start-up practices to actually be successful

7/25/2019 Start-Up Practices to Actually be Successful

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Iterate - Start-Up Practices to

ACTUALLY Be Successful

Drew Haines and Matt Haines

This book is for sale athttp://leanpub.com/iterate

This version was published on 2016-03-16

This is aLeanpubbook. Leanpub empowers authors and

publishers with the Lean Publishing process.Lean Publishingis

the act of publishing an in-progress ebook using lightweight tools

and many iterations to get reader feedback, pivot until you havethe right book and build traction once you do.

2016 Drew Haines and Matt Haines
http://leanpub.com/manifestohttp://leanpub.com/http://leanpub.com/iterate


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Contents

Starting Up! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Iterate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Have An Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Sell A Service First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

It ISSSSS About Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Dont Solve Problems You Dont Have! . . . . . . . . . 10


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Starting Up!

1


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Starting Up! 2

Iterate

Its more important to MOVE FAST, than to wait until some-

thing is perfect. Your first draft is NEVER your final version.

Focus on building things to the point where they are good enough,then go back and improve them later. Logos, landing pages, blog

posts, the product, whatever; all these things WILL improve over

time. Youmustget into the mindset of good enough because there

are SO MANY things you need to do to get your business generating

money. Its more important to move fast and move on than to spend

2 weeks deciding on logo.

The point is SPEED > QUALITY (in the beginning). Then, GO BACKand improve it later.

Example:When I first created HoursLogger, I got so much crap for

the logo. I threw it together in 2 hours. It wasnt perfect, but at least

I hadsomethingto put in the app and on the website. It allowed me

to move on and work on more important things, like building the

actual app.


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Starting Up! 3

One of my designer friends told me he would redo it for me. I sent

it over to him and you know what happeded? 2 weeks later, he got

back to me to tell me he was still working on it. 2 WEEKS!Couldyou imagine if I actually waited til the design was done? Waiting

like this will slow your business to the point of death. GET STUFF

DONE, then iterate!


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Starting Up! 4

Have An Opinion

Having an opinion helps you become a standout, a leader, and

an entrepreneur. It forces you be informed and engaged in your

conversions. It causes more people to notice you and makes youinteresting. It is an attractive quality for entrepreneurs.

A friend of mine, Reza Olfat, told me, Its better to be wrong than

vague. Meaning, its better to choose an option and be right or

wrong, than it is to not choose. It helps push progression; whether

you are right or wrong almost doesnt matter. You will be wrong

plenty of times and THATS OKAY! What matters is you form an

opinion and can defend it intellgently.Always agreeing is boring and not thought provoking. Take a stance

and defend it. Be proactive and show people you have something

to say.

Example:During the first meeting at our local Ruby meetup, they

asked, Does anyone want to introduce themselves? Matt and I

stood up, said we run a consulting business, and were looking

for work. When they need speakers, we give talks. At the end of

other peoples talks, we ask intellegent questions. When they ask for

volunteers, we raise our hands. People in the community notice us


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Starting Up! 5

and know who we are because we do all these things. As a result,

we get more work and recognition from the community.


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Starting Up! 6

Sell A Service First

Your first successful business should be SERVICE based, not

product based. Product based businesses take too long and take

too much capital. When you sell a service, you can start makingmoney immediately. Use the service based business to learn how

to make money, rather thanhow to spend money. Once the service

business is paying your rent and bills, then you can use it to fund

your product ideas.

Choose a skill you have and sell it for an hourly rate. Tutoring,

mowing lawns, buiding website, anything. It will force you to

run a REAL business and interact with customers rather than justworking on your product all day long. Be a producer, not someone

who gets funded then spends it all!

Example: My first business was selling Sufboard Beer Pong tables. I

invested LOTS of time and money into producing each table before

I could even sell it. I spent 1 year trying to make this happen and

sold 2. That business sucked!


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Starting Up! 7

My first successful business was when I started tutoring. It was a

direct conversion of time for money and all I needed to get startedwere flyers. I walked away from my first session with $40 and

thought Damn, that was easy compared to everything else Ive

tried.

Sell a service first, it will ACTUALLY make you money!


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Starting Up! 8

It ISSSSS About Money

Its one thing to hear its not about the money, from a mentor;

but I CANT STAND when founders of start-ups tell me this. If

you dont think its about money youre not going to do very

well in business.

Cashflow is the blood of a business. Your business WILL die

without it. No one likes to work for free. For a few months, maybe.

But years of working for free, just isnt feasible or very smart.

Everyone needs to pay bills and bills cost money. If your business

isnt producing cashflow, it will die because you need to do some

other activity to pay your bills.

When your business is making NO money Anyone that says its not

about money is TOO COMFORTABLE. Either their job pays them

enough or there is some other source of money (funding, family,

etc).

They dont know what its like to HURT for money. To hurt for

money means: 1. your stomach hurts because you literally cant

afford to buy food during the day. 2. your parents business crashed,

so they cant help you with payments. 3. the highest your gas tankreaches is a 1/4 tank because you cant afford a full one. 4. your


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Starting Up! 9

bank account ACTUALLY floats around $0.00, no back up savings.

When you are hurting for money, IT ISSSSSS ABOUT MONEY. And

when you have no other source of income, it lights a fire under your

ass. You dont care about parties, sports, movies, etc. All you care

about is figuring out how you are REALISTICALLY going to make

some money.

When your business is making money =D Once your business starts

producing cashflow, money is one of the BEST metrics you can use

to check growth. Are you making $50, $500, or $5k a week? Its agreat reality check because money is REAL.

Example:When I first started SDSUeeTutor, I charged $20/hr and

had 1 client (about $80/week). Last semester, I charged $50/hr and

had more than enough clients ($500-$800/week). The reason I had

such success was I focused on money. Every week I wrote down

how much I made and brainstormed how to make more. I tried to

be as specific as possible. I would literally write down the peoplesnames that I thought needed tutoring, then tried to contact them to

see if them needed help.

To every Yin, there is a Yang Of course, there is the argument of

greed and being consumed by money. You shouldnt do things in

business that are morally wrong to make a profit. Thats bad. But

thats not the point I am trying to make. All I am trying to say is I

wish there was a bit more hunger in the entrepreneur community

to make a profit. Wanting to make millions to afford luxury is moreof a goal, than greed.


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Starting Up! 10

Dont Solve Problems You Dont Have!

Dont create work for problems you dont have. Stay focusedand ONLY work on things in the critical path to making your

first dollar!It is really easy to ask yourself what if questions all

day. What if someone uses our product like this? This thinking is

dangerous for startups because it can pull you away from your main

goal, MAKING MONEY.

When you start running a business, everybody and their brother

wants to give advice. It is up to you to decide what is important andwhat isnt. Stay focused and ask yourself, is the task Im working on


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Starting Up! 11

directly getting me closer to making money? You must be maniacal

about staying on task and only focusing on things that will generateincome. If you arent, the first dollar will never come.

This doenst mean EVERY task will make money. Sometimes there

are multiple steps before your first dollar. For example, if you need

a website to sell your product, building the website doesnt directly

make you money. However, it is a necessary step in delivering your

product.The point is stay on track. Dont make up problems in

your head.Example:When we were building HoursLogger, everyone wanted

to tell us what feature we HAD to build next. This meant we

had to be selective about what we worked on. What sounds more

important? Making it so users can run 2 timers at once. Or, making

sure we can take payments and charge people for the app? I know

it sounds obvious, if you cant take payments, then you cant make

money so you should probably work on that. You would be amazed

at how much BS people tell you have HAVE to work on versus whatACTUALLY MAKES YOU MONEY.

start-up practices to actually be successful

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