The first habit, or the foundation, of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is being proactive. In short, you are responsible for your own life, and therefore possess the initiative to make things happen.
I’m not through the entire book yet (I’m actually only on Habit 2), but this first habit applies to startups as much as life. If you own a startup, you are responsible for that startup’s success, and you must make things happen.
The following is a scenario I’ve seen before. You create a business you know customers will love, because you love it. Whether you spent money to create it or did it yourself is irrelevant. You go-live, but the people don’t come. You decide to post a link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Nothing. You add features because you thought of cool new stuff. Still nada.
Here’s the point where many entrepreneurs make an incorrect critical decision. They either continue to add features, or they quit, assuming they’re product won’t be successful.
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed. - Paul Graham
Paul Graham is really good at taking complex topics and breaking them down, such as the paragraph above. You only need three things to create a startup, but you can’t achieve any of them without being proactive. Startup life is difficult, and successful entrepreneurs can not let blame various circumstances for their results. They need to proactively find ways around those circumstances to achieve success.
Lean Startup principles are proactive by definition. You talk to customers to learn and validate assumptions until you achieve market fit. You’re continuously deploying changes, and testing small updates to understand their value. You remove waste that is not providing value to customers.
Being proactive sounds obvious, and I’m sure most feel they are already being proactive. However, looking at the definition of proactive from the book, I’m looking for ways to do better.
I can’t wait to read about the other 6 habits.
I launched TweetAfter.me with a minimal feature set. I had (and still have) many ideas to enhance the service, but made a conscious decision that none of them were necessary on the very first day. This allowed the service to get in front of users faster, allowing feedback to be received quicker, which ended up changing my view of which features were more important in my backlog.
Besides deploying with a minimum feature set, I also felt it was important to reduce recurring costs until higher revenue is generated. Let’s face the facts. A new product or service has zero users when it launches (TweetAfter.me went live on 02 January 2011), and no product or service is guaranteed to increase users. Therefore, it makes sense to lower your recurring costs to reduce your overall burn rate.
Sometimes that includes making tough choices regarding features. While sometimes, you completely remove a feature, tailoring the feature may be the only solution. A real example from TweetAfter.me is that tweets are currently scheduled in one hour increments. The goal has always been to provide a lot more flexibility in duration between tweets, default schedule durations, etc. However, right before deployment, I made the tough decision to reduce the initial scope of these features. Why?
To achieve my initial goal would have had a recurring cost 12x more expensive then current recurring costs. With zero users on day one, it made little sense to pay 12x more money for features of a just-launched service. The truth is that startups should test the market to verify those features are needed. If they’re needed, then users may pay for them, increasing your return on investment for these features.
Therefore, just don’t assume you need expensive features on day 1. Higher costs give you less time to validate decisions with customers. On day 1, one of your highest priority goals should be to give your startup enough time and money to reach customers. If you spend the money now, you lower the chances of succeeding regarding that goal.
If I had to describe the Lean Startup Methodology in less then 5 words, I would say “Ideas, Product, Learn, Repeat.” First, people have ideas and deploy a minimal product. You then learn from customers who use your product and repeat the same process, modifying your ideas and product(s) based on customer feedback.
Learning is the toughest step in this cycle, as it is the only state that requires external people to complete. Very early customer development and validation is also a state that doesn’t get much attention. Although that is starting to change (due to the Lean Startup movement), most material I have read focus on struggles with idea and product, then shift to funding and scaling. It’s a shame because the learning phase can often be the most frustrating, and without persistence, may create a lot of waste, or even critical mistakes. Take these two examples.
Just Keep Adding Features: Many entrepreneurs skip the learning phase completely if they become frustrated with the lack of initial customers, electing to implement new features from their backlog instead. This can be counterproductive, as one of the biggest forms of waste is creating features users do not want. A decade ago, I made this mistake with a blogging platform I created (before blogging was actually a term). I became impatient, and by the time users were on the platform, the usability of the platform had degraded due to the feature additions I made combined with the lack of validating the usability of those features when integrated.
Pivoting too Soon: The 2nd potential mistake is entrepreneurs giving up and moving on to the next idea. They repeat the “idea, product, learn” loop, as they believe they “learned” their product or idea was flawed and the best course is to start over with something else (Note that sometimes, this is true). Entrepreneurs are being told to “Fail Fast”, which I think is great advice, but if entrepreneurs can’t learn why the product failed, then they may need to keep going.
So, how do you enhance the learning stage when you’re trying to entice “earlyvangelists” in the crucial beginning weeks or months? It’s not easy. Here are a couple ideas to start the conversation.
Search Engine Marketing: SEM services, such as Google Adwords, could be a cost-effective way to get initial users to your website. Eric Ries has a great article on this approach, and I encourage you to read it, as there’s not much I can add. Note that Adwords has become significantly more complex then even a few years ago. Therefore, I advise that you spend a great deal of time optimizing your campaign. If you don’t, you may draw the conclusion that something is wrong with your service, when in reality, your ad campaign sucks.
Use Social Networks: It is so much easier to increase your reputation with the plethora of social websites. 10 years ago, there was very little. Blogs allowed non-technical entrepreneurs to increase their reputation and become their own brand. Now, websites like Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News, Quora, and Stack Overflow allow you to share your knowledge and insights with a larger audience. If people trust your insight and thoughts, users are more likely to try your services and products.
These ideas are more indirect methods to better achieve your goal of reaching initial customers. I purposefully stayed away from other, more talked-about ideas, such as A/B testing or customer interviews. No matter what you do, understand most methods take a significant amount of time to “get right”, and many times, it’s easier to go back and add a new feature. Don’t fall into that trap!
I’m interested to hear your methods regarding this topic, as everyone benefits from new ideas, and no idea will work for every situation.
Like this post? I encourage you to visit TweetAfter.me and provide feedback.
TweetAfter.me provides a bookmarklet that allows users to to save and share interesting things they find on the internet with their Twitter followers throughout the day. When the service became available, the bookmarklet only stored the page’s title. However, you can now use the bookmarklet to dynamically change the text that you tweet along with the URL.
The Default
By default, your profile is set up to tweet utilizing the first two options. When clicking the bookmarklet, the service will automatically store the page’s title, unless you have selected text to be stored. If text is highlighted within the page, then the service will save this text in place of the title. “The Default” works even if you have not logged into the service, and your text is saved as you are redirected to/from Twitter to verify your credentials.
The Dynamic Tweet
I’m sure your wit and humor stands out on your Twitter profile. Tweeting the page title or some selected text may bore you. If so, then TweetAfter.me allows you to tweet what you want with Dynamic Tweets. With this setting enabled, clicking the bookmarklet will show the small form (pictured above) in the top left corner of your browser. Type what you want and click Submit. Note the URL is automatically added, so there is no reason to add it to your text. Also note, at this time, you must be logged on to utilize Dynamic Tweets, and the bookmarklet will utilize The Default method if you have not logged onto the service, even if the setting is enabled (Why? Since you’re not logged on, the service can’t tell if you enabled this method).
You can enable or disable Dynamic Tweets at any time from your profile page.
With these 3 options, TweetAfter.me is a terrific supplement to your overall Twitter experience.
Listed below are updates to TweetAfter.me from this week. Feedback has been really good so far. Please continue to contact me with what you like/hate/would like to see enhanced.
The bookmarklet is the only setup necessary to use lloquy.com. Registration isn’t even necessary. With lloquy.com, you could be setup, bookmarking, and having conversations to in under 30 seconds. This post takes you through steps to install the bookmarklet on some different platforms.
The easiest method is to just drag the bookmarklet image found on the main page to your bookmarks bar. For most platforms, including Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, you are setup in under 5 seconds.
For Internet Explorer, try these steps.
For other platforms, such as the iPad, you may have to perform other steps, although they are still easy. To install the lloquy.com bookmarklet on the iPad, you have two options, which are detailed in the following subsection
Installing the lloquy.com bookmarklet on your iPad
To install the bookmarklet on your iPad quickly and easily, add the bookmark to Safari or Firefox on your computer, then synchronize your bookmarks to your iPad with iTunes.
If you do not want to sync your bookmarks in this way, then you can perform the following steps.
This method is awkward and has a higher probability of error. However, with the iPad’s inability to copy javascript, this is the best solution I could come up with at this time (I’d love to hear from developers who could do something better).
If you feel more platforms should be involved, let me know and I will try to add instructions.
Did you know that 25% of tweets on Twitter contain links to interesting opinions, news, and photos? Posting interesting stuff, through links, is one of the best ways to increase the number of followers you have. However, update too many times in a short timeframe, and you’ll lose a percentage of people following you.
For me, I only have certain times I can tweet, mainly when people aren’t focusing on Twitter. I find interesting stuff, but no one sees it, because I post when no one is looking, and I post in bulk.
TweetAfter.me was created to easily bookmark interesting news, opinions, and articles you find on the internet, and tweet on your behalf in set intervals (2 Tweets every hour). Therefore, if you find 20 articles in the morning, TweetAfter.me will spread those tweets over 10 hours.
TweetAfter.me is incredibly simple. To get started, just drag the bookmark located on the main page to your bookmark’s bar on your browser.
That is the only setup required. Note that registration wasn’t required, because there is no registration. TweetAfter.me does not store your Twitter password.
So now that you have the bookmarklet on your browser. How do you use the service?
Subsequent bookmarks will not require you to logon. Therefore, to visually show that websites were bookmarked, a visual cue will appear in the top-left corner of the browser when the bookmarklet is pressed. It will disappear on it’s own.
That’s it! When you find other interesting pages, just click the bookmarklet and it will be saved for future tweeting.
So, is TweetAfter.me a fully-featured service that provides me everything I could ever want as a supplemental tool for Twitter?
TweetAfter.me is an “un-launched” product that allows users to bookmark interesting content they find on the internet, and share that content at a later time. If you’re like me, you may find multiple things during one timeframe (such as when you’re drinking coffee). Instead of sharing those links all at once using your favorite Twitter client, TweetAfter.me allows users to bookmark that content, and we’ll automatically share with your followers throughout the day.
So what is “un-launched”? Another term that may be more utilized for this stage in product development is “beta”, which just states that the product contains only a subset of features a finished product would have. Instead of keeping the service in stealth until it is complete, however, I realize that TweetAfter.me has value now with it’s current set of features. Therefore, I hope users will use it to grow their follower count and reputation, as well as provide feedback on enhancements they would like to see.
Why tell you this? First, if you use the product and see something you don’t like (or think of something you would like the service to perform), I want to hear about it. I know how I use the product, but the service will only be truly valuable by understanding how You use the product. By utilizing an “un-launched” term, I’m stating that the service is consistently being upgraded. As an example, the first two weeks have brought several major upgrades to the service.
These examples come straight from user feedback. Therefore, I encourage you to try the service and give me the “lowdown” on your use.
Over the weekend, I read this (although I did not listen to the supplemental video). The author made a point to state he would never work for entrepreneur Jason Calacanis due to his views on work/life balance (in other words, there should be no balance). See a supplemental opinion from Jason here.
I’m a big proponent or work/life balance, so articles like those in the previous paragraph really get me thinking. Is it possible to succeed when you have a life? Do you really need to sacrifice aspects of your life? Work extremely long hours for weeks/months/years? The answer to each question is Yes.
To answer ‘yes’ to each questions could seem contradictory, but it’s true. To be successful, you must have a work & life balance. That doesn’t mean you work a normal 40 hour week and then go out and have a life. It’s much more difficult, or else everyone would be a success.
So what’s the answer. Calacanis states that work should be your life and you should love your job.
I never stop thinking about whatever project I’m working on, and I don’t consider what I do work-never have.
This advice is absolutely true. However, this advice, on its own, makes you a ‘workaholic’ and doesn’t give correct balance. You need to love your job, and honestly, I bet most people do not. If you don’t love your job, and you’re not thinking about how to be successful more then your competitors, then you’re going to lose.
So what can you do to increase work/life balance. My belief is that, similar to Lean Development, you cut waste. Many people cut out time with family, sleep, or other healthy activities. These items are essential and necessary. Even better, they’re not even waste. In the short-term, going to the gym may seem like waste when you’re trying to make a delivery, but work/life balance is a long-term goal, not a short-term.
So what’s waste? I think it’s better to start off with what isn’t waste.
With these items in mind, waste can be defined as any activity that does not help you meet your goals. Passive activities, such as watching television, are wasteful. With the idea of cutting waste to achieve a work/life balance, you can work 70-80 hours a week, stay healthy, and coach your child’s sports team.
It only takes hard work and self-reflection.
Great pic from a previous airplane ride. Taken with my phone.