When I started Year One Labs (with Ray, Alistair and Ian), we spent a lot of time looking for founders. It took us six months to make five investments. During that time we spoke with, interviewed, and hung out with lots of people, looking for teams, but also looking for individuals that we thought had […]
This Much I Know is True
I’m a big believer in intellectual honesty. We emphasized it at Year One Labs by pushing teams through a lean startup methodology. And when I reflect back on my failures, there were clearly times when I was lying too much to myself. Having said that, I also think founders need to be capable of lying […]
Sleeping Under Your Desk
I’ve slept under my desk before. A few times in fact. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was more comfortable than sleeping on my chair or on top of my desk (I’ve tried both.) Somehow the existence of the desk made it feel a bit safer… At one point (at one of my startups many years […]
Promises and Platitudes – The Dangers of Low Quality Advisors
Having great mentors can make a huge difference for you, individually, as an entrepreneur. I’ve never had a mentor, but looking back I’m certain it would have been very helpful. Even today. Mentors are there to help you, and by extension (potentially) your startup. But even if your startup fails, or you’re not going where […]
Competitive Research 101 for Startups
Whenever I get pitched by a startup, I always look to see if they’ve properly identified the competition. For starters, I can guarantee you that someone is already working on the same idea. It’s a universal truth. But more importantly than that, competitive research and analysis is one of those areas that is often horribly […]
Finding Your Startup’s One Thing
With five startups in Year One Labs (all at various stages of our process), you start to see some fairly clear patterns. One of the biggest hurdles at Year One Labs is moving from the Probe Phase to the MVP Phase. I’ve talked about this process in more detail a few times. The gist of […]
Kill the Goddamn Buzzwords and Give Me a Use Case
Recently I’ve been reviewing a bunch of startup pitches (over 150) for a couple of different things, and it’s frustrating to see potentially good ideas and quality entrepreneurs get ignored too quickly because their pitches suck. It’s like resumes with typos – there have to be some basic filtering mechanisms for written pitches, otherwise reviewers […]
You Have to Love the Startup Process
The process of starting a company is messy. It has massive ups and downs, tons of uncertainty and a significant portion of time is spent doing things you don’t know how to do, or don’t like doing. But that’s the Startup Process. Either you embrace it and love it or you get out. Don’t expect […]
What Role Does Ego Play in Entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurs need a very healthy ego to succeed. Many might be self-effacing and humble, but there still has to be a deep-seeded, positive sense of self and ego. Some might call it drive. That’s part of it. Courage and belief in one’s own abilities is also important. Natural leadership qualities and a desire to lead […]
Misplaced Passion is Common for Early Stage Entrepreneurs
When entrepreneurs are so driven by passion that they’re blind to the realities around them they often find themselves in big trouble. But what we see quite regularly at the early stages of startups is not too much passion but misplaced passion. Ask yourself this question, “Are you more passionate about the problem you’re solving […]
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