

26. Tip 3: Find Product-Market Fit

27. Go-To-Market Fit
Know how/where to reach your target audience
(optimal channels - ROI, locations)
Know your client decision cycle and friction points
Develop a Sales Playbook: refine, iterate and make it repeatable
When to spend on marketing. Don’t spend until you know above.

28. Go-To-Market Fit: Tighten the cycle
Marketing
Sales
Customer

29. Tip 4: Sales… Sales … Sales
It’s Magic… Solves many problems

30. Tip 5: Raising Funding
Business Model, Sales Process, Validation and Market
Team is the most important factor… right team will figure it out
Know your targets: Most VC’s won’t invest in B2C models
How much? Support all projected spend with a financial model.

31. Tip 6: Daily Time Management
Team & Hiring
Issues
Product Issues
Funding & Investor
Concerns
Customers
& Trials
You

32. How we stay on track
Daily Calls: Sales, Data Sci,
Tech, Behaviour Sci & Admin
FTF once a month: Rotate -
Cambridge, Oslo, Dublin
Track Progress (Trello, Slack,
BitBucket)
OKR’s: Objective, KPI’s, Result

33. Work Life Balance

34. 80+ Hours
Per week
Work-Life Balance…
Consulting
5-6 Days
Per week
Great
Salary
Structured
Time Limited Projects
One Client
One Focus

35. 100+ Hours
Per week
Work-Life Balance…
Start-Up
7 Days
Per week
Low!
Salary
Chaos
Fire Fighting Never Stops
Every User
Is a client

36. Some Advice I Received
in Silicon Valley…
01
02
03
Friends
Family
Past-times

37. Some Advice I Received
in Cambridge
01
02
03
Friends: One night a week
Family: Make time, at least an hour
Past-times: Exercise 30 mins every day
We got a dog
… Mental Health will be an issue

38. The Final Takeaway
Have courage, take a risk. You
won’t regret it, win or lose.