Topic
Startups & Founding
182 episodes. 178 operators. Every line below is a verified passage from the transcript.
I was always meant to be an entrepreneur and I'll tell you one point of discrimination or illustration of this point, which is an entrepreneur, okay, a non entrepreneur will be in traffic and they'll come across a stop sign and they'll stop, right?
There's a reason why diamonds are made out of pressure. If there's a tipping point for every entrepreneur, it depends on what decision you want. You want to go down, you want to go up.
Well, here's something I've learned, and I think you can relate to this as an entrepreneur, is that history repeats itself. Different players, different names, different geographies, but history always repeats itself.
I'm a very poor entrepreneur at this point because everything that I made from the government went into these communities in this R&D.
And so knowing how there are entrepreneurs who can't leave their desk. And that's not an entrepreneur. That's a job.
I think it's an entrepreneur. You can't get too high and you can't get too low.
And I always say, if you're an artist, you're an entrepreneur, you just are.
I think people overstate the risks to starting a company or overstate the risks associated with being an entrepreneur because the process for becoming an entrepreneur for starting something reveals so much about who you are as a business leader, what your strengths are, your character, where your holds are, what you need to improve.
I look to expand founders, CEOs, whether it's whether it's co-founder communication, whether it's the vision of the company, whether it's making sure we're stress testing and keeping everyone firing like during the Olympics going for a goal medal as they're going through the whole stage of growth, right?
My story is the basic entrepreneurial story of I had absolutely no experience of being an entrepreneur, no plan on being an entrepreneur and no experience in the industry in which I started a business and just dove in head first.
I think the key to being an entrepreneur is perseverance. There's there's kind of what is your idea is the market right? And then are you willing to just stick it out? Because no matter what shit's going to be hard.
My whole belief, if I can come in and I can just help you make some decisions as if I was your co-founder, but I'm not your co-founder.
- The order of difficulty in a startup is not what founders expect: making a good product is easiest, selling it is harder, and leading a cohesive team is hardest. (With $50K Left and a 40% Failure Rate, H)
- Founders should never run out of optimism, and it's fine to ask your co-founders to lend you theirs when you're carrying it alone. (With $50K Left and a 40% Failure Rate, H)
- In the early days the founders responded to every single comment and message on Instagram and Facebook, which turned customers into organic micro-influencers who tagged friends. (Sawyer Hemsley - Cookie Crumbl: Organic )
- Build a symbiotic rather than codependent relationship between the founder brand and the company brand, so the company can eventually stand on its own with the founder as spokesperson. (How To Be Unstoppable with Self Made CEO)
- Founders in Michael's straw polls say they spend up to 75% of their time raising capital or keeping existing investors happy, which he calls the worst possible use of a founder's time. (Serial Entrepreneur Michael Loeb: E-comm)
- Founders should challenge their own assumptions: Tony tells entrepreneurs their first 10 ideas suck, and Ryan reframes it as falling in love with the customer's problem, not the idea. (Build a Brand That Sells: Lessons From B)
- Fewer than 2% of companies actually need venture capital; Navin actively discourages most founders from taking money from a fund and suggests staying scrappy or using in-kind services instead. (Most Businesses Should Never Raise Ventu)
- Bringing experienced executives in-house through the investor can reduce how much money a company needs to raise, cut wasted experimentation, and reduce how much equity the founder gives away. (Most Businesses Should Never Raise Ventu)
- Loud Capital reviews decisions and spend roughly monthly with founders, asking whether they're getting bang for the buck, and holds itself accountable in the same review. (Most Businesses Should Never Raise Ventu)
- The ideal venture-backed founder is ambitious and humble, willing to be outgrown by their own company and managed alongside executives who may be more experienced. (Most Businesses Should Never Raise Ventu)
Why do founder-led businesses stall between $1 million and $5 million in revenue?
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Most Businesses Should Never Raise Venture Capital | NavWhat kind of founder is a good fit for venture capital?
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