Thoughts and discoveries

To build a successful company, you need more than just a lot of users. You need fans who genuinely want you to succeed. And to do that, you need to give them a great product and great support.

These fans are what Eric Ries or Steve Blank would call "earlyvangelists".

It's so tempting to head for green fields with a new thing, a new market, a new business. But in fact, 15% right here and right now might be exactly what you need.

Brick walls are there to show you how bad you want something. Commit to your goals and do not waver from them a one bit regardless of what else is there. I took this approach to losing weight and fitness.  I have not missed a single 5k run in over a year. (Here’s how I lost 50 pounds btw). It did not matter if I had not slept for two days, traveling across the country, or whatever else. If your goal is to become a millionaire, you need to be an unrelenting machine that does not let emotions make you give up / stop. You either get it done with 100% commitment or you don’t. Be a machine.

"Ironically, once a startup is successful, and you ask the founders what made it successful, they will usually cite all kinds of things that had nothing to do with it. People are terrible at understanding causation. But in almost every case, the cause was actually product/market fit."

I found this via Sean Ellis' Startup Pyramid article, and it's only available via the web archive. Definitely worth reading.

This is what I am spending almost all my time on right now, and losing sleep too :) I know just how important it is.

Are you working on something other than product/market fit when you haven't got to product/market fit yet?

"Europe must embrace “crazy entrepreneurs” if it is to build more technology companies that challenge American firms" - Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman and chief executive

"A job is working on someone else’s schedule. I was expected to be productive for eight hours in the middle of the day, five out of seven days a week. This doesn’t match my natural rhythm. Some days I can work for fourteen hours, others I just need a day off. If I work in the mornings only, I don’t need a weekend. I’m really keen to explore different modes of working to find what is most productive for me."

I just came across this post thanks to Ashley Tower's recent Posterous post.

This hits the nail on the head for me in terms of why I am passionate about working for my self and building up a scalable business. I love to experiment with how I work well and trying out different schedules. I know for a fact that the normal 9-5 is not my optimal schedule.

Are you working on someone else's schedule?

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Startups are primarly competing against indifference, lack of awareness, and lack of understanding — not other startups. For web startups this means you should worry about users simply not coming to your site, or when they do come, hitting the BACK button.

Chris Dixon has some great posts, and this one particularly resonated with me. I think it's easy to either consider existence of competition a bad thing or to dwell on the competition too much. A clear understanding of the market is important, but what is more important is to focus on your own startup and whether users are sticking around.

What is your opinion on competition?

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You can explain your business in mind numbing detail or you can inspire an investor and let them imagine. Guess what works better?

There's a great post by Fred Wilson I just came across. I think this applies to more than just an investor. People love to talk. If you can explain your startup succinctly and then let them ponder on all the possibilities whilst being a good listener then I would say you are more likely to get them on your side.

What do you think? Do you use this technique?

If you find my posts interesting, you should see ways to connect with me at my OnePage here.