I’m having a great time at the Founders Institute event tonight in Seattle. I really enjoyed this image that Dan Fine included in his presentation, of an advertisement that Ernest Shackleton posted for explorers for his ship. It read:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter Cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”
I was fortunate to learn many of the basics of hiring (interviewing, job descriptions, networking), management (goal setting, reviewing performance, PIPs) and firing (layoffs, termination) in previous roles — Amazon.com was extremely good at teaching me effective, behavioral interviewing practices, and many other elements of this presentation.
But it wasn’t until I founded TeachStreet that I became the person wholly responsible for the implementation of the decisions throughout the process — the presentation included below tries to summarize many of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
The Founders Institute asked me to give a presentation this evening in Settle, covering the topics “Hiring, Firing and Co-founders” — really, I think these principles apply to all early-stage startup employees (who all share characteristics of co-founders). I’m sure that I’ve omitted elements in the attached presentation, but I’d appreciate any feedback, and I hope you find this useful.
I have the greatest respect for my current and (most of my 🙂 ) past co-workers — I hope that the terminology in the presentation doesn’t convey anything different than that — I tried to use terms and imagery that will stick with the imagination and memories of the audience.
Keep in mind that employees can substitute the word ’employer for employee’ in almost all cases — that is, if your employer/boss sucks, you should fire them as quickly as possible!
Last week, Fred Wilson had a guest post from Andy Swan entitled “Who are we plowing for today?“. It summarizes why I love to encourage new entrepreneurs and startups — I’m just such a huge fan of the little guy/gal, and their energy/spark inspires me daily.
Also, if you don’t already read Fred’s blog, I highly recommend it — he’s probably the world’s greatest blogger (in my humble opinion)
Several days ago, Mark Suster wrote an excellent post on Learning to Say No to Meetings. I agreed with him wholeheartedly, as saying ‘no’ is still not something I’m great at. I truly want to help fellow entrepreneurs, as I know how many unknowns there are, and how much a little bit of help can save a lot of time (and, yes, this is despite my $1,000 entrepreneurship advice offer!)
In the early days of TeachStreet, people like Andy Sack (and his Tuesday morning Startup Coffees), Jason Mendelson/Brad Feld’s Ask the VC blog, Jason Kilar, Gregg Spiridellis, Dave McClure and others all helped with advice to my stream of questions and worries, and I’m trying to Pay that Forward.
But, if you’re an entrepreneur, you need to be able to learn to work thru those No’s. It reminds me of a story about a young Allen Iverson (or, it could have been some other lesser player like Tim Thomas). But, this basketball player was having trouble working around/through screens, and his coach was screaming at him that great players find ways to get where they need to go, and that’s all there is to it — you don’t see Michael Jordan or Magic being screened regularly, so get smarter, work harder, and just get where you need to go. More succinctly, Just Get It Done!
Several weeks ago, a young entrepreneur, Andrew Maguire told me about his startup, InternMatch (renamed to LookSharp). The gist is that there are large volumes of students looking for internships (and it isn’t just during the summer break), and the incidence of multiple internships has only been growing over the last 20 years. They aspire to create a best-of-breed service to help connect interns with great experiences at startups.
Anyway, he asked for help, and at some point I just had to say “No” to more intros and advice. But, he’s continued to send updates, press mentions, small questions, regularly attends Hops and Chops, and does a number of other/friendly actions to keep himself in the conversation — that is, he’s fought thru the screens, and is getting more access than if he’d just accepted the ‘no’. What’s even MORE, I actually admire his tenacity, because it’s one of the 149 different skills that successful entrepreneurs have to have… Andrew just doesn’t let no stop his progress — congratulations, Andrew, you get an ‘A’ for politely ignoring my Nos!
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| D’oh! |
Negotiations can be fun. And, they can really suck. Usually, it’s a little of both and a lot of one. I’ve recently spent a few months working on a potential licensing deal that has recently gone the wrong way — that happens, and as many have said before, it’s to be expected. You need to be able to walk away.
But, I try to learn from each negotiation to improve the next time. In this situation, the partner was overseas, and that made things extremely difficult.
My recent negotiating mistakes:
So, lesson learned — I hope it can be saved, but if not, it wasn’t meant to be.
The one rule I try never to make is to enter into a deal that I don’t want to live with. Signing contracts is easy — operating as a business relationship over the long term takes trust and mutual respect.
Thanks to Mark Suster for the ‘Time is the Enemy of all Deals‘ blog post — I’d love to see some of his negotiating tips on non-financing negotiations. I bet he’s got rules to live by that would help me.