Lessons for Every Entrepreneur

The founders I’ve met with have incredible passion, drive, and persistence. However, what a lot of them also have is stubbornness. While there is something to be said about the importance of conviction, it is equally important to take advice and learn from fellow mentors, founders, and people with business and life experience. Even though I might not be a startup founder myself, as a consultant and someone who has started their own freelance journey, here are the top 5 lessons I’ve learned that I believe can help founders on their journey.

Lesson 1 - Not everyone is out to get you

Inherently, everyone might know this, but might not fully register this idea. Product inception usually begins by talking to friends and family about your startup. When you start to talk to your loved ones about your new business idea, don’t take their feedback personally. For the most part, much of the feedback will be helpful and constructive. Their feedback will serve as the foundation you lay your business on. By becoming too defensive too quickly, you are limiting the quality of feedback you receive and alienate the people who will continue supporting you through product development and improvement cycles. It is important to find mentors and other founders who understand your journey. Though it might seem counterintuitive to talk to other founders, it’s important to build a network of people who understand what you’re going through and also trust. Follow your intuition when adding people to your inner circle, but don’t operate on the assumption that no one understands you and your company. As a founder it can be incredibly easy to get sucked into the vision you’ve set out to achieve, sometimes blocking your ability to objectively think about your business decisions, and critique and improve your product. That’s where you will desperately need your community to give you input to recenter your perspective. If you believe that everyone is hoping for your downfall as a founder, you’ll lack the community necessary to further your business, or even worse, you’ll lack the community to even get your venture started.

Lesson 2 - There is a fine line between perfection and procrastination

It’s crucial to get your product just right, but not at the expense of launching or developing. If you’re type A, like me, I understand the pressure and the urge to create the most perfect solution. However, the desire for perfection, can often come at the cost of not launching. When you have a viable MVP - use it, launch it, and test it. Do whatever it takes to get it in front of some type of audience. Do not wait for the product to be perfect, because unfortunately it will never be perfect. Customers will always have feedback, technology will always change, regulatory policies will evolve and so will your product. If you wait for everything to align 100%, you will never be able to get your product in front of the right eyes and will risk everything you’ve built and the money you’ve raised. If the MVP or an initial product offering is good, easy-to-use, safe, legal, and for the most part solves the consumer’s problem, start to get it in front of people. You can always iterate and improve your product with time. Aim for perfection but know that if you keep delaying presenting your product, you might be towing the line between perfection and procrastination.

If you think that might be you, take a step back and ask yourself the following questions:

1. What are you avoiding?

2. Why are you avoiding it?

3. Are you afraid of making mistakes or failure?

4. What will be the impact of prolonged procrastination?

5. Will most customers notice the tweaks I’m making to the product to achieve perfection?

6. Are there resources I’m unnecessarily wasting?

7. Is there time for me and my team to iterate and improve the product later?

These questions should help you work through your perfection paralysis and get your product to where it needs to be.

Lesson 3 - Don't stop learning

The biggest disservice you can do for yourself is to stop learning over the course of starting your startup. As a founder you need to stay sharp, curious, and informed. While your days will become exponentially busier, you cannot let it prevent you from learning more about the market and industry you’re in. For example, if you were previously a software developer or designer, but have pivoted to becoming a founder, don’t stop educating yourself about the newest and hottest technologies. Information and insights never go to waste, so stay curious and allocate some time weekly to learn more about new technologies, business case studies, how to improve as a business leader, or whatever it is you’re passionate about. Because time spent learning is never wasted, at best you’ve learned something that can take your company from zero to hero, and at worst, you’ve gained useful knowledge that you can leverage later. Some of my favorite substack pages to stay knowledgable as a founder include:

1. Founding Journey

2. Andrew Yeung

3. Product Insights

4. Lenny's Newsletter

5. Design Better

6. Product Insights

Lesson 4 - Stay organized

Being a startup founder means wearing multiple hats and juggling roles and responsibilities that are constantly changing. However, the worst thing you can do for you and your business is to not stay organized. I’ve come across numerous founders who have so many responsibilities that they’re unable to handle it all and become disorganized. While this is completely normal, not finding the best strategies to stay on top of everything will only make you more disorganized. Disorganization is a horrible feedback loop. Additionally, the more you become disorganized the more you risk your team members, founders, and even customers catching on and becoming weary of your venture. Additionally, with 53% of founders saying they’re facing burnout, staying organized will make your life easier. The best ways to stay organized in terms of managing your startup include: 

1. Leverage Tableau and Google Data Studios to keep track of KPIs

2. Create a data room account to manage all the valuable documents you send to investors

3. Create transparent communication between you all your team by leveraging Slack and daily standups

4. Find strategies to best delegate tasks amongst you and your team

5. Document as much of your processes as possible and keep them in a shared place like a Google or Notion workplace

6. Automate as much of your workflow as possible

7. Dedicate blocks of time to specific tasks and projects and avoid having meetings during that time

8. Leverage project management tools like Trello, Notion, or Asana

9. Don't be afraid to hire additional team members or consultants if you have time financials and know how to do so

Lesson 5 - Don't forget who has the most say in your business

You might think that investors, your board, your team, or even you have the most say in your startup. In reality, it’s the customer that has the most say in your company. By choosing whether to buy or not buy your product, customers wield the most power. The customer needs to be at the center of everything you do whether you’ve just come up with a business idea or whether you’re about to IPO. Whether you’re making large business decisions, developing your product roadmap, or adding in new features, you need to center all the work around the customer, and their needs, goals, behaviors, and purchasing power. If you lose sight of them, you’ve begun to lose sight of your startup. The best ways to keep your startup aligned with your target customer includes:

1. Align your startup’s mission and values with a commitment to the customer

2. Develop channels for collecting customer feedback and leverage resulting insights

   1. These channels include surveys, interviews, user testing, NPS (Net Promoter Score), and, if possible, in-product features to help customers send real-time feedback or survey responses

3. Utilize customer data and market research at every point of the product development lifecycle

4. Improve your visibility and engage with customers on social media, in-person events, and online forums like Reddit

5. Map the customer journey as you develop new features/product lines or iterate on existing ones

6. Consistently check-in with users and offer tips, tricks, and even discounts to build brand loyalty, but to also extract valuable insight from their feedback and responses

7. Hire and train team members to provide exceptional customer support

8. Allow users to become part of your product creation pipeline through user testing and brainstorming sessions

Being a founder is difficult yet rewarding. I hope these lessons I've learned while starting Indico will help you improve as a founder. As always, if you need any help, contact Indico to support you as you navigate your founder journey.