Steve Jobs and Johnny Ive on Focus

This is such a beautiful compilation of Johnny Ive's comments about Steve jobs.

This is my favorite part...

"This sounds really simplistic, but it still shocks me how few people actually practice this. And it’s a struggle to practice. It’s this issue of focus.

Steve was the most remarkably focused person I’ve ever met in my life.

The thing with focus is it’s not this thing you sort of aspire to, or you decide on Monday, 'You know what, on Monday, I’m going to be focused.'

It’s every minute. 'Why are we talking about this? THIS is what we’re working on'

You can achieve so much when you truly focus.

One of the things that Steve would say was, ‘How many things have you said NO to?’

What focus means is saying no to something that with every bone in your body that you think is a phenomenal idea, but you say no to it because you’re focusing on something else."

The next episode of The Startup Podcast is about exactly this topic. Watch the video below and check out the latest episode dropping soon titled "Saying NO!" at www.tsp.show

So many founders (and operators) get this so, so wrong.

What happens between customer requests and implementation?

What happens between customer requests and implementation?

EVERYTHING

Typically it goes like this...

Find a Customer -> Sales Process -> Customer request -> Design/Scoping -> Agreement in principle -> Contract -> Signature -> Build

That's a road to disaster for building a product-led Silicon Valley-style startup.

It should look like this...

Define your ideal customer -> Find ideal Customers -> Sales Process -> Customer Request -> Product Strategy Discussion -> Fork in the road

1. Path 1: If it's on the *near term* roadmap and on the *short-term* strategy then:

Generalization -> Design/Scoping -> Agreement in principle -> Contract -> Signature -> Build

2. Path 2: If it's NOT on the *near-term* roadmap and/or on the *short-term* strategy, then:

Develop a generalized, thoughtful, and complete formal pushback -> Push back on the customer -> Win or lose the deal, but don't distract your business.

This process should go down path 2 80% of the time (if not more).

Someone has to say NO.

No amount of planning, no amount of strategizing, no amount of consensus building, and no amount of discussion will eliminate thrash, indecision, and distraction until some group of people are also willing to say NO.

No! To constantly changing priorities.

No! To constantly piling on more goals.

No! To focusing on the wrong KPIs.

No! To customer demands that are off-strategy.

No!

In these cases, your job (wherever you are in the org chart) is not to be congenial - but rather, it is to (respectfully, thoughtfully, but DEFINITVELY) put your foot down for the benefit of your colleagues and the overall company.

Is it time to hedge your bets?

The most costly thing you can do as a startup founder is use your R&D team to hedge your bets.

Once you have product/market fit, your job is to hit the accelerator and execute as fast as possible toward escape velocity on your core product and business.

Figure out what your key performance indicators are, grow them (exponentially) and raise capital against your story.

Building products and features to support secondary businesses will just slow you down and reduce your chances of success.

6 Reasons why your startup might be failing to achieve hockey-stick growth…

1. Lack of product leadership

Without strong product leadership, sales, marketing, engineering, and even the CEO can’t do their job.

2. Lack of prioritization and slicing

If everything’s a priority, then nothing’s a priority. The question is how to make disciplined choices and thinly slice releases so that the right things get done in the right order.

3. Lack of bottom-up adoption

If the only way to use your product is to talk to the sales team, you’ve already lost. Companies are made up of many individual consumers. Do you know how to empower them to adopt and advocate for your product?

4. Helping instead of disrupting your customers

Are you selling to the wrong customer? Often young startups sell to the companies they should, in fact, be killing. How can you avoid propping up incumbents and win the market?

5. Lack of conviction and urgency

Is indecision, lack of focus, and/or poor accountability costing you speed and efficiency? Who’s job is it to fix it? Have you factored in opportunity cost?

6. Understanding the proper role of sales

Is the sales team selling what you’ve built - or just selling whatever they can sell? Do they understand how to expand self-adopt accounts? Do they know how to minimize thrash in the R&D team?

Bet on the come

When figuring out a strategy, it’s easy to get caught up in externalities that confuse and derail the planning process.

What if we don’t raise capital? What if conditions change? What if that big deal doesn’t happen?

The trick is to develop a plan that makes reasonable (or even bullish) assumptions about the outcome of those externalities.

You WILL raise that capital. The conditions will ALWAYS change. The big deal WILL happen (or another one like it).

Worst case scenario, your assumptions prove to be wrong and you can recalculate.

But if you’re constantly compromising your strategy and getting hung up on externalities - you will never unblock your team and drive toward successful outcomes.

The other key trick: execute so well that your bullish assumptions come true. Make. Them. Happen.

Run an excellent fundraising progress that blows investors out of the water (your incredible plan will help!), monitor conditions closely and build in feedback loops, do everything you can to close that big deal (or, better, find a path that doesn’t rely on single big deals).

All the support

When thinking about support, remember that different users like to get support in different ways.

1. Some users like to do their own research, searching for and reading your knowledge-base articles for themselves.

2. Some users will go straight to the chat box and try to get an answer from the chatbot or from a human agent in real time.

3. Some users will insist on sending you an email and waiting for one of your support team to do the hard work for them.

In all 3 cases, be sure you have a knowledge base system that supports a single repository of help articles such that...

1. Users who like to research can search and read articles.

2. Users who like to chat can get answers (ideally Generative AI style) that are informed from your knowledge base articles.

3. Users who like to email are first presented with recommended knowledge base articles BEFORE they're allowed to submit their support email.

Three birds. One stone.

How to become a Unicorn like Uber, Netflix, YouTube

I recently wrote a post about how too many startups who dream of creating disruptive consumer products, instead, compromise on their vision and build B2B software because they see it as a path to short-term revenue.

Imagine if Uber and Netflix built software for their competitors (Taxi and Blockbuster, respectively) instead of DISRUPTING them.

The post went viral (See a link to the original post in the comments)

But HOW do some companies do this while so many others can't?

To build disruptive companies, it takes...

1. Clear vision with first-principles thinking

2. Effective, high-quality execution with a take-no-prisoners attitude (which includes building an incredible end-user-facing product for end-users)

3. Smart capital to fund Research & Development and Go-to-market

Smart capital liberates companies from having to focus on small-scale, short-term revenue. Instead, they get to focus on full-stack disruption and owning the end user.

However, this can often feel like a Catch-22.

How do you get the smart VC money so you can be liberated to think about your end-user-facing business vision?

As a result, many founders give up before they even start. They compromise and pivot straight to a B2B business right out of the gate.

But it's not a Catch-22.

As a founder, you must have a clear vision rooted in first-principles thinking and demonstrate high-quality execution to THEN attract smart money.

If you pitch a compromised B2B strategy, you will raise money from compromised B2B minded VCs.

This is your reminder:

1. Craft a compelling narrative that fires the imagination - believe it!

2. Recruit a "coalition of the willing" - investors and advisors who believe in your disruptive idea

3. Build the product and business you want to see in the world

4. Knock on hundreds or thousands of doors until you get enough "Yes"s to unlock your dream and change the world

Don't be the one to compromise and kill your dream before you even get started.

Believe in it - and find others who believe in it too.

#startups #fundraising #startupsnippets #venturecapital #founders

Pricing strategy must be aligned with your business goals.

Just starting out and prioritizing growth? Pack your free tier with value.

Looking to prove early revenue? Start placing oft-asked-for features in a pro tier and seduce users to upgrade.

Fall in love with the whole problem

One of the cliches of startup life is “fall in love with the problem, not the solution”.

One of the implications of this philosophy - if followed to its logical conclusion - is to understand that the problem likely starts further upstream than you imagine; and goes further down stream than you imagine.

Consider that, once your initial wedge in the world begins to gain traction, you have an opportunity to expand into logical agencies up and down (and across) the value chain.

5 common ways you might be undermining your startup as a founder/CEOs

I’ve been doing startup advisory for a long while now. Over that time, I’ve noticed a lot of common founder behaviors that really hurt their companies. Here are just a few…

1. Lack of quality, consistent action over time

Some combination of: They jump from idea to idea. They burn out quickly. They waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter. They don’t follow up. They don’t finish what they start. They don’t adjust and adapt quickly enough.

2. Small business syndrome

They say they’re running a startup; but they are actually making decisions like it’s a small business. Race to revenue. Not raising capital. Not raising enough capital. Partnering with incumbents. Etc

3. Lack of experience

They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what the right steps are or what great work product and outcomes look like. They are lost on the next steps or the best way to execute but they’re not asking for help from the right people.

4. Too focused on strategy

They spend too much time on strategy. They keep re-writing it and imagining a huge future. But they don’t pay attention to the details or understand how important the day-to-day details are. They think once the strategy is done then the rest is just busy work that doesn’t require constant strategic oversight and high-quality management.

5. Too focused on tactics

They spend too much time on tactics. They get uncomfortable when asked to take a step back and figure out the big picture. They don’t understand the value of saying no. They don’t take responsibility for providing a strategy that creates clarity and context for their team.

6. Not focused enough

They change their mind all the time. Every new customer, opportunity or thought can derail their strategy and even the tactic they’re in the middle of executing. They fail to create a stable space inside which their team can do high-quality work.

Sometimes this comes from too much conviction about the cleverness of their own ideas. Sometimes it comes from bad advice they’re getting from scared/small minded people around them.

User good will

You have a “good will budget” with your users.

If you play too many tricks to force certain behaviors, the resentment will damage your brand. As a result. Users will only choose your product as a necessary evil and drop you as soon as possible. This ultimately limits the innovation and monetization you can deliver.

Focus on delivering delightful value over the long term and users will choose you more often and follow you on any journey you put in front of them - including to new products and revenue opportunities. For companies with great brands and user-centrality - the sky’s the limit.

Go get the capital

Good: Go get conviction on your sources of capital so you can get conviction on your disruptive growth business.

Bad: Use your lack of conviction to hedge and build a business that compromises on growth and disruption.

Some kind of communities can kill your startup

“Community” is such an interesting term.

It’s a little like the word “partnership”. People use it to mean all manner of sins.

Many of these meanings are very good for your young product-led startup.

Some are a dangerous waste of time. Read to the bottom to find out which one is unproductive.

✅ Support Community

Group of people who use your product & help each other be more successful.

This can reduce support costs & give users/customers confidence that your tool is well adopted and supported.

✅ Ecosystem

Community of entities (typicsllly other companies and products) that plug into your product & make it more valuable.

This can be a powerful (if not unstoppable) moat around your business

✅ Marketplace Participants

Typically individuals who are either providing services (supply side) or buying services (demand side) inside your own explicitly designed matching environment.

This is core business. You typically monetize the transactions by clipping the ticket.

✅ 3rd Party Community

People already discussing the problem your product solves.

Finding a way to organically & authentically engage this community can be a great way to learn. It’s also a great way to promote your product.

✅ Testing Community

People who have opted in to using early versions of your product & provide detailed feedback.

This can be valuable if you’re quickly & consistently shipping versions of your product with an intent to distribute it more widely in the short or medium term.

✅ Social Network

If your product is designed to facilitate the connection of people (typically around a social object like a photo or video or a topic like sport or cycling) then engaging communities of people to migrate or spend some of their time on your product is essential.

This is core for your product & business. You monetize through ads or premium experiences.

❌ 1st Party Conversational Community

People that you invest in growing and nurturing outside of the context of a real and usable product.

Their primary interactions are to talk to each other (and you) but they are unable (because it doesn’t exist) or unwilling (because they just like talking) to use your product.

This might work for more mature companies that have time to plan and execute over the long term.

For startups, however, building a conversational community that is only tangentially related to their business - particularly when they don’t have a product and are not focused/resourced enough to have one in the short term - can be a giant distraction.

As a founder, it’s seductive to spend a lot of your time creating a conversational community. There are many tools and there’s a lot of opportunity for instant gratification.

But if you are operating a young product-led startup, you are not a typically not a community builder. You are a product and business builder. Your interest is in users - not “community members”.

Stay focused

The 2 key C-suite levers to drive outcomes in R&D

As a C-Suite (CEO, CPO, CTO, CMO etc) you have two key levers with your R&D team.

Priorities and budget.

You can either

1. Deprioritize a business goal in favor of another one.

Or

2. Fund the expansion of a squad (or, often, the creation of a new squad) to work on a new priority/mission.

You cannot, however, just keep adding priorities and missions, expecting it all to fit into the same overworked squads and expect stuff to just happen “faster”.

In fact, everything will happen slower because the thrash and contention will bog everything down. Not to mention the tech and org debt that will be incurred.

10 reasons why killing your customers might be the best business strategy for your startup

Oftentimes, the companies you think are your customers or go-to-market partners can often be the companies you're supposed to be disrupting.

It's very common to find young startups attempting to create new user experiences and business models that change how an industry works - while also choosing a go-to-market or sales strategy that relies on legacy players in an industry.

In these cases, here's what's likely to happen when dealing with these players...

1. They are unlikely to understand your innovation.

2. If you are lucky enough to find some stakeholders to understand and champion your innovation, the people they work with are likely to slowwalk or kill their initiative.

3. If the initiative gains some momentum, it's highly likely to be killed due to priority changes (due to changes in KPIs, market conditions, management whims, etc.)

4. Even if you squeeze through the eye of the needle to get *something* out to market, they are unlikely to implement it the way you want.

5. Even if they implement it the way you want, it will take *forever* to ship it.

6. Even if they ship it, they're unlikely to market and/or sell it how you want/need it.

7. Even if they were to do all of the above, you would be unable to rapidly test/iterate on the implementation details and marketing messages (essential for disruptive new products) - which can cause your product to suffer or fail.

8. They will likely change their mind when market conditions change or the intial rollout “fails” to live up to its potential - particularly because you have been unable to iterate and experiment.

9. Even if it finally ships and starts to get marketed correctly, making any changes will be painful if not impossible (see: all of the above).

10. If you are implementing a white-label solution (often the case): Even after all that, you won't own the user. Which is the most important thing

Instead...

• Go straight to the end-user.

• Disrupt legacy players - don't partner with or sell to them.

• Later: Maybe give them a little SDK or API to adopt some of your incredible innovation.

• See: Youtube vs. Media companies, Instagram vs. Brands, Twitter vs. News, Uber vs Taxi, Netflix vs Blockbuster, etc etc

Are you using the right analytics?

There's a big difference between the analytics that are most useful for business decisions and the analytics that are most useful for product decisions.

Business analytics tend to focus on absolute numbers and growth rates.

They typically answer questions like...

• "How many active users this month?"

• "How much revenue this month?"

• "How many new leads in the pipeline?"

The Product team should be interested in these kinds of questions, but they are not actionable at the product ideation and management level.

Instead, the product team needs to answer questions like...

• "What is the conversion rate of users that do action A, to the users that perform action B?"

• "Which conversion bottlenecks are most likely to have the biggest impact on the business objectives?"

• "What is the number 1 reason, more people are not being more successful with my product, more often"

That last one is my favorite.

For these kinds of questions, funnel analysis is best.

Make sure you use the right analytics for the job.

Make sure you're asking the right questions and getting the correct answers!

The essence of Product: reducing the complex to the simple

Pretty much the whole point of modern products is to eliminate pain, suffering, and waste from a users life. 

Often, like genius, this means reducing the complex to the simple.

Don’t make the mistake of simply translating legacy processes into digital forms or, worse, passing on complexity from multiple suppliers, billing models, etc to your end-user.

Instead, find a way to…

1. Reduce input complexity through negotiation and/or excellent process engineering
   

2. Figure out common denominators and breakage models for the remaining complexity
   

3. Give users a simple mental model for the user experience and billing model

This kind of radical simplification is not just important for great products, it is the essence of disruption.

The essence of great Product Management: turning chaos into craft

You are failing at product management if...

1. You treat your job as an exercise in “managing chaos”
   

2. You primarily interact with engineers all-day
   

3. You believe your primary activity is gathering and documenting requirements

Instead, great Product Managers… 

1. Mitigate chaos by having strong, reasoned opinions about a narrow set of target customers, use cases, and problems
   

2. Coordinate and align all functions in the business
   

3. Use narrowly defined problems and insights to generate requirements for all functions

Tips for building, selling and deploying software for enterprises

Building, selling and deploying software for enterprises is really, really hard work.

This is for many reasons. 1 key reason is that they have a lot of "Enterprise requirements" that small and medium businesses typically do not. For example...

Business Requirements
- Deep configurability of some key features/workflows
- Integration into existing enterprise tools
- Co-branding considerations
- Analytics/reports
- Enterprise pricing plans
- Customer support and system SLAs (and methods of measuring)

Technical Requirements
- API for integration into custom systems
- Security (surviving PEN test)

Internal Concerns
- Threat/fraud modeling at scale
- Scalability (including 3rd party rate limits)
- Resiliency/uptime
- Monitoring for all of the above

But here's the thing.

Most people's intuition and experience would lead them to try to find the "Venn diagram overlap' between the requirements of all their enterprise clients and get those requirements done first.

This might seem intuitive and logical, but it is wrong.

Instead, you should...

1. First, ensure you are selling to the SAME kind of customer, trying to solve the SAME use-cases for the SAME reasons. You should define 'Same" very narrowly. Uncomfortably narrowly. This is because customers, use-cases, and intentions that might seem similar can actually be wildly different in terms of product and business requirements. If you get this wrong you will never properly productize and scale your offering.

2. Recognize that, for each customer, their circle of blocking requirements are all blockers for them. They don't care about the Venn Diagram Overlap. They care about their circle. Also, recognize that you want to get customers up and running as fast as possible (to get case-studies, revenue, and momentum on the board.

Given this, work diligently to...

a) Stack rank your clients and choose which will go live first, second, third, etc

b) Work closely with your clients to make their circle of blockers as small and precisely scoped as possible

You need to push HARD here. Question their real concerns/pain vs. what they THINK they need. Be careful about requirements that might break your business (E.g. Whitelabel for a b2c/b2b2c product should be a non-starter)

c) Work closely with your clients to try to make their circle of blocking requirements overlap as much as possible with other clients - not for the purposes of prioritizing those overlapping items, but for the purpose of minimizing the total set of items inside all the circles.

d) Work on one circle at a time and get each client up and running one by one.

e) Manage expectations with everyone and keep clear and constant communication. Use project plans and Gantt charts if you have to.