StartupJab

StartupJab

Entrepreneurs in the Fray

  1. 30/03/2016

    SJ33 – The Importance of Stepping Away

    We’re back from our quasi-planned hiatus, and delving deep inside Jason’s mind as he plans an even bigger break to process existential issues, walk hundreds of miles, and eat lots of food. We also talk external validation and intrinsic motivation. Jason’s not leaving quite yet, which gives us some time to find a guest host before he does. Submissions welcome. On the other hand, our producer, Katie, is on break now, and in the absence of her fantastic show notes and quality control, you get some hilariously bad machine transcription. [Help us.] Robot Transcript WELCOME TO START OF JAD.  Today we are going to take a trip inside Jason’s mind and figure out what causes him to make these crazy decisions.  With his life.  You know it’s a little messy in there.  I probably should clean up that from some leftover beer bottles from porches past those those those go on there was like that without a doubt you are welcome to start up jab.  Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to Episode thirty three.  Of start of chat.  I am one of your host Jason Ellis with me as always the.  Well let’s just call it what it is the.  Six o’clock to minute and.  T. got pins.  T..  How I am a trend.  Is that you know old.  Or I have or will definitely more beard.  OK.  Without a doubt.  Yeah.  You know I have a patchy sad beard.  That.  I would wish upon anybody.  Whereas yours is full and normal like a.  And I don’t now.  You know.  And I shaved it when I was in Puerto Rico.  You can’t miss yes.  Well we’re.  We’re back after a brief hiatus between vacations and trips to South by Southwest and all manner of ridiculousness in between.  What’s been an interesting couple of weeks.  All.  Here in the U.S. And this.  You have gotten yourself into some interesting.  Future plans.  Yes and in the I guess we shared which type of thing that absolutely.  Yeah.  What team is alluding to is that after some discussion and.  Some introspection I’ve actually decided that after two.  Two years of overachiever and.  Depending on how you interpret it six months of my.  Merger.  Is brilliant.  I decided to step away.  And do some travel and start to figure out.  I don’t.  I don’t want to call it I guess my next phase.  I think earlier for do it is as.  Applying a.  A punctuation mark on this part.  Feels about right.  I think.  Not so much of it’s a semicolon or a comma are period or what but it’s.  Yeah certainly a question mark.  Yeah.  It’s my favorite touch indeed.  Yeah I so.  I don’t even know where to begin but I guess I’ll start by talking about that.  You know.  I actually like a preface by saying that this has nothing to do with brilliant as a company.  I think it’s actually very important that I take a moment and actually.  Preface the whole thing by saying that this isn’t a reflection of my feelings on the company or where it’s been.  This is entirely selfish.  You’re not just flipping tables and being like yeah.  No I mean even if I did feel that way.  I would probably be limited to more of a well we just decided to go our separate ways or some other coded phrase like that.  No.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work they’re doing and I think anybody who’s listening.  Who you know.  Is looking for marketing support or.  Designer technology products help people to go to.  But it was interesting you know we heard.  The company.  The two companies together.  Towards the end of last year.  And in the last couple months it’s been the kind of thing that is just doesn’t quite fit.  So I start to think about why it doesn’t fit and I start to think about why.  I’m not happy.  You know getting up in the morning and having that.  Pin your stomach feeling is not healthy.  And I was having them a lot.  So I started to think about it and started to give it some serious consideration.  You know.  And over time.  I just realized that I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t happy that it was me.  Wasn’t the day to day.  It just was me.  So yeah I don’t know.  It’s an interesting thing to realize that your the problem.  Well.  Or I wouldn’t necessarily say you’re the problem.  Just that you discovered it wasn’t good.  Yeah.  I think that’s the end.  Not necessarily know what is a good fit nap and you’ve got some.  Something’s coming up to give you some space to think you know that some exciting plan.  Absolutely take some time travel I’m very very fortunate that I have saved money and invested well and I have nuff you know.  It’s not to fuck you money by any stretch the imagination but it’s fuck around money.  But yet.  Somebody who is in his early thirty’s.  You know.  Unattached.  No mortgage.  No kids no dog.  I can travel.  I can take time I can reflect.  So yeah I’m going to take some time.  I’ve booked myself a lovely little trip to Italy.  Because I can figure out whether or not I love Italy.  And then sometime in June I’m going to walk the entirety all.  Five hundred miles of the Camino to Santiago.  Starting in France and being in something over there called the Stella and Spain.  Which should be in I think so yeah.  Well you.  You know part or the you.  You.  You hate a small portion of it.  Yeah about one hundred miles last year.  I guess it’s not such a small fortune.  Well now.  It’s a miles but it’s over a week and it’s an average of forty miles a day if it.  It’s a Prius Yeah yeah.  Drink if you want it.  It’s about time at the side it works.  Yeah now.  And then thinking like a drink I think up walking slightly more than that because of its you know church or.  Random Walk.  Yeah.  Truckers walk Drunkard’s Walk.  Yet.  Yeah I think.  I think for me it’s.  It’s an opportunity to do some travel to see some things that will help shake up my viewpoints.  At the same time I’m not you know going to City to.  Aimlessly wander.  I think the fact that I have a purpose every day.  A specific plan.  I don’t think it’s healthy for me to just take five weeks to sit on a beach.  I’m not the kind of person that can do that and get anything out of it other than boredom.  I’m super not good at that.  I do for a week.  Yeah.  I’ll do it Italy for a week.  Can’t do it for longer than that I could.  Well.  And I guess you know.  I can go sit on a beach especially if I had wife by the evenings because now.  Gets ideas you want that trigger.  Being on them and I knew my going to the beach for a few hours total.  Well I’ll be bringing an i Pad with I actually think I want to try recording some of it.  You know.  Here video or even podcast some of it long distance.  Should get the better yet part of the recorder.  And interview people.  You know why I like that idea.  I might do that because it is coming next is Jason spin off show for the start of Jack.  El Camino de has so little be spectacular.  Please call it a community house on.  I will not.  I will not let the in the Peruvian.  Quadrant of my family would cut.  If I did that ask use me.  Yeah I have and I think it’s going to be fun.  I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for introspection.  We talked about this.  Offline but.  One of the challenges that I’ve been facing in.  Thinking about this is that my career.  Has often been dictated by the ebbs and flows of.  Of external forces.  When I moved to L.A. when I was twenty three.  I fell into a job who.  Then I let you know that I lived there long enough to figure out some stuff and then I went to D.C. and I fell into a job at P.B.S. and I fell into consulting which became an agency and for the first time.  The real active choice in my career of merging my company.  Suddenly it doesn’t work it’s challenging it’s more challenging than I anticipated and it’s not the kind of challenging I can outsmart it’s.  It’s internal.  It’s hard.  It’s overwhelming and.  I think for me.  Coming on that coming up upon that challenge.  Really forced me to play consider.  So yeah.  Well.  You’re fortunate to have made smart decisions are the both of the use to be able to take some time to reconsider.  To step away and actually think about what.  You actually want to do instead of.  What is right in front of you.  As not.  You know I think.  Traces.  I think that’s exactly it.  I think it’s being more intentional I think it’s being more honest with myself.  I think that sort of job is a great example I you know this about when we talk for ages about.  Different creative projects that somebody might be interested in I’ve had in the back of my head for ages.  You know.  Doing interviews of people recording them.  Just.  I don’t know putting them to the world and I think this.  In many ways has become that.  But at the same time.  Why did it take me that long to figure that out.  You know.  I mean it’s not like a microphone cost that much and.  There’s tons of free software out there that we’re using right now.  You know.  It’s true.  Yeah I mean that’s up for it but it’s pretty cheap.  You know when my point.  Now I think I don’t know I mean do you feel this way.  Because I sometimes think that.  I look at a creative challenge and I either think it’s not worth the time or not worth the energy and then I realize that what I’m really doing is just.  Resisting myself that I’m just not.  I’m not you know in the War of Art.  Kind of fashion.  That I’m allowing the resistance of a challenge to win out before I even take.  Take it on yet totally.  Well and I and I also.  I get to.  You know wanting to do something but like particularly when it’s not your.  Your main project when you have a career and.  It’s like I went to the side project thing you think.  But.  Do I ha

    31 min

  2. 05/03/2016

    SJ32 – How to Break Into the World of Startups

    Time to take it back to the beginning! In the latest episode of Startup Jab, we answer some questions on how to get started in the world of start-ups, from soup to nuts, and what you need to know about this quickly-evolving industry. Start your engines. Links and Highlights: “I’ve won business plan competitions. What kind of jobs can I get?” (02:03) “If you win business plan competitions and this stuff is embedded in your DNA, should you just dive right in?” “If what you really enjoy is that early-stage stuff of doing customer validation and the early interviews and experiments, you may not be that excited about the company once you get to product-market fit.” “Yeah, but Teague. THE MONEY.” “It’s the myth of overnight success: Have idea. Build company. Sell to Facebook for $100M.” “There are jobs where being able to move something forward when no one else believes in it is a valuable skill, and there are jobs where not being able to get other people to believe in it in the beginning is just doing to doom you to failure from the start.” Know yourself well enough to figure out which job is for you. “Can parents be angel investors?” (11:25) “Technically, sure… your friends, your other family, your professors, if they have the money. It’s not so much ‘can they be,’ but SHOULD they be?” “Typically we talk about that as a friends and family round, as opposed to an angel round. With startup money being easier to come by in the last fives years, people have been raising larger rounds up front, but as we start to see a bit of price correction and startup funding becomes a little more scarce, we might see people going back to doing a friends and family round first, to prove the idea before you put it in front of an angel investor.” “It can be really stressful if your business isn’t going well and you go home for Thanksgiving, and your uncle says, “SO. How are sales?” “There’s an obligation to make sure friends and family know what they’re getting into.” “How should I prepare for a Skype interview at a startup?” (19:35) Have good lighting, check your sound, and DEFINITELY check your Internet connection. “There’s nothing that will take you out of an interview more than technical glitches while you’re trying to have a conversation with someone who wants to hire you.” “Get dressed up for the interview not necessarily because of how you will appear, but how it will make you feel… When you’re sitting at the desk, wearing your interview outfit, feeling confident and professional, you sound different and people pick up on that.” “What are some options to work for myself, with low startup costs, as a college student?” (27:10) In college, Jason and Teague both made beer money by fixing peoples’ internet at home and setting up VPNs for them and taking care of email problems and that kind of stuff. Air high five! “Take a skill you already have and try to sell it. It will teach you about what people are willing to pay for.” “The cost associated with a service business can be almost nothing, and you can start very small and decide how quickly and how much you want to grow it.” “This is a great time in life when you have the least responsibility with the most freedom, and the risk is pretty low in terms of things that you start.” Great resource for anyone wanting to start and keep their costs low: The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau “Pick a business that will set you on a path to the things you want to do later in your career.” “Failure is not actually good, but learning from it is good. Failing is NOT the goal.”

    40 min

  3. 25/02/2016

    SJ31 – Tech and Entrepreneurship in Africa with Mannie T’Chawi and Jason Israel

    We were honored to have two very special guests on Startup Jab this week: Mannie T’Chawi and Jason Israel joined us to talk about tech, entrepreneurship, and Africa. Mannie T’Chawi is the co-founder & CEO of LayerCake; a social enterprise that promotes financial inclusivity and security in Tanzania. He also serves as the Director of International Outreach and Business Development for CULTIVA Solutions, a DC-area education consultancy and brokerage. In addition, Mannie consults on international development efforts helping to strategize, execute, and build partnerships between US and Sub-saharan Africa based organizations. Jason Israel is a dedicated public servant, naval officer, and educator with over 15 years of experience in military and civilian leadership positions at the federal, state, and local levels. Currently a Commander in the Navy Reserve, he recently deployed to the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa where worked in Somalia toward a more stable and secure future for the east Africa region. Jason is passionate about educating and empowering youth to rise to their full potential and has spent his free time teaching and mentoring students in each community he’s lived. A native Marylander and resident of Baltimore, Jason served as Director for African Affairs for the National Security Council at the White House until earlier this year. Highlights Mannie: “Thanks to the success of mobile banking platforms in Kenya, for example, Africa has started moving towards mobile banking, which is really mobile transfer. It’s the equivalent of having your money in Verizon or AT&T rather than a a bank… Mobile transfer works for people fairly well, but you can’t exclude banks from the process. There needs to be unity, and less friction, and [my company LayerCake] hopes to provide that… You’re allowing them an opportunity, in a predominantly cash-based economy, to actually grow their wealth and savings rather than it literally being cash under their mattress.” Jason: “What Mannie’s doing is really the driving force behind the change that we want to see in Africa. It’s a great example of looking at the institutions, the strengths and weaknesses that are in the country, and trying to build the capacity of the local banks in order to confront a challenge that is uniquely Tanzanian.” J: “One of the greatest parts of my jobs [at the National Security Council] was hearing all of these stories about what entrepreneurs are doing to solve these unique problems.” M: “People don’t realize that there is a lot of entrepreneurial expertise already in the market… Africa is a market that has always been wrought with necessity and is full of inventors.” M: “The strategy for winning in Africa, no matter the vertical or industry, is being the connective tissue.” J: Regarding “brain drain,” “I think it’s a myth that it’s just, ‘I can make more money in New York or London, so I’m going to head there.’ There are a ton of talented people leaving [Africa], and either a nation lacks the capacity or desire [to keep them in the country], or there’s a corrupt reason where somebody’s getting some money to allow people to leave.” M: “We don’t just need big, bold moves, but we need a lot of big, bold moves all at the same time.” Links Some of the cool efforts going on in Africa: The Global Entrepreneurship Summit took place in Kenya last year A list of the 100+private sector partners of Power Africa The recommendations of the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa Information on joining the Young African Leaders Initiative Network (for African leaders) Information on applying for the Africa Business Fellowship (for US leaders) And check out: Somali Entrepreneur Raises $100 Million For Money Transfer Startup WorldRemit

    1h 1m

  4. 15/02/2016

    SJ30 – The Business of Narrative Podcasting with Wolf 359

    This week, we’re pleased to welcome Gabriel Urbina and Zach Valenti from Wolf 359, a podcast about the advantages of floating, tiny and alone, in the middle of nowhere. A drama in the tradition of the Golden Age of Radio, Wolf 359’s bi-monthly episodes tell the story of Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. Join hosts Teague Hopkins and Jason Nellis to talk about how Gabriel and Zach bootstrapped a successful radio show, the art and science of narrative podcasting, and life in isolated, zero gravity conditions. Links and Highlights EPISODE 30. This podcast is no longer a spring chicken, folks. Gabriel dreamed up a character who was monitoring a radio on a space station, and made the “fatal error” of sharing his idea on Facebook. Zach (a voice-over actor) saw on Facebook that a voice-over actor was needed for a one-man radio show. The rest is destiny. Listen to the first three seasons of Wolf 359 here. “We were both attracted to the idea of doing something together and getting it out there quickly.“ “What’s great about the first season, when it was basically our moms listening, it gave us a lot of freedom… It took us about 10 episodes to figure out what worked and what the show wanted to be.” “Our philosophy was, let’s put things out there, let’s see if it works, and then let’s polish… [but] it needs to be a certain level of quality.” “A lot of the first few episodes were built on, ‘Hey, I did this guy a solid once.'” “From day one, we wanted to put something out in the universe that people could look at, and so we could really establish ourselves [in our respective careers].” Zach does “sensual voice-overs” for Pillow.io, which, according to Gabriel, is “exceedingly mature and tasteful and well thought-out.” We say, go try it and find out for yourself (and happy belated Valentine’s Day!). “The biggest technical challenge is making it work when people are recording in different spaces and different rooms with different sound qualities… We eventually solved that by deciding that the people who are remote will always be heard through a kind of filter, an ‘in-universe’ reason for their voices to sound noticeably different than everyone else’s. It was a moment of, ‘we’re going to try to turn this bug into a feature.'” “We are fearless about the weird things that we do… but we rarely, if ever, have the next move planned.” “There are critical times where it’s like, ‘Zach, it is now time to turn the “make shit up” button on’ (or off).” “There have been times when it’s been a choice between having a 13-episode second season and get our merchandise together, and it’s always felt better to focus on making more and better shows.” “Focus on making something that YOU love. The one thing we found in our nerdy, off-center taste is that we’re not alone, so in making something that we love, we inadvertently made something that other people love. Focus on that, because you can control that.” In the beginning, “we tried all kinds of guerrilla marketing tactics when it was just our best friends and their cat listening to us… We tried to do the stereotypical ‘growth hacking’ to create our online presence, and the effect that had was… nil.” View replay on Blab.im This episode previously aired on Wednesday, 4/17/16, at 3:30pm ET

    56 min

  5. 10/02/2016

    SJ29 – Sex, Innovation, and Morality for Startups

    We’re living on the edge today: Jason and Teague are recording from the same location at WeWork Wonder Bread Factory. Links and Highlights: Let’s get ready to DROOOOOOONE. Can drone racing become as big as eSports? The Drone Racing League Wants to Be to Drones What the WWE Is to Wrestling “Explosions and money are the center of any good venn diagram.” “Like any other sport, there’s already a push to sensationalize it and ‘sexy’ it up… The sport is not even out of the hospital bassinet.” Jason and Teague toss out a FREE BUSINESS IDEA for our listeners. If you steal it and launch it, please make us VIP customers, #kthx. Renaissance Florence Was a Better Model for Innovation than Silicon Valley Is “Today, folks are often thrown to the wolves in a lot of ways: sink or swim. It’s a lot harder to find the kind of support you once got, where someone said, ‘I’m going to pay your bills so you can go build things.'” “There’s a reason we keep doing Shakespeare, and a reason we keep bringing up penicillin.” “When you give a mind an opportunity to just be told, ‘go try something and don’t worry about failure,’ there’s real opportunity there… I don’t think potential trumps experience, but potential and experience should balance each other.” “One of the great ways startups can get a leg up is by hiring people who punch above their weight; finding people who have enormous people who haven’t been given their shot yet.” Zenefits Founder Resigns “Is what you’re doing actually harming consumers or harming competition? Is there a problem with pushing those boundaries, whether that problem is purely legal or whether there’s a moral issue at stake?” “In a lot of ways we have a culture that advocates for screwing up, sometimes intentionally breaking laws and regulations, and then just apologize for it, mea culpa, pay a fine, and move on.” “The moral question is, who’s being hurt by the laws that you’re breaking?” “Zenefits is the latest in a series of very public companies that have skirted laws and done things that they know are immoral, and as a culture, how okay are we with that?” New startup aims to transfer people’s consciousness into artificial bodies so they can live forever – TechSpot “This is the beginning of every schlocky sci-fi novel I’ve ever read. Every single one.” (Here’s the definition of schlocky, btw.) “We’re talking about condemning ourselves to a ones and zeroes existence because we’re afraid of dying.” Questions from Quora: “As a non-technical co-founder, what should I be looking for in my Tech Co-Founder in terms of traits, skills, etc?” – (40:55) “I like having a drinking buddy.” “You as the non-technical co-founder have to ask yourself what you’re really looking for. There are some non-tech co-founders who think they’re hiring a general contractor, the same way I’d hire someone renovate my kitchen, fix my bathroom, and paint my house… They have the perception that they’re bringing in a one-size-fits-all ‘tech’ person, and that’s a perception problem you have to get past first.” “When you’re bringing in a co-founder, you’re not actually hiring them… It’s finding a technical co-founder to partner with, so can you partner with them?” Finding someone who’s willing to work with you at all is actually a good start. “My prototype is done. I aim to take on clients from another country. Can I do this without actually being based there?” – (49:12) “The answer is almost always, ‘yes it can.’ The question is, ‘should it be?’” “What’s the value of building a product you can’t sell outside your door right now, unless you intend to move there eventually and go sell it, or you have a ground game you’re really confident in?” The more layers between you and your customers, the slower the feedback loop will be. “Getting someone to use a product is hard. Building it is comparatively easy.” This episode previously aired on 2/10

    1 hr

  6. 03/02/2016

    SJ28 – Aspire with Lily Cua and Marcy Humphrey

    This week’s episode will introduce you to Aspire.is, software that helps companies make smart investments in their workplace perks so that they can recruit, engage and retain the best talent. Lily Cua, founder and COO of Aspire.is, and Marcy Humphrey, Head of Perk Operations, join Startup Jab to share how they are building Aspire, fill us in on the hippest, hottest HR trends, and tell us if office beer pong really is a good idea. Lily focuses on Aspire’s client acquisition and expansion efforts. She is always keeping an eye out for unique and engaging workplace experiences to build into the Aspire platform, and loves the fact that her job allows her to work with some of the most innovative and creative businesses in the country. Lily is a graduate of Georgetown University and in a previous life was a consultant at PwC. Most importantly, she is a gifted arcade basketball player and brunch enthusiast. Marcy is a graduate of Georgetown University, and has been in the DC area ever since. Marcy keeps the gears turning at Aspire by working in partner strategy & operations and managing client relationships. She also develops marketing content and is constantly looking for the coolest new HR trends to chat about. She counts among her many talents solving world hunger with Excel shortcuts and running faster than your average snail.

    55 min

  7. 27/01/2016

    SJ27 – We Survived Snowzilla!

    In this week’s episode, we tackled some big problems for brand-new startups, including how to get the right team to be in your corner, and figuring out what’s the real MVP. After 27 episodes, it’s time to grow up a little bit. We’ve started adding special content for our podcast listeners, so if you’re not subscribed, it’s your time to shine. Do it! Links and Highlights: Quick hit: Are live sports and esports getting closer together? When will the cars be replaced with holograms? Formula E announces 300kph ‘RoboRace’ championship “It will be a testament to the cars’ software teams and hardware teams to create these vehicles that will compete at 300kph and have the computer driving the car.” (First-person drone racing is a separate league, folks.) “Eventually there will be the ‘you must have a human driver’ league and the unlimited league.” “First, computers are driving, and then they’re taking over our basketball teams. Where does it end, Teague?” “When driver-less cars become a thing, and none of us ever have to pay attention, the irony will be that we spend our time watching driver-less racing.” It’s Quora Day! How do you teach early-stage startups to use the Lean Startup methodology? (09:48) “It’s pretty obvious that they haven’t solved customer-problem fit yet, but they believe they have.” Unless you’ve done the proper research, you may created a solution and now you have to back it in to a problem. That’s not how Lean works. “Almost anyone who’s been an entrepreneur has had this exact experience, where you’re like, omg, this is amazing, we built a cool tool, we’ve launched it, and… nothing, because you don’t know who you’re solving a problem for, you haven’t articulated the problem in a way that makes sense to them.” The bigger challenge may be when people have something that sounds logical, but they haven’t actually validated anything by talking to people who would actually buy it. Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the fact.” The way to really help a start-up in this situation is to have them get punched in the face as quickly as possible. Is there such a thing as an MVP for a luxury fashion startup? (22:15) “I hate the term MVP, because it gets mis-used so often. What are we actually saying? Are we talking about a small run of a physical product, designing a website that can sell this stuff… What’s the actual experiment we’re running?” “Branding is something that is more difficult to experiment with because there are fewer signals and it’s harder to separate out cause and effect. You can do five different things to try to build your brand, but you can’t necessarily separate out the effect of each of those things on building the brand.” “A ‘minimally-loved product’ might be a better thing to try to reach. What is the thing you’re going to build that people will actually really enjoy? And then build the brand around that.” The problem you’re solving might be an emotional problem. Do customers what to be seen as youthful, as adventurous? What’s the emotional need that this luxury brand is trying to fulfill? You can’t invent a brand that’s a luxury brand overnight, you have to grow it, like a tree. What is the best way to organize technology startup company in terms of projects? (32:35) Teague gives a broad overview of organizational design in 10 minutes, which is SUPER impressive. “From a design perspective, you want to make sure you have separation of certain characteristics. You don’t want to have any function that is tasked with efficiency reporting to any function that is tasked with effectiveness or vice versa, because you’ll end up having them lead together.” “You don’t want to have short-term focused groups reporting to the same folks as long-term strategic initiatives, because almost always the long-term will be in service to the short-term.” “In any good growing culture, you’re going to hit walls and snags. That’s not the problem. It’s addressing them and fixing them, and if you don’t, that’s the problem.” As an entrepreneur how do you know when you have the right team in your corner? (40:02) “I know I have the right team when I stop worrying about the team.” “You run into a lot of problems where you have a team where everyone thinks the same thing. Diversity leads to better decisions, and you want those decisions to surface to the manager level. and discussions are happening in a way that you get involved in them and can see both sides of it… Hiring for diversity is a great way to make sure you have people with ‘strong beliefs, loosely held.’” In companies where the benchmark for cultural fit is “We know it when we see it,” it can be damaging because people end up hiring people who look like them. “We talk about how culture is top-down, it’s in-out… You are as responsible to your team as they are to you, and you may have the right team in place and not know it because you were so wrapped up in your own crap that you missed the signs. When you’re a founder of a startup, it’s incumbent on you to recognize these things in advance.” Live question from Mr. Wonderful: Who is your dream client? Jason’s dream client is anyone who wants to give him “a lot of money and very little work to do for it.” (Just kidding. We think.) Time to work together: Let’s get Gary Vaynerchuk on the show!   Watch: Blab replay YouTube This episode previously aired on 1/28 at 3 pm ET/12 pm PT

    59 min

  8. 18/01/2016

    SJ26 – The Healthy Uncomfortable and Scaling Your Startup

    a.k.a. “We Promise It Won’t Be Boring” Don’t miss our latest round-up episode, answering your questions, expounding on your conversation starters, and delivering David Bowie tributes. We may also have snuck in some Alan Rickman references. Still want to join in? Send us your thoughts on how this quote applies to you: “All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.” – David Bowie, The Word, 2003 Previously aired on 1/19 at 3 pm ET/12 pm PT Links and Highlights: Teague as a blonde? The end of the world? There’s a lot going on this week. The Healthy Uncomfortable “There’s somewhere in between the comfort zone and the terror zone, where you have to have some courage to try the new thing.” New t-shirt idea: “No matter the question, time-boxing is the answer.” “The question to ask oneself is, ‘What are the ways in which I’m intentionally making myself uncomfortable?'” “Being vulnerable over being polished holds people back the most…. If you don’t feel safe in vulnerability, you’re never going to make any changes or push in any uncomfortable directions.” Also known as: “I get knocked down, I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down.” Advice for early-stage entrepreneurs and start-ups in the scaling phase: “In addressing an entrepreneur’s most important early-stage question – customer acquisition – it’s easy to waste a lot of money in the wrong channels, especially if you’re not taking a measured approach… How do you know if a channel is working for you or not?” “You can Lean Startup your way through that question by being methodical about it and keeping the costs low by doing it on a pragmatic level. If someone’s selling clothes, for example, I’d go out with 25 t-shirts and see if 25 people will buy them.” “We’re not getting scientific proof; we’re getting down to, ‘Is moving forward on this product or business a reasonable bet to make?'” “Do you have the kind of business that can be advertised, or does it have to be pounding the pavement? Customer acquisitions costs are different depending on the industry.” “Customer acquisition costs will change in different channels all the time, and you have to know when there are diminishing returns in those channels.” Jason is sharing the story of Mostafa Hassoun, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee now in Annapolis who is hoping to enroll in community college. Take a moment to learn more about him and consider donating to help him rebuild his life after experiencing great tragedy: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/mostafa-s-college-fund Watch: Blab replay YouTube

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About

Entrepreneurs in the Fray

Information

  • Creator
    StartupJab
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2016
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2015
  • Show Website
    StartupJab