As a founder, the key question is: Do USERS love my PRODUCT
NOT: Do partners, customers, and investors love ME
Product & Startup Builder
Products are not just about solving problems
Products are classically thought about in terms of solving problems for users. This typically involves eliminating waste, inefficiency, and pain.
But it's not just about the practical things your product does - it's also about how it makes the user feel.
This comes down to the details.
🚀 Optimize the Onboarding
💫 Amplify the Animations
📝 Weigh the Words
🔍 Magnify the Moments
🗺️ Join the Journeys
🔊 Synchronize the Sounds
✋ Hone the Haptics
🛠️ Examine the Errors
Polish, polish, polish until you can see your reflection.
#productmanagement #design #details #polish #productstrategy #productpolish
B2C Startups: Watch out for B2B VCs that will confuse you!
There are three kinds of investors when it comes to B2C Apps & Marketplace Startups.
1. Smart money that understands B2C Apps/Marketplaces
2. Smart money (or money that thinks it's smart) that is only interested in B2B/Revenue
3. Dumb money that can be educated about venture-scale startups and B2C tactics and might come along on the journey.
As a founder raising money in a 2nd or 3rd-tier startup ecosystem, you want type 1. In a pinch, you can add investors from type 3.
However, you want to avoid/qualify out type 2.
Do NOT let number 2 distract and confuse you.
The best companies don't interview candidates
The best companies don't interview candidates.
They PITCH them.
As founders, transform your hiring process: Laser target brilliant candidates and turn interviews into pitches. Make the candidate experience as innovative as your startup.
🎙️ Pitch, Don't Interrogate: Engage candidates with the same passion you bring to investor meetings. It's a two-way street where you both evaluate alignment with vision and goals.
⏱️ Swift Yet Thorough: Condense the process. Host a full-day immersive experience that ends with a decision. Your agility in hiring is as crucial as in product development.
❤️ Ignite Passion: Inject enthusiasm into your offer. You're not just filling a position; you're inviting someone to join a mission. Make them feel it.
📈 Compelling Offers: Ensure your offer reflects the true value of joining your venture. It's not just about salary; it's the promise of growth, impact, and the potential for both personal and professional revolution. Also, don't make the mistake of lowballing people to save some pennies. It costs a LOT to find, pitch and convince a rockstar to join your team. It also costs a lot to delay placing the right person in the role. Factor this into your calculation.
🔍 Informed Interviews: Provide your team with full dossiers on candidates. Every interaction should be personalized, insightful, and indicative of your company's culture. Each interview and interviewer should be prepared to drill into specific aspects of the candidate's capabilities - particularly as it relates to the various functions they'll be interacting with and responsibilities they'll have.
This isn't just recruitment; it's the start of a partnership. Make every second count.
#StartupHiringRevolution #OneDayPitch #FounderHiringTips
Don’t pitch VCs
It's often described as a VC pitch.
But remember: They should be pitching you as much as you are pitching them.
So it's really more of a partnership meeting.
Questions a founder should be asking a VC:
1. What is their thesis, and how does it align with your business?
2. What value do they add beyond their capital?
3. How can they prove that their biases and preferences won’t corrupt your vision and strategy - particularly if they're on the board?
4. How do you know they're not going to waste your time in diligence because any of the above is misaligned and will ultimately result in a soft or delayed "no"?
This mindset, posture, and reverse diligence - even in the first meeting - helps to increase your credibility with investors AND avoid bringing bad partners on board.
#startup #scaleups #consultingconvos #startupsnippets #investing #fundraising
Stop building new features and products!
The primary goal of a Silicon Valley-style start-up is cost-efficient growth.
However, a big mistake that many founders and operators make is that they try to buy growth by building more and more new features.
This is the most expensive way to acquire new users and customers.
Why?
It costs thousands or millions of dollars of engineering, product, and design investment - and it rarely works.
Why?
Many startups fail to do the cheapest and most effective thing to acquire new users first. Putting the thing they’ve already built in front of people at scale!
Incredible home page messaging, self-serve funnels, ads, webinars, conferences, viral loops - whatever it takes to SELL the thing you’ve already got.
Don’t fall into the trap of trying to acquire more users by imagining that the next feature will crack the code on growth.
This gets especially bad when companies try to brute force growth by selling to ANY enterprise customer who will buy SOMETHING from them. Then, the new feature ideas become contractual obligations.
Use targeted and effective marketing to sell the thing you’ve already built to people who want to buy it "as is."
Surrounded by Chaos?
Surrounded by Chaos?
Not sure what choice to make next?
Can't figure out how to focus?
I find that starting with a simple, concise, and narrowly focused standard investor pitch deck goes a LONG way.
You don't necessarily have to use it for fundraising - but it helps sharpen your thinking and the alignment of your whole team.
Are you going to be the victim or victor of disruption?
So, imagine you're the CEO or CTO of an important tech company, and you've just been hit with a controversial question.
A great example in the video below is a question for the CTO of Microsoft stated something like this:
"Is AI violating copyright and how do we make sure creators get paid for their work",
Here's the playbook for how to dodge and weave like a pro...
1. The Art of Platitudes
Tactic: Preach from the Mount of High Ideals
Example: "We believe in compensating artists and creators for their work. We'd never want to marginalize the little guy."
Translation: Look, we read the room and know what sounds good. Brownie points, anyone?
2. Techno-Babble to the Rescue
Tactic: Bury them in jargon
Example: "The AI's natural language models employ non-deterministic polynomial algorithms that generate heuristic approximations, not direct replications of copyrighted material."
Translation: We're going to baffle you with BS until you forget what you asked.
3. The Morass of Complexity Card
Tactic: Wave the "It's Complicated" Flag
Example: "This is a complex issue requiring multidisciplinary discourse among technologists, ethicists, and legislators."
Translation: We’re going to buy ourselves time with complicated and pointless debates until it's too late and we've won
4. Win
Tactic: Buy time for the real truth to play out
Example: Massive disruption and reshuffling of economic incentives and models reallocating wealth and power to technology companies.
Translation: Just hold tight; we're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and you might get a better view.
--
Remember: As a founder, executive or ambitious person in the world: The question you should be asking is not, "How do we protect the status quo". Instead, the question to ask yourself is, are you the source (and/or beneficiary) of disruption or the victim of it?
This is one of the most important reasons why acting in inefficient and ineffective ways in your company is so destructive, self-defeating, and profoundly costly: It slows or mitigates your path to true scale and disruption - making YOU vulnerable to disruption instead.
Inspired by the video below
#startups #scaleups #disruption #getmoving #efficientexecution #hustle #cantputthegeniebackinthebottle
Eliminate costly waste, hesitation, and distraction from your company
If your goals are...
Eliminate costly waste, hesitation, and distraction from the company
Fast-forward to a big, bold, high-impact future
Consider the following process...
Figure out the ideal version of your business.
Deal aggressively with risks, blockers, and mitigations using first principles.
Compromise judiciously (and minimally)
Execute sequentially and relentlessly (super well)
Are you pinching pennies
I just pulled the plug on my advisory role with a startup. Why? A crippling failure in the founder's mindset.
While the best founders are orchestrating multi-faceted strategies for hypergrowth, this founder was solely obsessed with pinching pennies.
Startups aren't just about arbitraging costs; they're a bid to change the world. In Silicon Valley and beyond, a scarcity mindset won't cut it. You need audacity, and you need scale.
Don't get me wrong—financial prudence is vital, particularly in a volatile market. But if you're bogged down in cost-cutting minutiae, you've already lost sight of your exponential upside.
Here's your playbook: Dream audaciously. Bet decisively. Execute relentlessly. Your target? Nothing short of transformative impact.
Are you in a dysfunctional relationship?
In my advisory work, I've noticed a pattern of young companies miscategorizing their relationships with external stakeholders.
At best, these miscategorizations can lead to inefficient processes that don't scale. At worst, they can create dysfunctional relationships, incentives, and behaviors that undermine growth and success.
Some examples...
Clients miscategorized as Customers.
The terms "clients" and "customers" are often used interchangeably, but they generally refer to two different types of relationships.
Customers: These are individuals or entities that purchase goods and services in a transactional manner. The interaction is usually more straightforward: the customer pays money to receive a specific and pre-defined good or service.
Clients: These are individuals or organizations that engage in a more in-depth, ongoing relationship with a service provider. The service provided is often complex, tailored, and consultative in nature.
As a product-led Silicon Valley-style startup, you typically want Customers, not Clients. You want to sell what you've built (as is) hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times without tailored, consultative interactions.
This is, of course, related to the dreaded technology-backed services company I often speak about.
Customers miscategorized as Partners
Companies sometimes call their customers (the companies that buy their products or services) "Partners".
Perhaps the most overloaded term in all of business is the word "partner" (see below for more on this). It's particularly an overloaded and misused term in this context.
Partners are generally a peering relationship whereby some aspects of your core operations are intertwined with theirs. They are often deep relationships that serve a particular enabling function for the business.
That's generally not the kind of relationship you want with your customers.
To build and deliver a product at scale, you want to decidedly avoid complex relationships with your customers whereby your operations are intertwined with theirs. Instead, you want simple and consistent touchpoints that serve the needs of customers without exposing them to internal sausage-making.
Vendors miscategorized as Partners
This is similar to misclassifying customers as partners - but in reverse.
You want to avoid stumbling into essential enabling relationships for core components of your business with 3rd parties who think of you as a partner rather than a customer.
This kind of relationship often involves convincing a company to do something that isn't their core business. As a result, it is prone to be brittle, poorly supported, and often ultimately fails.
Instead, it is typically preferable to buy a standard product or service from a company whose core business is to offer that same product or service to a large and growing number of customers just like you. In these cases, it is much more likely that they will do it well, do it sustainably, and improve their offering over time.
Undifferentiated, unscalable Partnerships
Once you’ve reclassified some of your “partnerships” as customers and/or vendors, you will likely find that relationships that don’t fall into either of those two categories remain.
In these cases, you still want to avoid just calling them all “Partners”.
Instead, it is desirable to group and name these relationships into much more precisely named categories.
Doing this allows you to create a playbook for each category that facilitates consistency and efficiency at scale.
For example, some of your “partners” may be better described as Distribution Partners or Distributors.
These companies take your product more-or-less as is and help sell it into new target markets. Consider how you might properly classify and productize this kind of relationship so that it can scale (both in terms of the number of distributors you have and the number of units each distributor can effectively sell).
In some cases, it may seem difficult or impossible to classify each of your relationships into neat categories. This is often the root cause of a larger issue - your company engaging in too many bespoke activities that are not properly classified, scoped, and aligned with a higher-level strategy. The existence of these bespoke relationships might be a cause of thrash, confusion, poor execution, and lack of scale in your business.
What is the true cost of that bad sale?
As an aspiring product-led company, whatever you think it costs to sign a deal with the wrong customer for the wrong thing (off-strategy from your product), multiply it by 10.
To figure out the full, true cost, you have to factor in…
Executive discussion/distraction costs
Contract negotiation costs
Product design costs
Product development costs
Scope thrash costs
QA costs
Maintenance costs
Iteration costs
Disintermediation cost (most bad deals involve white label or loss of data control for the startup)
Credibility cost (smart money will see these deals for what they are - massive distractions)
Opportunity costs (the biggest one)
Stop it. Focus. Build and ship products that scale
You can't get to your destination if you keep leaving the trail to investigate every noise you hear. You will run out of food and daylight - if you don't fall off a cliff first.
What's it mean to "Build the thing that builds the thing"?
If you’re part of the leadership team of a scaleup, it's essential that you focus on "Building the thing that builds the thing."
But what does that mean exactly?
It means you need to fall in love with designing your company for success the same way you might be in love with crafting a product or a partnership.
Here are some example tools that help you set the right context for your company - and what they're used for...
Business Context
Business Strategy
Ensures all stakeholders understand what the company is trying to do. Mitigates questions about what’s important.
Product Strategy
Ensures all stakeholders understand the product vision. Mitigates questions about what you're trying to build.
Product vision (design)
Ensures all stakeholders understand what the company is trying to build - mitigates debates about what’s important and helps everyone fast-forward to the future.
Operational Context
New Org Chart
Ensures all stakeholders understand what team they’re on and what they’re responsible for. Also helps the leadership team understand execution capacity and areas that require more investment.
Ways of working guide
Ensures all stakeholders understand their specific roles and how they should interact with leadership. Ensures leaders understand how to serve their people.
Definition of product
Ensures everyone in the company understands the true cost, complexity, and level of quality required for something to be a “product”.
Product principles
Set the product quality bar and create consistency across Squads and PMs.
Engineering principles
Set the engineering quality bar and create consistency across squads and EMs/Engineers.
Performance rubrics for key roles
Ensures that all people know what’s expected of their role and from each of their peers. Should reference many of the concepts in the other tools listed here. Must be used during performance reviews.
Planning Process
Ensures that all stakeholders know how planning works and their responsibilities in terms of participating in planning and maintaining alignment with the plan.
Definition of partner & customer types
Clarifies the specific relationships the company is trying to build and specifies exactly what support and product processes are needed to scale these relationships. Ensures minimal ad-hoc or one-off deals that can't scale.
Sales enablement for each partner & customer type
Helps to mitigate custom work by ensuring that each customer and product type is being “sold” the same thing (lead by product roadmap)
Employee onboarding process
Educates all new recruits about all of the above - ensuring consistent knowledge and culture propagation.
Is your "product" too complicated for Product Led Growth and Self-Serve?
If your “product” is “too complicated for self-serve” - then chances are, you don’t have a product. You have technology + services.
Consider…
A narrower target market and problem
A more opinionated solution
A better user experience
If your goal is Silicon Valley-style hockey stick growth, you need to think again, think a little harder, and think about getting an experienced senior product leader to help.
Principles for cross-functional squads
I see a lot of confusion about how to create healthy and effective cross-functional squads inside scaleups and large companies.
Here are some key principles to keep in mind...
Missions, not projects
Example missions include: User onboarding, billing & accounts, discovery, sharing & collaboration
Avoid “Innovation” Squads - everyone should be innovating all the time
Avoid Catch-all squads - every squad should have a clear mission that is broad enough to encompass many product changes over months and years while being specific enough to understand what is “in scope” and “out of scope” for the squad.
Avoid Agencies - Squads should be building principles, tools, frameworks, services, and products for customers (internal and external) to use. They should NOT be regularly building one-off things for other squads like some kind of development agency.
Be sure to include Platform Squads - These are Squads that serve internal customers with generalized services/capabilities.
Cross-functional & diverse
Cross-functional squads are not just filled with PMs and Engineers - they should also include Product design, Product Marketing, Data Science, and even special roles unique to your business (E.g. ProdOps)
Full stack ownership and operations
Squads triangulate, design, build, operate, measure, and iterate on their products. They are not just “delivery teams” that get instructions from others or hand things off to someone else once they’re built.
Autonomous but aligned
Squads should be empowered to come up with their own plan and execute without relying on other squads
They are aligned through planning cycles
They are aligned through Group and CXO leadership reviews & escalation
They are aligned through healthy (non-blocking) collaboration with other squads (see below)
Custodians, not Owners
Squads shepherd given surfaces/services/outcomes - but do not block changes
High bandwidth communication between EMs, PMs, and Engineers across squads as needed is essential. A graceful degradation strategy is useful. Specifically…
Rely on 3rd party squad’s existing tools where possible/desirable
If the existing tool is insufficient, suggest a change to the 3rd party squad
If the change is not on the 3rd party squad’s near-term roadmap, the 1st party squad can make a change to the tool (3rd party squad reviews diffs)
If the change does not fit within the 3rd party squad’s existing tools, 1st party squad should build their own
Supported by service leadership and escalation.
Well-meaning peers in different squads will have a difference in goals and perspective. Reasonable disputes will arise.
Everyone should be encouraged to escalate to leaders who have a broader perspective to make “executive decisions” and decide on trade-offs
Function-based communities/tribes/guilds create consistency across squads
Individuals in a function report to someone in the same or similar functions (E.g. Engineers report to engineering leaders, not to PMs - and vice versa)
Each function should engage in cross-squad culture building (shared principles, regular meetings, all-hands, social events, etc.)
Funded by the business
New business initiatives/missions mean the funding and creation of new squads
Squads become more granular with time, budget, and complexity of the business and the product
Squads can be assigned more headcount and they can help hire for themselves
Accountable for outcomes
Weekly or bi-weekly Business reviews with group/CXO leadership
OKR reviews at the end of each cycle
Sales-led growth is like salt water
On Sales-led culture and growth:
“The problem is that most startups don’t realize that it’s like drinking salt water - it kinda quenches your thirst in the short term, but actually, it’s only going to make you very sick." - Ashley Angell
Maybe you should NOT be using OKRs
Using OKRs for a company organized as a monolith is like using a truck to pick up family groceries. It MIGHT get you there, but it will be slow, noisy, and unnecessarily painful.
What's a monolith?
Separate functional teams not organized as squads. One big engineering team rather than smaller mission-based teams with their own PMs, Designers, Data science etc.)
Re-think your culture and your org chart before putting lipstick on a pig.
The secret to product onboarding
What is the secret to product?
To put it quite simply (and reductively)...
1. Build something awesome that solves a real problem
2. Put it in front of the right people and get them to the value as quickly as possible.
The secret to product onboarding
With this in mind, be careful about one-time "onboarding" experiences that attempt to do too much work compensating for weaknesses in the core product.
Instead, consider how you can make the core product more easy-to-use, self-explanatory, delightful, and adaptable. And then get users in there as fast as possible!
The case for data
Those who follow me closely know that I am a big advocate for intuition and step-function change in product development - particularly at the start when you're building early momentum and Product Market Fit.
But this is a regular reminder to pay attention to the data.
If you have good momentum and some level of throughput through your product, you don't have to really guess about what to work on next.
Ask yourself, "What is the number 1 reason why more people are not more successful more often with my product?"
Number 1. Not 2 or 3 or 4.
Typically the best way to answer that question is by great product telemetry and funnel analysis.
Map out the ideal pathway(s) through your product, find the biggest drop-offs, develop some hypotheses about reducing the drop-off, and start testing!
If you don't take the time to do this, you'll forever be shipping "great" new features but never polishing the surface area you already have. By definition, this is suboptimal, wasteful, and a misuse of time and resources.
Everything, everywhere all at once
Reminder for non-product founders, ceos, sales people and investors:
R&D can’t do everything all at once.
You must give your product and engineering team time to execute in iterations.
If you insist on having everything all at once you are literally falling agile, iterative product development 101 and, in the process, thrashing everything and everyone.