As a founder, you have so much to learn. When you are not profitable it is especially important to do the right things. Mistakes can be fatal. Get rid of your ego and assume you know nothing and learn from people who have a clue. You are also busy though, so want some quick learnings?
Thomas Korte spent some 7 years at Google before launching AngelPad in San Fran. Angel Pad is generally recognized as an actually good accelerator, gasp. This is a decent 27-minute presentation as these things go. His advice is largely interpersonal and to think bigger.
Thomas goes into… 7 things that Google do right that he learned.
Some of them are :
- Ask “Why Not” and not “Why”?
- The one learning I liked was ‘why not?’ As in why can’t you do more? It’s a good question. As a startup you need to push harder and challenge the status quo; otherwise a corporate is going to eat your lunch!
- No Opinions, Just Data.
- Data is the only thing that matters, not opinions. At Google, anyone can get their way if they have enough data. Do the same thing and empower your team.
- There is no such thing as over communication.
- Everyone needs to know what is happening. If you think you are communicating enough, you aren’t! Be more female that way
- Ask for Forgiveness, not for permission.
- Do stuff… take some risks. You aren’t going to get prodigious amounts of things done if you are a bottleneck and your team needs to constantly ask for approval. Let them test things and fail; don’t get angry if they fail
- Give people a license to dream.
- Think Jobs… communicate what you are doing will make the world a better place, whatever 😉
- Think Money last and Users first
- If you make users really happy, they’ll pay you