Sitting on a cramped bus passing through Baltimore, I am getting more excited for FinCon 2019 in Washington, DC. This will be my first time attending FinCon which is meant to be where finance and media meet.
This event is where many well-known bloggers, YouTubers, Podcasters, and influencers in the finance space all converge. The event is meant to help facilitate connections and provide valuable learnings to up and coming folks in the space.
Why am I attending?
For me, I am attending FinCon 2019 to gain valuable connections for the FinTech company I am building. Content and influencer marketing are all incredibly valuable in the competitive space of FinTech. My hope is to build long-term relationships in the space.
Our company is still in the development stages as we have proprietary technology and user learnings. Once we have completed the proof of concept phase, we will build out the first iteration of the product. Following that build, we will need to turn up the marketing engine.
At FinCon 2019 not only will I make great connections, but also begin to understand which mode of content marketing is a fit for our company. As a startup we have a small team with limited bandwidth and resources, making it crucial we focus our efforts. At FinCon 2019, we’ll be able to understand what channels are most important to us in the early stages.
About FinCon 2019
FinCon 2019 is in Washington DC this year. It is a four-day event that features brands and influencers alike. There is a lot of content and opportunities to connect with people and learn from others. The tracts for the event range from blogging, podcasting, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and everything in between.
As I pull into Union Station in Washington, DC, I’m excited to share my learning with you and continue to document the journey!
Since April, I’ve been implementing a strategy called “do a little each day.” Simply, the idea is that every day, no matter what, you make progress on your big goals.
The Power of Habit
Research shows the power of habit and repetition is the key to building strong habits. I’ve been taking the fundamentals of habit building. Then taking and applying them to my dreams and goals as a strategy towards attainment. Like many folks, I had no trouble dreaming or talking about what my dreams and goals were. Yet, I would often find that I was no closer to achieving them than the month or year before. Simply, it is easy to talk and a lot harder to actually do.
As a way to combat my stagnation and break the inertia of inaction, I began my strategy of ‘do a little each day’ in May. After 4 months of using this strategy, I can confidently say that I am seeing tremendous progress towards my goals.
As an entrepreneur, I find this idea of doing a little each day a huge help in structuring my time. When you don’t have a boss and are responsible for your own time you have to find ways to overcome inertia. Motivation is extremely important and often comes in waves.
Therefore finding a way to jump-start motivation and turn action into a habit is key to achieving goals.
My Failings
Before I began abiding by this principle, I found my productivity hinged solely on my motivation that day or week. It came down to my ability to power through or be inspired. I’d go months without revisiting my business or important projects. It was easy to get caught up in work and life in general.
Eventually, I came to the realization that I had to make a change. There is no way I would stumble into achieving my dreams or goals if I didn’t make a concentrated effort. That is when I shifted my mindset to focus on the important things in life and doing a little each day.
I began tracking what I did each day and how I’d rank the day on a -2 to 2 scale. This allowed me to see what commonalities led to really amazing days and which ones led to not so great days. Armed with this knowledge I can now structure my days to ensure I habitualize the things that lead to great days.
Shifting to the do a little each day mindset
Implementing a do a little each day strategy can have a large impact on your business and life. First Things First and The One Thing are books that embody this mentality. Each of these titles is about ensuring you do the most important thing on your to-do list. By prioritizing your to-do list and acting on the most important thing versus the easiest or most demanding, you can achieve your goals.
Top performers in their fields understand this concept and work to master the most important parts of their craft. Combining the do a little each day with prioritization will help you achieve your goals!
I’d like to know if you agree or disagree and what your strategies for achieving your goals are. Please feel free to leave a comment.
I had a fantastic summer recharge that has led to some meaningful revelations. As you may know, I left the 9-5 working world in mid-April and have been pursuing personally meaningful endeavors.
Kicking Off the Summer
Early on I took some time away to reset and recharge for a couple of weeks in May. From there I got to work networking, speaking to investors and iterating on the financial platform we are building. The team that we put together moved quickly in a few different directions. Yet it always felt like we were missing something or there were too many barriers to truly test our idea.
At the same time, it was easy to find something to do that would keep me busy. Overtime the prevailing 6 weeks I was unclear on what activities would move the needle.
Summer Recharge Begins
Fast forward to a long-anticipated trip with family overseas, I began to understand what was truly important to me. Spending time with the people that I love. Quickly I recognized that my big aspirations and dreams won’t mean anything if I don’t spend time with the people that I love.
On that summer trip I was able to recharge and reignite my “why” behind leaving a cozy 6 figure paycheck. To me, my biggest asset is my time and energy. With whom I spend that precious resource is up to me.
That led to me re-adjusting my summer plans to spend a large chunk of time with family and friends. The past month has led me to reconnect with old friends, renew my creativity through acting, writing, and creating, and take calculated business risks.
As a result, I have started down the path of producing and creating through a number of business endeavors. I am extremely optimistic about the prospects of those ventures.
Refreshed and Optimistic
Ultimately this summer, I have taken into account how recharged and refreshed I am. My head is in the right place and I have rediscovered my “why” behind why I wake up every morning.
Thus, I am grateful and thankful for the incredible people in my life. I have a loving and caring family. I have the best friends anyone could hope for. As well, I am truly blessed to have the opportunities afforded to me. While the summer comes to an end, I am recharged and more excited than ever for what lies ahead.
Lights, camera, action! Yesterday, I shot a commercial for the first time in about a decade. As a kid, I was a part of a talent agency who would cast me for commercials, photoshoots, and other video projects.
My grandparents were live performers who traveled doing comedy, singing, and entertaining across the US and world. My uncle ran the Chicago public radio station that created and producedThis American Life and other well-known radio classics.
Meanwhile, my mom acted most of her life from live theater to commercials even living in Los Angeles for many years. Growing up both my parents filmed commercials and radio ads.
As you can see being in front of a camera is something that comes naturally to my family.
The Commercial Shoot
Yesterday, Brighteous Media asked me to help shoot a pimento cheese commercial for their client. The job was a rush job for a TV spot they purchased a couple of weeks out. Being able to work with a friend and see him in his creative element was wonderful to see.
It’s a lighthearted story about a husband trying to please a wife who has a craving for high-quality cheese. It involved a cheese heist, unsuspecting stock boy, and angry mob. But not to worry the faithful husband comes out triumphant in the end. It ends with a happily ever after.
Additionally, playing a role or character allows you to be a different version of yourself. It’s a little like when you were a child and you play make-believe. You get to be creative and play a character. Having the freedom to act gives you a license to be a kid again.
Unfortunately, as you get older it is easy to lose that license to play. Serious matters of being an adult take precedence over light-hearted fun.
Ultimately, the commercial shoot yesterday awakened that fun creative play side of me. It reminded me of how important it is to be a kid every once in a while.
Whether you choose to relax, run errands, or work on something you enjoy, it is up to you. This Saturday I focused on a potential real estate project that hopefully will get finalized soon.
For me, real estate is a lot of fun. Specifically, real estate hits on three areas that are important to me.
#1 Entrepreneurship
For me being an entrepreneur is about creating value for others. The focus is on finding opportunities to solve problems that people will pay you to solve.
As human beings, we naturally tend to avoid pain and discomfort. If you can find a task or activity that people find cumbersome, difficult, or genuinely dislike, then there is an opportunity to get paid to solve it.
When it comes to real estate, people want a comfortable safe place to live. Yet, most people will not go through the trouble of building or renovating a property. Real estate projects present an opportunity to solve someone’s need for housing.
Thus for me, real estate is a form of problem-solving, which is the heart of entrepreneurship.
#2 Investing
The second area of focus is on investing. Utilizing money to work for me rather than me always working for money. There is only one of me, but there’s lots of money in the world. The key to investing well is taking advantage of that fact.
Real estate is a wonderful vehicle where I can deploy capital to work for me. Additionally, real estate offers leverage meaning I can not only use my own money but the bank’s money as well. That is why I am focusing on investing in this potential real estate project.
#3 Creating
Thirdly, is the act of creation. I find creating value and building new things exciting and rewarding. There is something beautiful about creating something out of nothing. It takes seeing a vision of what could be and turning that mental picture into a reality.
When it comes to real estate, that often means creating a place that someone can call home. That is exactly what this real estate project would do.
Real Estate Project
Ultimately this real estate project is an opportunity to satisfy these three areas of entrepreneurship, investing, and creating. While it is still in the early stages, I am very excited about this potential opportunity.
It is official! We just finished recording the first episode of the podcast! To kick it off, I am honored to have my good friend Cory Johnston, Founder of Brighteous Media!
While the podcast launch date has not officially been set yet, I am super excited for everyone to listen. Below you’ll get an exclusive sneak peek at the first episode of the Financial Glass podcast featuring Cory Johnston.
Brighteous Media Founder, Cory Johnston
Cory is the Founder & Creative Director (a.k.a. boss man) of Brighteous Media a video marketing company that is growing exponentially. Cory and I go way back. He and I grew up playing competitive soccer and then went to high school together. Cory’s drive, kindness, and good-hearted nature have always impressed me.
Firstly, we discuss his time in corporate America working as an engineer in the automotive industry. While at Honda Cory was tasked with automating people’s jobs, which just didn’t quite sit right with him. From there we talk about what led Cory to want to start his full-service video marketing agency, Brighteous Media.
Of course, we dive into his relationship with money. Like many millennials, Cory was raised very anti-credit. He didn’t yet understand the power and importance of credit. You’ll learn about his transformation and what his relationship with money is now. From there we talk about how his good money habits enabled him to take the entrepreneurial leap.
Finally, we wrap up with Cory’s advice to anyone looking to start their own business.
This was a remarkable conversation that I know you all are going to love. Cory is an amazing person who is looking to build an incredible life. You’ll relate to his dilemma and learn how he makes his business work for him. Audio and video sneak peek to come to you shortly. Now it is time for me to get to editing!
Join Cory’s team and learn about their amazing work
Additionally, Cory is looking for folks that are interested in video, photography, and blogging. He is growing his team and of course, if you have any video marketing needs reach out to Cory and the Brighteous Media team – Info@brighteousmedia.com.
I recently read The Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor which is about venture capital and how to get it. Scott does a really good job explaining the in and outs of venture capital. The book is very easy to digest and also provides a lot of really great insight into the black box of venture capital.
The Secrets of Sand Hill Road Nitty Gritty
Scott works at Andreessen Horowitz the famous venture capital firm and was their first employee. Andreessen Horowitz famously invested in Instagram, Airbnb, Facebook, Lyft, and Zynga, among others. As such, they are very well respected in Silicon Valley and beyond. Sand Hill Road, for those that don’t know, is a famous road out in Silicon Valley where the big-name venture capitalists have offices.
I highly recommend this book if you are a founder or interested in venture capital. The Secrets of Sand Hill Road goes into great detail about the industry and is easy to digest. You’ll see sides of VC that you wouldn’t normally think about. With that, there were three main secrets that are important to understand about venture capital.
The Promises Venture Capitalists Make
First is thinking about the incentives and promises that the venture capitalists have made to their investors. Venture capitalists are using other people’s money to fund startups. Yes, they usually have some of their own money in the funds. But at the end of the day, the majority of that money is actually from other large investors.
Who are those investors?
Those large investors could be college endowment funds, pension funds, and even hedge funds. They invest with VCs because they are looking for an outsized return on investment. With the money provided to the VCs, there are certain terms and expectations that come with that money. The money isn’t for them to go have fun with and gamble away on any company.
There are certain criteria for each fund. There are certain time horizons for returning capital, certain barriers in terms of what the venture capitalists are allowed to invest in, and guidelines on expectations that each VC fund has.
Understanding the nuances of a fund is important when thinking about who you should target as a possible investor. The key nuances are knowing the age of the fund, how much capital it has to deploy, the VCs track record, and the types of investments the fund can make. Thus receiving money from a recently raised fund versus a fund at the end of life, really matters.
Fund Age May Affect Relationship with a VC
For example, if you are one of the first companies that receive investment you have a longer time horizon for when that fund is supposed to return capital back to its investors. That can lead to less pressure from the venture capitalist to push lightening growth.
Whereas if you receive funding towards the end of the fund’s life, there is less time between when the VC is supposed to return the money to investors. This could lead to expectations to quickly return capital and quickly grow. That pressure for fast growth may or may not be suited for where your company is at the time. This is one very important secret of Sand Hill Road.
When I was first starting to have conversations with venture capitalists I didn’t think about this hidden incentive. While I was aware that there were various funds, I didn’t understand what information was important to pay attention to beyond being in the right category. All I knew was that certain VC’s invest in certain categories and stages of companies.
Be sure to really understand the incentives and time horizons that VCs have with their investible funds.
Beyond Valuations. Understand the Term Sheet
The second insight is that oftentimes founders get stuck on the valuation. How much equity am I giving away? What’s the dollar value? These are all the classic questions that most folks focus on without really thinking about the terms of the investment.
Luckily Scott goes into great detail about the term sheet. The term sheet highlights exactly what those other riders are. It spells out how things will be held, how the board will be controlled, and how capital is returned on the next round (of investment).
This is where venture capitalists have a larger advantage over founders as they have more experience laying out the how of the investment.
In The Secrets of Sand Hill Road, there is a comparison of two term sheets. Walking through that example shows how the valuation is merely one small part of partnering with a venture capital firm. Usually, you don’t think about or discuss all of the terms until after you’ve received a term sheet. Go beyond the valuation when taking on venture capital.
Private is the New Public
And then the last thing that I found really interesting is that companies are staying private a lot longer than they have historically. It used to be that companies would IPO, meaning they would do an initial public offering to become publicly traded on a stock exchange. It used to be about five years on average. During the dot-com bubble that average was even less. It is now closer to ten years.
You may be thinking, “so what?”
Hedge funds, college endowments, and retirement funds used to buy companies when they IPO’d, but that has changed. At some point, the investment shifted earlier. The result is companies that normally would have to go public to raise large sums of money, don’t have to anymore. This means that companies are staying private longer because there’s so much more money in the private markets.
That also means that these institutions are now chasing those returns forward. So they’re getting into venture capital to invest pre-IPO. It has resulted in a feedback loop.
These are just some of the nuances of how venture capital and the capital markets have changed.
Wrapping up the Secrets of Sand Hill Road
I recommend entrepreneurs read this book. It’s great in terms of understanding venture capital investors. It is important to note that venture capitalists aren’t exclusively in technology, software, and hardware. They invest in a lot of other categories too.
Overall it’s a very simple, easy to digest book that will give you a great perspective on venture capital and the incentives behind it, which will help you as a founder.
My entrepreneurial journey continues in this July 2019 update. I am continuing towards my goal of becoming an entrepreneurial success story. Below you will see my goals for 2019 and how I am tracking towards them. The last 6 months have come with a lot of positive changes that have given me more control of my time, have opened up new opportunities and provided a much-needed perspective.
My Entrepreneurial Success Story – July 2019 Progress
Having big goals is the easy part. Working towards achieving those goals is the challenging part. It is very easy to talk a big game which my friends and family know I do quite well. The more difficult part is actually backing it up.
The biggest hurdle for me is that there isn’t one clear way to get to where you want to go. There isn’t any easy path that if you just do x you will receive y output. Additionally, there are many entrepreneurs who fail after putting in tons of work. There are others who seemingly stumble or make success look easy.
What I am learning is that it just isn’t as easy as it sounds and everyone’s journey is unique. In terms of my own journey, it is time for my July update. We’re halfway through 2019 so to start here is a quick recap of my goals for 2019. Then I’ll jump into where I am and what I’m changing/tweaking to improve as well as one key learning.
I laid out a few key goals that I am focusing on for 2019 which are listed below.
Acquire 4 more rental units located in Alabama or Florida
Read 36 books this year
Limit my alcohol consumption to an average of 1 day of drinking per week
Generate through a side business $128k/month before year-end
As you can see I have four main goals. One which had to do with real estate focusing on purchasing four more rentals before the end of the year.
The second two had more to do with kind of health and personal development. Since I’m an avid reader I read a lot of books. This year I upped the ante making my goal to read 36 books. The next goal has to do with alcohol consumption. My focus is to average just one day of drinking per week for the entire year. The reason being is I noticed that I was having a glass of wine at dinner or a beer after work which started to add up. Especially working in a start-up where there was free booze all the time and every activity was alcohol focused. It resulted in social pressure to get a drink almost every day. The focus is on limiting consumption and social pressure.
Then the fourth was having a business that’s generating 128k per month in revenue. I see this as the most challenging. Though it aligns with a larger goal that I’d set out a long time ago which is to reach a million dollars in income every year, not just net worth by 28. The secondary goal is to be earning 10 million by the age of 30. This goal originally stemmed from wanting to have a million in income by the age of thirty. But after reading about people that had gotten there who said their biggest regret was that they wish they would have shot for more. So that’s my logic behind that goal is to work my way towards that number.
July 2019 Goals Progress
As for the updates, when it comes to rentals I have not purchased any rentals this year. I do have a piece of land that I bought 2017 that I’m looking to develop as a rental. I think the timing is right, numbers are there, and the market makes sense. Assuming I get the financing that will be underway. I should have that squared away in the next couple of months, granted that won’t be completed until 2020 but progress. Also working with family on real estate now too
When it comes to reading I am about four books behind where I should be right now for the end of June so I picked some big books recently and had you know nine hundred pagers some of those things and just need to kind of pick up the pace. Booze consumption I was doing really
well I was right at 1 day per week average until I went on an overseas trip with the family. I knew that I wasn’t going to be super strict. In that regard, I’m a few days ahead of drinking days this year. I’ve got twenty left for the year and am a few ahead for the year. A couple of weeks without any booze will get me caught up and on pace.
Lastly, the business generating $128k a month. This is where I’ve been focusing time on a few different endeavors. I’m not there yet. I’ve got a rental that gives me some income right now so at about $2400 maybe $2300 a month roughly. I’m not calculating any portfolio or interest income at this point. I still have a lot to do on that front. That’s the overall update for my goals.
The Change on My Entrepreneurial Journey – July 2019
The big change that I took away after going on a two and a half weeks vacation with family is who I do business. We spend most of our time at work with work people. What I realized is that I want to do projects and business with people that I enjoy doing business. There is a saying that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with so choose wisely.
A lot of time those people are the folks around them at work. My epiphany is that I want to spend my time working with people that I love and care about. Ultimately combining those things where I can. Because you can’t always work with the people that you love and care about but the places that I can I want to optimize. So that’s where real estate really comes into focus along with a couple of other side projects that I’m working on with friends and family. In reality that’s the biggest thing is truly spending time with the people that you want to.
I cannot think what better way to do that then through working with them and working towards a common goal of creating value. Today that’s what I’m really excited about and what I am focusing on is not just accomplishing goals to check things off a list but to do so in a way that is rewarding and fulfilling. Because the focus is on accomplishing the goal and minutiae. Yet there are people that hit goals and aren’t happy. Ultimately they have may sacrifice morals or time with people that they love and give up a lot.
And I don’t know that it is necessarily the case that you have to sacrifice everything to achieve big goals based on what I’ve seen other people do. Perhaps a little bit of the optimist in me wants to think that there’s a way to do it all and have it all.
Wrapping up the July 2019 Entrepreneurial Journey Update
That wraps up my July 2019 entrepreneurial journey update. The focus for the rest of the year is its continue to work towards those goals. And also finding a way to do achieve them with people that I love and care about. Truthfully even if I fall just a little short and don’t quite achieve them, I’ll really enjoy the process. To me, the shift is focusing on that process more so than the end goal. So not losing sight of that end goal and working hard to get there, but doing it in style.
Understanding customer problems and customer needs are crucial to any business. But where do you start? And what do I talk to my customers or potential customers about exactly?
To-Do Market Research or Not?
You’ve probably heard the saying from Henry Ford where you know someone asked if he would have asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Rather than an automobile and obviously we know what happened with the automobile and the Model T. This is a valid point about understanding the market and that uneducated consumers may articulate the solution versus the problem.
With that, a misinterpretation occurs where people assume that there’s no need to talk to customers. Instead, the thought process is “I’m just gonna go build something really great and people will come.” Another example is Steve Jobs who is famously known for not doing market research. Unfortunately, this idea of not doing market research often gets misunderstood and twisted. It is much easier in the near term to ignore what potential users and the market needs. At the end of the day, you still have to understand the customers’ problems.
Henry Ford didn’t just go build an automobile because he was like ah this might work. No, he understood that the problem was getting places faster. While he didn’t go ask them what they wanted, because most wouldn’t have understood his vision of automobiles, he still understood the market’s need. Ford really focused on the problem of creating a better mode of transport to get people places faster.
Understand Your Customers Problems. Not Their Idea of a Solution
The key thing to take away and it’s something I’ve been trying to apply in my own startup is understanding customers’ real problems. In order to accomplish this, I’ve set up calls with potential users diving into their needs. I’m really looking to understand what their problems and unmet needs are when it comes to personal finance without leading them to what I want their answers to be. Questions I focus on are around how they make investment, saving, and debt reduction decisions.
What is the real challenge they have? How do you currently do what you’re doing? What are some of the pain points? Your frustrations? And not focusing too much on the “Oh it would be cool if X Y & Z happened” feature feedback. While that information is valuable and something to take note of, what you really need to do is understand what’s the core challenge/problem that your customer is facing. Then looking across a large group of folks to see commonalities. Versus one person said X and another said Y we should build all those features.
One person wants a fancy dashboard. Another person wants personalized recommendations for investment. Yet someone else wants automated in-app debt reduction techniques. All of those are all really interesting ideas. But if you boil it down there’s actually one or two actual challenges or overlaps. That is where you need to focus your attention. Determine what are the features that will solve those problems.
Problems Translate Into Feature Prioritization
Ultimately that’s what I’ve been doing early on in my startup journey is really trying to understand what are the key problems and the features that will solve them. Understanding your customers is a crucial step as you build out the first iteration of the product. Especially since it most likely won’t have all the bells and whistles. Likely it won’t be the prettiest thing either. One goal of the first product you ship is to be functional and solve the problem.
My advice is to figure out which problem you need to solve. I encourage you if you are building a company or an entrepreneur is it to really focus on the problem versus the solution. This will inform which features you prioritize or how you decide to build your product.
Go Beyond Understanding Your Customers’ Problem – Find a Motivation to Change
Additionally just identifying a problem doesn’t mean you’ll have the next big business. We can go all go out and pretty easily identify some big problems out there in the world. The other question you need to ask yourself is: “Is there a want to change?”
I was speaking with someone that has a ton of startup experience. He has started and been involved in starting over a dozen different companies. He took 3 of the companies public through an initial public offering and had the rest acquired. One of the things that he noted was that just identifying a problem doesn’t mean you’ll have success.
For example, you might have a friend that is a smoker. We all know that smoking causes cancer and is bad for you. You probably shouldn’t do it or you probably should stop smoking. But just because someone knows that doesn’t mean that that the person is motivated to quit. So You may have a friend who is a smoker that doesn’t care to change. They enjoy smoking, it is what it is. It’s their addiction and they are more worried about other things. They say “I’m going to keep smoking.” Then trying to sell them on how to stop smoking isn’t necessarily going to work. That was his analogy of saying you want to find a problem but also you want to find a motivation to change.
Now that you’ve identified your customers’ problem. Can you identify the want to change? Are they motivated to take action or are you going to have to spend tons of time and money educating your consumer? Neither answer is wrong, but it is much easier to build a successful business when an intrinsic motivator exists.
Next Steps
Now you need to determine how you will go about understanding your customers. Will it be through 1:1 interviews, phone calls, social media gathering, surveys, or focus groups? There are lots of ways to gather intel. How you do it will depend on your product, resources, and potential customers. Be sure to focus on the problem versus possible solutions. Also, ensure to ask questions around wanting and needing to change.
Everyone has an opinion, especially as an early stage entrepreneur. It just seems to go hand in hand. As you may or may not know I am building a company right now. The focus in the personal finance space where we are creating a trust-based social media platform. It is a place where people can get really high-quality information that is tailored to them. Connect with other folks that have similar long term goals. The aim is to help everyone build their ideal lifestyle. As you can imagine there are a lot of opinions on how best to do that.
How to deal with all of the different opinions and perspectives
So with that context, there’s a lot that’s been going on the last month and a half. It’s been a crazy whirlwind with tons of progress and learnings. Some of the key takeaways that I’ve had so far is that everyone has an opinion. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and they can be valuable but there are some opinions that you should value more than others.
Everyone’s opinion #1
For example, this week I’ve had a few conversations. One with a former Gartner contact who used to run the tech CEO program. Companies would pay $100k to talk to this guy every year. Anyway, he gave me some really good perspective. He’s a seasoned veteran in tech and understands the New York City venture capital market and startup world. He Provided some really interesting insights from an investor perspective. Really highlighting what they really are looking. The focus is around the business and really digging into financials. The big thing is the deep technology talk about the product you can scrap in the initial pitch.
Everyone’s opinion #2
Then yesterday, I had a conversation with a CEO in the fantasy sports vertical. He built a company and then had some laws and regulations change that essentially made his business not work anymore. Now he is on his second fantasy sports company and has put all his capital into it. He has learned a lot through that process. As such he has a completely different perspective on how to approach business than the CEO advisor.
Fantasy sports CEO is the “I’m a bootstrap kind of guy and don’t take any money.” He understands how he wants to do X Y & Z. His advice is it doesn’t matter about business models. That’s not important in the early stage. What is important is getting down who your user is. Building a picture of who they are all the way down to what bar they go to, what street they live on, their favorite color, that level of depth.
What do you do will all these opinions?
There’s definitely value in both opinions. What I’m learning is that you need to take the pieces that make sense based on where you are today recognizing context as you do right. I’ve done a lot of small entrepreneurial things in my past but this is the first technology business that I’ve built. I’m learning a lot through this process and getting many different perspectives, speaking with folks that are recruiters in the space, with venture capitalists, potential investors, and users.
It’s really eye-opening to see just the different business philosophies that exist. We use the broad term of “a business person” but there are so many different approaches. You have to be really careful and selective in which advice you listen to and which you don’t. There’s a lot out there and there’s a lot of really good information. Some of it won’t resonate really until you’re actually in the field. If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur you can read and do all kinds of stuff. But until you are building the business and experience it first-hand some of the advice won’t click as much as it does when you’re in the field really trying to make things happen.
Key takeaways for entrepreneurs filtering everyone’s opinions
My big takeaway from this week is that you’re gonna get a lot of really good positive feedback you’re gonna get a lot of constructive criticism. You’ll also get a lot of suggestions like “oh why would you do this? Why did you do that?” People that will hear you speak very briefly and make assumptions about what you have and haven’t done. So both those people that I spoke to have no idea the depth of where the team has gone to get to where we are. It was just a quick high-level overview and then each immediately pounced on well here’s what you need to do. So context is really important. At the same time hearing other people’s perspectives when they only have certain pieces of the puzzle also tells you a lot about their thought process and also what you might think about adding to your business.
So I encourage you to listen to different perspectives but also be selective in terms of what you listen to. And I’m not saying only listen to the good things because that’s crap. Filtering for only positives won’t help you. You need to listen to the constructive advice but also, recognize if who you are speaking with isn’t quite connecting the dots, it could be that you’re not explaining things correctly or their perspective is skewed based on their experience. Their views are shaped by what they’ve seen be successful and what failures they’ve seen. You want to weigh that knowledge when you are thinking about your business, the advice that you’re taking, who you’re listening to, and who you keep in your circle as advisors.
Go broad but relevant
As such you should definitely get a wide range of opinions. It is worth the exercise, but also recognize at some point there’s a law of diminishing returns. Especially early in the life cycle of your business, a diverse range of viewpoints will be beneficial.
I encourage you to go get that insight and those perspectives because other people who have been there will have different ways of looking at things. You can see the overlap and difference from someone that has 40 plus years of experience in all kinds of different sectors have seen the whole gamut and gets paid to advise CEOs. That perspective versus a younger founder on his second company. The younger founder who had his first business fail not because the business wasn’t solid but because the environment changed. (Which is a lesson in and of itself. You can’t always control your environment but where you can maybe you try to focus there.)
So and you know that perspective of “hey I’m you know I’m really scrappy. I haven’t quite hit the huge growth trajectory of success but I know how to build a solid business with little capital. I know how to understand a problem, define it, and start to build revenue and a company.”
Think about the person behind the advice
So it’s really interesting to hear the various opinions and perspectives. I encourage you and everyone out there that’s interested in entrepreneurship to think about who you’re getting advice from. What their perspective is. What you have and haven’t shared with them that might frame the way that they think.
That exercise will definitely help inform who you’re speaking with what you want to accomplish with other folks in the future whether its investors, partners, potential hires or customers or whomever.
Thanks for reading and good luck in your endeavors!
