Buzz

33 Startup Lessons

louishatzis — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 01:33:00 -0400

Every now and then I post on twitter “Startup Lessons”, quick posts about startups and entrepreneurship based on my own experience and that of friends. Twitter is great for this because in a 140 chars you have to articulate a clear idea, kinda like pitching.

So far I’ve posted 33 startup lessons and when I reach 100, I plan to write something for each on this blog. Here they are:

#1: Don’t guess. Measure everything. Tweet it

#2: Firing people is difficult, but your startup comes first. Do it quickly. Tweet it

#3: Make decisions by consensus, but also make sure that everyone knows you (CEO) have the final say. Tweet it

#4: The only thing that matters is your product. Focus on making it great. Tweet it

#5: Your future depends on traction. Don’t wait for users to come to you. Go and recruit them one by one. Tweet it

#6: Development speed is everything. Keep your initial product simple so you can ship and fix problems quickly. Tweet it

#7: Startups are hard. Inspire your team to achieve the impossible. Tweet it

#8: Your number one objective is revenue. Don’t get distracted by hype. No money, no Honey. Tweet it

#9: Listen to experts, but trust your intuition. Tweet it

#10: Prepare yourself. Don’t underestimate the amount of grunt work required to build something that is lasting. Tweet it

#11: To launch a tech startup is fundamentally a leap of faith. The odds are against you. Don’t think, Do. Tweet it

#12: Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Most startups inherit the strengths and weaknesses of their founders. Tweet it

#13: Stop thinking, Stop learning, Start doing. Keep doing until it works out. If it works out. It might not. Tweet it

#14: You can never be 100% ready. Just start. Tweet it

#15: You’re old. You have no capital. You will fail. Ignore the naysayers. Trust your instinct. Tweet it

#16: Perseverance is faith. You got to believe to keep on going. Keep the faith. Tweet it

#17: Iterate continuously until you get it right. Tweet it

#18: Whether you’re raising money, getting a user to sign up or seeking talent, everyone likes a good story. Tweet it

#19: What separates you and success is the bullshit you tell yourself about why you can’t achieve it. Tweet it

#20: The easiest thing to do when things aren’t working is to give up. Don’t, make it happen. Tweet it

#21: Hire slowly and fire quickly.

Tweet it

#22: Customer service is key. Always try to please. It will propel you ahead of the competition. Tweet it

#23: Funding is important, but the real funders are the marketplace and your customers.

Tweet it

#24: Choosing investors is like marriage. Pick an investor that will be a den mother & cheerleader. Tweet it

#25: Nobody Is Going to Steal Your Startup Idea. Share it. Tweet it

#26: Find Mentors. Love your Mentors. Engage your Mentors. Tweet it

#27: Build a team that complements your skills and personality. Tweet it

#28: Entrepreneurs love to talk. Learn to listen to your customers, staff, mentors and investors. Tweet it

#29: Forget business plans. Its a bunch of untested guesses. Get validation from customers. Tweet it

#30: The details are not just details. They make the product. Tweet it

#31: Good sales equals good conversation. Find ways to talk with your customers. Tweet it

#32: When selling your product don’t sell “what” you do, but “why” you do it. Tweet it

#33: Entrepreneurs that Do vs. those that Don’t? Simple: Drive to succeed & persistence to get there. Tweet it

Let me know when one you like and maybe we can turn it into t-shirt.

Do You Ever Miss the "Old Internet"?

louishatzis — Sun, 25 May 2014 17:38:00 -0400

Do you remember this image :) Every site use to be “under construction”, in perpetual beta.

But I think Gawker’s recent article describes it best:

"The internet I grew up on and still rather cherish on was one of weird flashing Geocities pages; strange usenet groups devoted to arcane fandoms; long, maudlin posts about people’s depression illustrated by ASCII art tableaus. It was text-based MUDs that elaborated on fantasy games before HBO was adapting them for our pleasure. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, but also no parents, few real names, and relatively little fear of surveillance. And the animating spirit was scrappy in a way that you can tell is gone because it is so hard to describe, standing here all the way down the line."

I miss many things, but slow speeds isn’t one of them.

Great Software

louishatzis — Tue, 20 May 2014 08:18:00 -0400

"The phone company gave birth to Unix. Now there is no phone company and Unix runs on your phone." via @ftrain (Great Works of Software)

Never! (source: goldwerger)

louishatzis — Sun, 18 May 2014 20:57:00 -0400

Never!

(source: goldwerger)

End of Year Thoughts and Lemonade

louishatzis — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:35:00 -0500

As the year ends and because a couple of weeks ago I had another birthday, I’m thinking about the past year and what the future holds.

Personally and professionally the past year has challenged me and brought on some of the biggest life changes. But also it served as a reminder of things I use to know, but forgotten. You can’t stop change, but you can fight back. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

I’m entering 2014 with hope and optimism. I’m making no resolutions. I will let life guide me, keep my eyes open and turn this new year into a unique opportunity.

Happy New Year!

Privacy Matters

louishatzis — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 23:16:00 -0500

Snowden delivered the alternative Christmas message on UK’s Channel 4 about privacy, why it matters and why mass government surveillance is wrong.

I couldn’t agree more!

Even though we can all agree that governments need to take measures to protect us, for the last 12 years in the name of security and personal safety, they’ve crossed the line. Our governments have used the events of 9/11 as an alibi to spy on us, to collect every e-mail, text, and other electronic communications we send and receive. Enough!

Its time to start asking some serious questions… How much security is enough?

Education as a Life Long Process

louishatzis — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 10:01:00 -0400

The video is an excellent presentation about digital learning by Cris Dellarocas at the recent TEDx in Athens. If you understand greek make sure to watch it, otherwise you can read this report from McLinsey about College for All.

He makes some key points about what is happening, what is going to happen and how digital learning is changing how we learn and work. My three take aways from this talk are:

Breaking the Mold: Education is no longer about the mass production of college grads, but curriculum personalization and developing innovation, social intelligence, perseverance, curiosity, gratitude and optimism.
Skills, Skills, Skills: How we excel professionally will not be about grades or tests, but about skills and the things that we can produce.
A Brave New World: A new ecosystem is under development with changing roles for content production, gaining experience through research and new roles yet to be defined.

I am mostly excited to see what entrepreneurial opportunities will develop out of all this. Change is inevitable and those that embrace it will be at the top of the food chain, while others will go the way of the dinosaurs.

The magic of .99

louishatzis — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:01:00 -0400

I just read an excellent post on Gumroad about “Psychological Pricing”.

The magic of .99 appeals to a buyer’s familiarity with sale pricing and a discount. If you just look at the table, you’ll see that the conversion rates for prices ending in .99 are significantly higher and in some cases twice as much as those that are a penny more expensive.

You’ll also find some interesting insights in these pricing experiments.

Don't Be a Jerk on Social Media

louishatzis — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 15:21:00 -0400

It seems that being rude, having bad manners and swearing has become trending on social media. New research from the authors of the New York Times best-seller Crucial Conversations shows:

76 percent have witnessed an argument over social media
19 percent have decreased in-person contact with someone because of something they said online
88 percent believe people are less polite on social media than in person
81 percent say the difficult or emotionally charged conversations they have held over social media remain unresolved

Social media can inflate our egos, give us a sense of self-importance and make us think we can behave any way we want. Don’t be a jerk.

Watch Craig’s video and remember his advice before posting anything on Facebook, Twitter and other social media:

Does this need to be said?
Does this need to be said by me?
Does this need to be said by me now?

Samurai Inside

louishatzis — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 23:37:00 -0400

In tough times we can lose faith in ourselves. We forget who we are, what we’ve done and what we can do. If you’ve forgotten, watch @jason’s video and remember you’re a Samurai, not a Rice Picker

Steve Jobs: The Most Important Thing

louishatzis — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 07:59:00 -0400

We can change life into whatever we imagine. (via Farnam Street and 37 Signals)

When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Fail, Fail, Fail... (maybe) Win!

louishatzis — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 11:34:00 -0400

Life of a Startup Entrepreneur. Getting to the destination is difficult, but the trip can be rewarding.

Kiss Your Boss Goodbye. It’s Time to Be An Entrepreneur!

louishatzis — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:02:00 -0400

I’m doing some research about startups and entrepreneurship. No matter how you look at it, its a huge market. Around the world, startups are on everyone’s agenda for job creation and economic growth. Its going to get bigger, a lot bigger that we can imagine. Also its going to get a lot harder to track. Ecosystems popping up everywhere with lean startups and alternative funding sources. Its the wild west for any active investor and entrepreneur following a market.

Entrepreneurs Now Numbering Near 400 Million In 54 Countries (GEMConsortium.org, 2012)
Who’s Starting America’s New Businesses? And Why? (Forbes.com, 2012)
How many start-ups in the US get seed/VC funding per year? (Gust.com, 2012)

Its interesting to see that 5.7% of the world’s population are entrepreneurs, while in the US. the average is about 3.8%. Every year only 2% of US. startups raise capital from angels and VC’s. For every startup that gets money from a VC another 400 were rejected, while the ratio for angels is 1 in 40.

Mobile is a One Way Street

louishatzis — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:04:00 -0400

I’m back in the US. a few months now and I’m amazed at how crazed everyone is with mobile. For years Europe was far ahead of the US., but the iPhone and apps ecosystem changed everything. From a hardware game it became into a software play and no one is better the US. in that.

Its on everyone’s radar, and its not just about creating an app, but making it part of an overall strategy. It feels like the Internet of the mid-late ’90s, everyone wants to get on board. But its more mature and mobile is bigger, a much bigger opportunity.

Looking at some of the numbers, you’ll see its a one way street. The world’s population is about 7 billion people: 2 billion people are connected to the Internet, 6 billion have cell phone and about 1.2 billion have a smartphone.

China and India account for 30% of this growth.
About 800,000 apps are available in IOS and Android app stores.
Google earns $2.5 billion in mobile ad revenue annually.
Mobile devices account for 8.5% of global website hits.

The first thing most people do when they wake up in the morning is check their phones. We check our phones about 150 times a day, spending about 2.7 hours per day on our phones. We do so many things with our phones. Half of all local searches are from mobile devices.

The growth is phenomenal. Over the next two years, more people will access the Internet through their cell phones, instead of their desktops. Mobile killed the desktop.

Clearly its the right thing and in order compete companies will have to redefine how they do everything. How they serve their content, how they sell their services and products, how they support their customers. Mobile is creating content and commerce opportunities that are relevant and geo-targeted. Its about engaging people in real-time, while they are on the move. As desktops, smartphones and tablets converge, we’re going to have to rethink how we design user experiences.

Mobile Apps missing the Marketing Train

louishatzis — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:03:00 -0400

For a few months now I’ve been advising some teams that are building their own mobile products. I tried to help them build traction and drive more downloads. Apps collect so much information and interaction from their users, but its all bottled up. Its absurd to me to collect all this information and keep it behind a wall, instead of taking advantage of the web. It would be great to put it on the web and use it to build an inbound content marketing strategy.

If you look at most of the mobile app sites, you’ll find more or less the same thing. A very basic page, with a phone (usually a white iPhone) that displays the app and buttons that send users to App Store for downloads. Looking at these pages, it seems like they believe that the organic traffic through the app store is enough. If you want to build your business, you can’t ignore search. Ninety percent of web traffic comes from search engines.Relying only on the App Store is not a discovery strategy, its a strategy for failure. Hundreds of thousands of apps are competing for visibility.

To drive downloads, you need to build trust. You need to build content and engage in conversations. Take your gated content, put it on the web and build an inbound content marketing machine with your mobile content.

Fear of Failure: Never Let Go

louishatzis — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:44:00 -0400

"Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Tolstoy’s comment applies to failed entrepreneurial ventures. The reasons entrepreneurs fail varies as the entrepreneurs themselves.

Last October on Linkedin Answers someone started a thread: “What is the ONE fear you had to let go of to become successful in your line of business?”. Most people answered something about overcoming the fear of failure.

Overcoming the fear of failure is the formula to success? I never want to let go of the fear of failure, because it drives us to succeed. Its the only thing that will keep you alive in the jungle!

I hate failing, everyone does. I don’t think I’ve ever learned anything from failure. The important thing about failure is not what we learned, but finding the courage to pick ourselves up and do it again.

The only good thing about failure it that we know which way not to go, what didn’t work and what decisions were wrong. Failure is only a process to eliminate the wrong, but It certainly cannot teach us what works. Hopefully doing our homework and our intuition can point us in the right direction.

Past success cannot guarantee we’ll succeed in the future. They just increase our odds. We have a sense of of how to move in the jungle without getting eaten alive. But never get too comfortable. Never let go of the fear of failure.

Programmers are the Wizards of the Future

louishatzis — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:48:00 -0500

My family always placed a high value on education. I got a good one. In 1984 I didn’t know anything about computers. Most people in Greece didn’t know anything about computers and confused them with calculators. Everyone I knew was telling me to become a chemical engineer, so I was leaning in that direction. But when I came to the US., Boston University didn’t offer a chemical engineering program. In my misfortune I was lucky, because I decided to study computer engineering.

The first real program I wrote was a postfix calculator for a freshman Pascal course. I spent my first summer learning Assembler, while working as a student operator filing output at VPS/VM. I loved to code, but having my own computer was difficult at the time. I used the university’s servers, with limited access, a few hours per week. In 1988 when I graduated, I got my first two computers. I got the best of both worlds: a Mac SE as a gift, and a brand new PC i386 which I found in the hotel parking lot where I worked as an attendant for the summer.

Learning to code changed my life in so many ways. Mostly it taught me how to think, how to organize a thoughts and how approach solutions.

When I read about initiatives like Code.org, TEALS, Codeclub.co.uk I get excited. The digital revolution is only getting started and we need more people that understand how to code. Not just to imagine future innovations in technology, but to come up with solutions to the world’s important problems.

WolframAlpha’s New Facebook Graph

louishatzis — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:47:00 -0500

WolframAlpha just released its new Facebook graph product. The image is based on word frequency of my status updates: Great, Entrepreneur, Social, Gifting, Startup, Good, Digital, Innovation, Athens, Boston.

There’s so much information packed in the report: top posts, top commenters, most liked photo or post, most commented photo etc. You should check it out here.

The Social Currency for Search

louishatzis — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:47:00 -0500

In recent headlines you’ll read things like:

Everyone is trying to figure out how to make search more social. I think whats missing is a metric. Something similar to “likes” or “follows”, something to feed people’s vanity.

Whether you agree or not, users think of “likes” and “follows” as social currency. The more the better. Maybe big search engines should embedded liking and sharing functionality in their search pages and factor this information in the rank calculation. Mahalo and Squidoo, were interesting but something was missing there too.

A few years back Bradley Horowitz’s posted the content production pyramid. Most people on social networks don’t produce content. They synthesize and curate content. It still holds true today. Maybe to make search more social, we need to allow a similar kind of synthesis. Maybe not.

People's vanity is a great driver for marketing

louishatzis — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:26:00 -0500

I just got a message from Linkedin.com thanking me for being part of their community and informing me that I was one of the top 1% most viewed profiles.

Sounds like I just made the dean’s list.
What a great piece of marketing!

In today’s digital media everyone is interested in likes, follows, pins and any other metrics that measure the reach of their profiles and the content they post. With this marketing activity, Linkedin has recruited 2 million people to spread the word. It will be no surprise, when we hear they grew from 200 million to 1 billion.

People’s vanity is a great driver. All these metrics are about vanity combined with direct response, just like the click-though for online ads. Regardless of the audience you’re targeting, any new online service needs a “self gratification” metric for what they’re doing! A metric that feeds people’s need for self promotion and drives service adoption, usage & sales.

I hope Linkedin didn’t count the number of times I’ve viewed my own profile, when putting me on this list :)