Advice for Startups and Entrepreneurs

06/01/21 • 11 min

The whole third season of the podcast has been about working at a startup. I have seen the highs and I have seen the lows over an eight year period with sideline views for a few years after. In this episode I share four pieces of advice I wish I would have known before or during my time with this startup.
If you enjoyed this episode check out the other episodes where I discuss dealing with failure, the joys of a startup, as well as many of my experiences in manufacturing.
Video Version:
https://youtu.be/KxzJuARx3Zg

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Previous Episode

Failure at a Startup

Coping with failure is hard however coping with the failure of a business is even more challenging. Your life from money to time to ego all get slowly drained over time with a failing business however the final bankruptcy is the hardest part. It is the final nail in the coffin meaning there is no hope left.
There is a lot of self reflection and doubt in failing. What if I would have done things differently? What if I would have had more help? What if I would have fixed a very specific problem? It is important to learn from the failure however there are many things that you will never know.
Lessons I learned from this failure is how to manage employees, when to cut your losses, how to run a successful marketing campaign, how to program, the basics of analytics, the real world isn't fair, why managers want you to go above and beyond without direction, and a very long list of other lessons. While it is hard to let go and cost my family a lot of their time and money, we all learned more than we ever expected!
Video version:
https://youtu.be/pllfCErqwqA
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Next Episode

What I Wish My Managers Knew About Me

I wish managers took the time to really get to know me and other employees. This is a reflection as an employee and as a manager. People have relationships that go unleveraged. It is often easier to use relationships to help develop better connections across a business and make working together much easier. Another issue is that managers often don't get a full view of your skills. They hired you to do one job however they fail to realize the wide range of skills employees have and how to leverage them to create better solutions. This has been a big frustration with data science. People who jump up and down and all excited publicly about new topics like data science often get assigned to do the work while your most qualified employees typically aren't extroverts at least in technical fields. It is your responsibility as a manager to get to know people at a deeper level.
Other personal skills and characteristics are often missed. Management skills are judged based on your personal view of what management is. Managing at a bank is much different than managing at a small firm and especially in a blue collar environment. Age seems to be the biggest hurdle I face. It is really hard for people to grasp my experience due to my age. Realistically most people have not had 8 years of work experience in another industry as an expert by the age of 24. To top it all off, I started a whole separate career in quantitative finance. The ability to start over and jump fields has been a really big challenge and this multidimension perspective could really help companies manage a variety of relationships and projects.
Video Version:
https://youtu.be/v9wMm7wViYM

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