7 + 3 Lessons From Failed Startups
Great Inc post on lessons from a failed startup include:
1. Consider the entire experience
2. Raise money when you can not when you need too
3. Don't give away equity too soon or too fast
Read the other 4 from the Inc post: https://www.inc.com/yoram-solomon/7-lessons-you-should-learn-from-my-failed-startup.html
I'd add three of my own lessons from my "failed startup":
1. Don't think in terms of success and failure, win and lose. Think about impact, learning, and potential. Startups require a more nuanced sense of win/lose.
2. Don't hire your friends even if they are the right people because you are probably blind to faults, issues, or other "round peg in square hole" problems with friends.
3. Create any startup in collaboration with customers. Don't do the "mad inventor" thing and go off and think you've created a better mousetrap. You won't. Instead, collaborate and build on what you learn from real customers facing immediate problems.
Turning Around Starbucks & Startup Lessons
Starbucks lost its way. The company was hemoraging and their founder brought it back. This clip is from an awesome hour long video iterview with Howard Schultz chock full of great startup lessons such as:
* Share Everything.
* Be transparent, passionate and real.
* Love is the killer app.
* When you share you are VULNERABLE.
* Vulnerable feels bad but is good (and healthy).
* Greatness comes from facing hard things and creating plans.
* Vision isn't a small thing.
* Don't try to change people, surround yourself with believers.
* You can't FAKE love over time.
* When in doubt, keep turning the crank.
That last tip is from Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer, our 3,300 mile bicycle ride across America in the summer of 2010. Riding across America on a bicycle was the hardest adn best thing I've ever done. The key was plain and simple early - keep turning the crank (pedals).
I wrote about my personal vulnerability (having the Big C) on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102639884404823294558/posts/Hx96PZRDe9i