Most Popular Start-Up Advice After Mentor Week 2022

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events Had two mentor weeks with accelerators and funds we help with. After meeting with 16 start-ups in the past two weeks, here are the three things we advise which draw the most positive responses: 1) Jungle, Forest, Highway (by Jeff Bussgang) - Companies can be characterized by what stage they are in and it can be immensely helpful to your decision making on strategy, hiring and expectations. Companies in "the Jungle" need small teams of super resourceful people who can do a lot well with a direction that's clear but often changing. In the Jungle, there are no roads. If we need shelter, we just need to get something up to get us out of the elements. On the dirt road, efficiencies pick up and we're moving much faster in a 4x4 jeep than our band of machete bearing Jungle experts. And on the Autobahn, our Ferrari needs a driver, and technicians, who can maximize life at 200+ mph. That racecar, however, is useless in the Jungle and breaks down on the dirt road. So do hires who are used to the "first class and steak" life on the highway - trust me, I made that mistake a dozen times trying to hire those who've "done it before." Competitors can be seen in their stage too. Big tech sucks at start-ups and often dies in the Jungle. Use where you are to your advantage. We wrote about our NYC "Jungle" here years ago. 2) Spend cash not stock. So obvious right? Well, you should see some of these cap tables. Owners with less than half the company pre-seed. We had an advisor we loved in 2010 but couldn't afford. He wanted $98k for a project and we didn’t want to spend it. So we gave him stock. We wrote him a check in 2020 for $974,000. Oof. Another vendor we hired with a small amount of stock in 2011 to help us with publicity. Guy didn't do anything. Nine years later he got a check for $62k. Do whatever you can to use money and not stock. You can always get more money. 3) It doesn't get better….but you do. Every entrepreneur is looking forward to a day the pressure isn't so intense. I'm 15 years in at a $100m company with 100+ employees. I can tell you, that day doesn't come. If you screw up early, there are only 5 of you. Later? There are lives you know with kids and responsibilities counting on you. The pressure never stops. BUT……you get better at it. You get better at finding people to help you personally and professionally. You get better at understanding your balance. And you get better at learning to live with the Babadook- "the monster in the basement." (Thanks Susan David). The funny thing….You just might learn to like dancing with the monster.