Lessons for Early Stage Founders
calv.info
calv.info
I think the more interesting lessons and questions are (which they are not incentivized to have you think about):
-- Decide early on who's going to control your path: you, the product, or the money? Many figure out too late who's in control.
-- Are you willing to hand over the keys if some day you discover you're not the right person to lead? What will you do if you find out this isn't what you signed up for?
-- What are you not willing to do in pursuit of growth?
-- Are you willing to walk away from a lot of money today, for something deeper tomorrow?
-- Who do you want to be, and what does this company do for you in your life?
I myself generally hate that things have to become "people stories", but in my experience, these are far more fundamental questions that you will have to confront when you talk to your team, the VCs, the investors, more so than anything about how to manage a feature roadmap or the perennially boring, "when to hire a CMO", etc.
All of those are, to me, the same type of distraction as deciding the color of the Maserati you will buy once you get rich with your startup. More introspective for sure, but still a distraction.
I feel that I am perfectly fine making this decisions when the time arrives. Not only that, but it is totally unreal to expect that my answer to those questions now when my startup is generating almost no revenue will have any influence on the real action that I will do when there is a ton of money on the table and the stakes actually matter.
These seem to be real questions for late stage founders.
I think the distractions are thinking about: handing over the lead and walking away from money. The others I still think they will be a real dilemma in later stages, but I agree that early decisions are already reflecting some of those decisions.
I think often valuable advice is actually being told something you already felt but couldn't elucidate.
The advice I have given that seems to have been most useful is not around product or market fit, but how to resolve internal conflicts. Human nature seems to have not changed much.
Anyway my experience is very few people are looking for advice, they are looking for validation and cover to do what they wanted to do before speaking to you.
My other additional advice for founders is get support from other entrepreneurs at a similar stage - that peer support is super helpful especially on bad days!
Bootstrapped startups cannot hire unless they have hit a certain profit mark and certainly not preemptively.