You probably know somebody who talks about their awesome ideas all the time -- but in your head you know it'll never be anything more than a just an idea.
Alright, I'm doing it. Wannabe entrepreneurs, I'm calling you out.
Please understand that this comes from a place of love, but it may sound harsh. This isn't to get you down, but to motivate you to action.
The Startup Advantage
Entrepreneurs, we have one major advantage over established companies. ONE! We're fast -- we can be nimble, have less bureaucracy, don't have TPS reports and boring meetings -- this means we can push product faster than our big company counterparts.
To capitalize on this, you need to do one thing: GET SH*T DONE.
Yes, that's it. I know you feel like you need to strategize a lot (you do) and be lean (you do). But if thinking about what you should do, reveling in the grandeur of the huge visionary nature of your idea, discussion, meetings, and avoiding paying a dime to move the business forward -- takes up more time than actually DOING, you're doing it wrong.
A True Story Of Bizdev Fail
A friend of mine, call him Scott, is one of those mythical 10x developers out there. His standard consulting rate is $2000/day, and you can only book in one day increments. He is overbooked and considering raising his rates. However, he often does things for entrepreneurs to help them get their businesses off the ground.
Someone we've met recently in the startup community, call him Matthew, approached us about getting an MVP off the ground for him. It was relatively trivial, less than 2 days of effort to deploy, and my friend offered to do it for $600, with a standing offer on the table to deliver within 2 days for $600.
Fast forward 7 weeks, and Matthew still hasn't deployed this MVP. This directly contradicts his assertion that he is a great bizdev.
If you're an early stage tech entrepreneur, DOLLARS probably aren't your most valuable asset. TIME is. Ask yourself what your time is worth. Matthew could have worked at McDonalds for 2 weeks, paid for the MVP in full, then moved on and advanced his startup for 5 more weeks.
After the fact, Scott emailed me:
"This is part of why I've been losing interest in trying to have first-time entrepreneurs as customers... They don't want to pay for things -- even to get their own business going! -- and they grossly underestimate how difficult it is to deliver a working service. He would have been better off paying me $600 just to get it done and move on, but he thought $600 is too expensive. Meanwhile, I can get $10k/week from an established business just through word of mouth, without even having a reputation or a portfolio or an established consulting business with case studies."
