After more than two years — and nearly 100 episodes — as host of TechCrunch, he recently ended his tenure. Found the podcast.I learned a lot about how founders build their startups.
When is the right time for founders to expand from their core product? How entrepreneurs approach hiring; I've heard stories about how entrepreneurs got their jumps in the first place.
Not a founder myself, but some of the learnings and advice I heard on the show stood out more than others. We've compiled a short and sweet list of the five best pieces of advice founders heard at the show, both practical and philosophical.
Founders should rely on what they are not good at.
Many founders talk about finding co-founders who fill their experience or knowledge gaps or making early hires, but Rippling's co-founder and CEO; Parker Conrad The founders think they should do the opposite.
Conrad said the founder did not take office; Or the practice of hiring people to fill positions they don't want to do.
“You should find the things in the company that you hate and run to them and hug them and really hold on to them and focus on those things, because those are the things that will kill you,” Conrad said. “Maybe they should be avoided because it's not convenient to focus on them. I've definitely seen it, and that's where you should spend all your time doing things you really hate.”
VCs aren't always right.
The right venture capitalist can provide invaluable insight and guidance to a startup, but good VCs are hard to find, and even the best VCs don't always have the best ideas for every startup.
Founder and CEO Ashley Tyrner FarmboxRxA direct-to-consumer box company that aims to help solve food deserts told her to buck the trend, a meal kit company. I'm glad I ignored the advice and took it off instead.
“Every VC we talked to, one of them who was even remotely nice at the time, wanted us to do a whole food thing,” Tyrner said. “That's not our focus. We didn't want to jump on the whole diet bandwagon. Looking back now, I'm so glad I didn't put any capital in until today. You know, most whole foods are dying a slow death.
Instead, A few years later, FarmboxRx was able to connect with insurance companies and start sending boxes of its products as part of patients' prescriptions, a revenue stream that Tyner says has really benefited the company.
Not to be the first.
If you read a lot of PR pitches, As I do every day. It's a common thread that many companies want to claim a technological innovation or a “first” for a new market. But is being first always best?
Jordan Nathan, founder and CEO of the non-toxic home goods company CarawayI would definitely not agree. As Nathan prepares to launch Caraway's first non-toxic cookware set, Nathan told TechCrunch: I wasn't thrilled at first as it looked like they were going to be the latest in a more substantial genre, but it was over. Nathan said the latest rollout allowed the company to find gaps in the market, and Caraway catered directly to those audiences.
“It helped change our color palette, it helped change our price point, the pieces we put in the set,” Nathan said. “A lot of other brands have done a lot of things right, but we've been able to carve out spaces in the kitchen (direct-to-consumer) world where no one else is playing.”
Companies should try to get to market immediately, regardless of their long-term goals.
While some startups build software that can start buying customers and making money in a week, the same cannot be said for startups looking to introduce innovative deep technology or moonshot companies. But that doesn't mean these deep tech companies have to wait years to make money.
Joe Wolfel, co-founder and CEO of TerradepthTerradepth, a company looking to build autonomous drones to map the ocean floor, told Found that it is very intentional about establishing its revenue streams. It still has a ways to go before its autonomous drones can navigate the ocean floor, but the company is looking to provide the same services to commercial and government customers at the same time as the company needs information. Now the ocean floor.
“One thing you learn pretty quickly in combat is that you can't maneuver passively,” Wolfel said. “Is there no substitute for learning on the ground? We eat our own dog food every day.”
We hear this same idea from a different approach. Paul HedrickFounder of Western clothing company Tecovas. Hedrick told Found that he knew he wanted Tecovas to be a direct-to-consumer brand, but he didn't want to set up a website and wait for sales to come in. That's why he started selling his shoes. He was able to get his car at the farmer's market right from the start with customer feedback and sales from the back.
Remember to build a company around your product
When a startup gets off the ground, the founders focus on building a product and getting that product to market—as it should be. But founders should make sure they don't forget to build the actual company around the product.
Gavin UbertiThe co-founder and CEO of chipmaker Etched discovered that one of the company's early pitfalls was that they didn't consider employee benefits until it was too late. Uberti said the company realized it waited too long when one of its employees broke his leg before the company set up health insurance.
Uberti's story is a reminder that while founders are trying to get through things quickly, it's important for them to take care of everything else needed to build a sustainable company that takes care of its employees.