How Do You Keep Yourself From Getting Stuck?
I’ve been doing a lot of research on Steve Jobs lately. Did you know that he used to practice his Macworld and product launch presentations around 200 times before the big event? [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Watch any Jobs presentation and you’ll notice how smooth and effortless…
How Do You Keep Your Startup From Being Undercapitalized?
“How long is the new funding going to last you?” I asked “Sam.” Sam said, “About one year.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] “That’s not long enough,” I replied. You really want your funding to last eighteen months. Ideally, you’d like your funding to last two years. “Why…
How Do You Keep Employee Turnover Low?
“The minute you tell your employees they’re going to minimum wage, they’re going to start looking,” my friend and mentor, Dave, said to me. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Earlier that day in our board meeting, one of our investors suggested that we shut the company down…
How Do You Get Your First 1,000 Customers?
There are some things you never forget when you’re a startup CEO, and watching my co-founder and VP Sales, “Ken,” run around the office yelling, “Hey, Hey!” after we got our first order is one of them. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. We had just soft launched…
How Do You Get Your Customers To Buy Again and Again?
“Brett, Tony Hsieh died,” Blossom said to me. “What?” I was just waking up, and this news wasn’t registering with me. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Tony Hsieh died. I know you really liked him,” my wife said to me. “How?” “The house he was staying at…
How Do You Fix Your Bad Workplace Culture?
You know the saying, “It starts at the top.” Well, guess who’s at the top? You, the CEO, are at the top when it comes to your organization and its culture. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. Yes, you certainly have hired some people that are gossiping. And,…
How Do You Evaluate A Potential Technical Co-Founder?
I considered a lot VP Engineering/CTO candidates before Jeroen agreed to join me as co-founder. The candidates were the good, the bad, and the ugly. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] There were a lot of near misses where the fit just wasn’t there or something wasn’t quite…
How Do You Develop Leadership Skills?
A couple lifetimes ago, I was working for a company where the CEO, “Bob”, liked to have a weekly operations meeting. A weekly operations meeting with the CEO and operations leader is pretty normal in a technology company. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. This CEO’s operations meeting…
How Do You Deal With A Broken Co-Founder?
“Tell me about your background,” I said to “Jim.” “John,” my co-founder who recommended Jim to me as our VP Engineering, and I were having lunch with Jim at Bucks. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Bucks, for those of you not living in the Silicon Valley, is…
How Do You Build Credibility When You’re Raising Money?
“What you did was incredible,” the associate at the venture capital firm, “Donald Ventures,” said to me. “I’ve never seen anyone handle ‘Raul’ like that.” We were walking out of a diligence meeting at DV’s office on Sand Hill Road. This meeting was the last meeting we would have with Raul’s fund before they gave…