It’s crazy how few people understand basic startup equity but are faced with major career decisions based on these concepts.

How to run a company (in priority order):

1: Define a crystal clear north star

Great companies know their destination.

Everyone rowing in one direction.

The best north star? A SIMPLE, measurable metric.

Get it right, and watch the magic unfold! 💫

2: Hire uncomfortably good people

Ah, my favorite line!

Hire people you have no right to hire.

Who are so good it makes you nervous.

Who force everyone to step up their game.

Always level up 🦾

3: Create a culture of urgency

Nothing is more powerful than a group of people making every day count 🔥⚡️🚨

4: Make sure no one gets blocked

You’re paying good people good money.

Make sure they don’t get stuck!

Demotivating for them 🤦

Disastrous for the bottom line.

22 startup principles to scale your company in 2022:

1) The obstacle is the way

Every hard problem you solve is a moat that others will shrink from.

Most people don’t have the stamina for hard work.

Challenges completed are insurance policies against competition.

2) Sell your story, not your product

Your company isn’t a product, it’s a story.

Great stories attract great employees and great customers.

Sell your story.

3) Focus on leverage

Points of leverage are areas where inputs can disproportionally affect outputs:

- A better conversion funnel impacts all sales
- A better sales process impacts all revenue
- A better onboarding process reduces churn

4) Focus on customers, not competitors

Success comes down to whether people will pay you to solve their problems.

Competitive intelligence is useful to understand where other attempts to solve a problem fall short.

But the customer’s actions speak loudest.

This is a very long thread. @SamtLeslie asked to give the playbook for service companies so here it is. Follow it and you’ll get to 5M+ in a few years.

This is pure operations playbook.

No leadership, financial or HR discussion. Enjoy.

Industry:
Doesn’t matter much. @sweatystartup has an awesome list of service industries on his website that will get the job done.

Trades:
If you are under 3M and in multiple trades you’re doing it wrong. I was there and it was a mess.

Businesses under 3M don’t have good system, managers, effective onboarding, training, hiring practices, or pricing methods. If you did then you’d be bigger.

Trades cont:
Multiple trades doubles that mess. Get your first business figured out then work on another.

I would recommend earliest 4M to add a second trade, if at all. Any earlier you’re splitting focus and treading water.

Focus Focus Focus.

Software:
If you’re using anything besides Servicetitan then please stop and go get Servicetitan. No other software even close to their capabilities.

It is 50% more expensive than other programs on the market while making you 100% better than any competitor not using it.

A thread on employee equity in early stage startups -- what are the compensation norms? What every early employee should ask? Some thoughts on whether the structure is fair.

Read on >>

1) First, there are NO NORMS! Hah. I have literally seen everything from giving early employees no equity to giving employee #1s near co-founder level of shares.

But what is more common than not?

2) In the Silicon Valley, if you're hiring your 1st employee, & you've raised NO $$ & are paying very little (e.g $0-$10k / yr or thereabouts), your first employee is basically a co-founder.

And the equity tranche for employee 1 should be closer to a co-founder level.

3) For ex, a friend of mine gave his employee #1 10% (vesting over 4 yrs of course) of the business. This employee was only getting his housing paid for. And this was 10 yrs ago, so it was during the bust.

4) On the flip side, if you have raised some $$ & are paying employee #1 near mkt rate, typically I see around here ppl get 1-5% (w/ vesting).

Caveat - near mkt rate doesn't mean compared to Google or FB salary rates. I mean compared to "normal big cos"

Building an #MVP is the first step in building a #startup. Whether a feature should be added or not, better to launch early with less or late with more are questions founders struggle with. Below 👇👇👇 is a #tweetstorm on @mwseibel's 'How to plan an MVP'