Part 1: Things I learned from working with startups

Working with startups is one of the most amazing experiences anyone can have in the business world. Besides the fact that you have that raw culture, there is another reason why startups are cool, and that is constraints. These constraints make you think different on how to solve a problem or product issues. The culture is totally different from big companies. No bureaucracy, high speed on decision making, non traditional approach to things.

But with all these benefits comes some trade-offs. Most of the people are inexperienced or simply launch a company for the first time and don’t know how to run things. You may have more than 2 decades of experience in a field, but it does not guarantee you can be a successful entrepreneur. I personally work closely with startups, and design products for them, and almost same issues arise all the time. So I made a list of small details that startups do wrong when it comes to business, product, and customers. The entire list represents my own learnings and things I noticed.

Business

All the problems related to product, company and culture are CEO’s fault

If you stop reading at this point, this is the most important lesson you have to take from this entire article. No matter how big or small your company is. Whether you think it’s the market’s fault or investor’s, weather, president, war, you name it. It is always the CEO’s fault if things are going bad. It is his job to work on on setting the culture, vision for the product, work hard to achieve it and continue inspiring the company.

Sometimes your junior level employees are better than your managers

Here comes in the authority bias. If a person has a higher hierarchy then this means he is smarter and knows the deal. That’s not true. Sometimes, a manager can be so full of himself or simply not notice the problems a product or company has. So usually the lower tier always notices it first. Give it a listen, they always have something interesting to say.

(spoiler alert) Having more than one captain on the ship is always a bad idea

I have personally witnessed this in a company I worked for and it ended up bad. When there is more than 1 partner in a company you should always establish who is “the boss” and final decision maker. Even if you start it with your best friends. In business there are no friends, just good partnerships. Always set expectations otherwise it will end up as a mess and your employees will not know whom to listen.

A toxic culture is like pouring burning oil on your skin, slowly, every day

If you can feel that something is going wrong in the company just address the situation. Solve it fast, otherwise you risk creating a toxic culture where everybody watches their back. And just waits for the next bad move from one of their colleagues.

You should trust people who tell you the harsh truth

When a junior has the courage to come to you as a CEO and tell you that you fucked up or things are really bad in the company, you should definitely listen to what he has to say, assess the situation and then act upon it. Ignoring it is like starting up a timer to a bomb.

Employees that come to work during the weekend without extra pay are like gold

Usually these are people you should take care of more and help them grow. Because they will be great future leaders in your company. Hard work always beats talent.

Pay the person and not the job

When it is time to raise salaries, remember to do it for people and not because industry standard for that job increased. For example, one of your employees says you don’t need to raise his salary because he can see that things are going badly for the company and wants to help, but you give him a nice $250/mon increase because of honesty. Then another employee demands $1.5k/mon increase and you give him the money because he has a senior position and you consider it important, but he does not even closely give a fuck about your company as the first employee. If that is the case, then my friend you have to reassess your shit.

Hire slow, fire fast

Oh boy was this a hard pill to swallow. Especially when you work with friends. Every minute you keep the wrong person in the company, bad things start to happen slowly. If a person is not right for your company just fire him. Set the expectations when you hire someone that if things don’t go as planned we will have to say goodbye to each other. So this way you keep things clear to both parties.

Match people to the job, and not the job to people

Same story here as with hire and fire. When you see that great talent who is just raw and wants to work hard, you are tempted to hire for the job even though he doesn’t really specialise on it. This is a trap. Because what you will end up is that person not knowing how to do the job and he will not deliver.

Don’t be an ass when you fire fast

After you fire someone, don’t go 5 minutes later and send the email to the entire company that he is fired. You will make that person feel like a piece of sh** who was used like an object. Really, just don’t do it. Leave it for a couple of hours or a day max. Let him breath a bit.

If first thing you do is raise money, chances are you will fail

Let’s say you have a product idea. You decide to outsource the design & development of your product to an agency. Then you go and raise money for that. You are a straight level loser. If you can’t do it without investors money at the beginning, then why starting a company anyways?

Being small is an advantage

Why are you trying to act big? Being small is sometimes better. Why? Because you have speed and are able to build those personal relationships directly with your customers. Imagine how great it feels when the CEO himself replies to your email when you have a product issue. It just feels personal.

Bullshit in the meetings comes from the top

You don’t need more than 30 minutes for a meeting. If it is 45 or 1h just cut it down to 30 minutes and you will do everyone a favour. Why? Because you will keep people focused and not give them a chance to sit and browse their Instagram feed while somebody talks. And never begin a meeting without an agenda.

You don’t need to build next Facebook of that or Uber of this

I was having a conversation during a podcast interview with Ryan Carson, CEO of Treehouse and he said something that stuck with me: “It seems like it was sold to us that we need to build the next Facebook or Uber. But you don’t. We forget that the main reason why entrepreneurs start a companies is to solve a problem, whether big or small.”

If you try to please everyone, you won’t please anyone

Choose a customer for whom you are going it. Choose a niche and stay lazer focused on what you are doing. Don’t jump from idea to idea.

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Make sure to check Part 2 for design lessons learned. I run Laroche.co where I have the pleasure to work with great startups and as a side project I host Laroche.fm a podcast about design and business.