(Part 2) Best products from r/startups

I don't know exactly how you put your ideas on paper, but I suggest putting it into a framework to better assess whether it can work. Business canvas model is a strong tool for that purpose. Not only you need to fill out all the blanks in the model, you need to make sure they create a feasible, coherent plan when standing together. It also eliminates too-visionary things that may sound pretty cool but not really needed when you first start build up your business.

I also suggest you spend time reading Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. It will give you very clear instruction on how to proceed from an idea to a fully-grown company.

Good luck!

i'm not quite a CFO but i do work in tech / at a startup / in finance. i can give a quick list of stuff I'd recommend to someone making the jump:

• Kind of a no brainer (and judging from your analysis on #1, this probably won't be an issue) but you should be familiar with the VC/ funding/legal side of things. You can be the most valuable person in the room if you like slicing through a term sheet. i'd recommend Brad Feld's Venture Deals to get your feet wet. From a more macro/ company building level, Bussgangs Mastering the VC Game is a nice, light read.
  
  
• Again, probably why they're hiring you, but strong financial modeling skills are important. Being able to do the historical accounting/ cash analysis and then quickly turn that into a forecast grounded in some business logic is essential. You're going to be making shit up sometimes, but I think everyone is to some degree in early stage tech.
  
  
• I'm not sure the size of this company, but it's probably small and you'll probably end up dealing with/managing a lot of unsexy stuff. Running payroll, administering benefits, getting a 401k set up is all very painful but part of building yourself into a real company that can hire top notch talent. of course you can hire some/most of this stuff out, but it will probably be your problem at the end of day.
  
  
• again, not sure what kind of team you're leading, but dealing with the accounting side. judging on the 2 year timeline, you'll probably be due for your first Audit and have to lead a few 409a valuations. deal with taxes/whatever else comes up.
  
  i think great CFOs for early stage can run the finance side but also kick in with the Ops stuff and have a good handle on product. You're more of the grease, and your job is to keep things humming and get out of the way to let people build.

So the things you're pointing out are completely normal for any business owner, particularly a startup. That doesn't make them feel less painful -- I empathize with you and I'm sure this feels discouraging.

Let's hit on a few key points:

• Right now you're in the process of validating your offer. Your figuring out if you're really offering something that people want.
  
• You've also recognized the disconnect between people who fawn over your product and actual users/buyers.
  
• Plenty of people will tell you your product is a good idea and that they will use it... very few actually will.
  
• What this means for your sake is being able to filter feedback and really understand who your users are and what they think of your product so that you can revise/adapt your offer to convert them.
  
  Some next steps for you:
  
  
• Go back to your niche. Who are you trying to acquire as users?
  
• What reason do they have to use your app?
  
• For those who moved on, why didn't they stay?
  
  To the latter point, you really need to get into the mind of your user and remove any excitement you're feeling around your app. What I mean by this is that the answer to the question isn't, "Because the app's amazing and it does so much for them!" That's what you think. It's clearly not what your users think. So how do you figure out what your users are thinking? A lot of times this means simply asking them for their honest feedback. This can be direct communication or as you scale, it can be something as simple as a survey that gets sent out to users who haven't used the app in X days. I always prefer the former, but that's also my communication style.
  
  A book was recommended here a while back -- I've since read it and appreciate it's perspective. It's called The Mom Test, take a look at it here: https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742
  
  I also have a podcast episode on this topic. I don't self promote but if you want it let me know and I'll DM you where you can find it.
  
  Best of luck. Hang in there!

• Always treat people with respect
  
• Always treat people fairly
  
• Always be crystal clear about expectations, and make sure to get your employees to repeat back to you (in their words) what those expectations are so you know they understand them. I create KRA (key result area) documents for our employees that outlines their responsibilities and metrics that will be tracked to determine their effectiveness at their job. If they are shipping, for instance, # of mis-shipped packages, number of packages shipped per day, etc. If they fall outside of these metrics, then they know they are not meeting expectations.
  
• Never yell at your employees. I treat my employees like I treat my clients/customers.
  
• Don't micro-manage, but follow up and offer help/assistance often. Set deadlines and let empoyees work toward them, but don't just wait for the deadline to see how they did. Check in, follow up and just ask if they need any help. Your job as a manager isn't to hound them, it's to help them be productive and meet the objectives of the company.
  
  A couple great books to read:
  
  
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C Maxwell
  
  
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
  

There has never been more information available to aspiring entrepreneurs, which is great, but make sure you research the source before following any advice.

Learn from successful entrepreneurs; read blogs and watch their fireside interviews, but be weary of advice that comes from people who claim they contribute to the ecosystem.

Recommendations:

Mark Suster's Blog

Ben Horowitz's Blog

PandoDaily's YouTube Channel - Sarah Lacy does great for fireside interviews.

Clayton Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma is also a great resource.

As always, the best advice is to consult a lawyer and CPA. I am neither, but I can share my personal experience.

As a solo-founder, setting up an LLC will involve less paperwork up front, less paperwork annually (C Corps have extra requirements, such as quarterly meetings/filings), and less cost. It also makes taxes much simpler, as in an LLC you can do owner withdrawals with passthrough taxation (i.e., you just do your personal taxes with a Schedule C) instead of dealing with salaries, W2s, dividends, double taxation, etc in a C Corp (which has to file its own taxes). If you find a co-founder, you can easily amend your LLC documents to give them part ownership. The C Corp only becomes advantageous when you want to hand out ownership of the company to non-founders. That is, if you want to raise money from investors, take on a board of directors, or give employees equity, then you can convert your LLC to a C Corp. For a good intro to these topics, check out The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law.

Get and read Traction - It's a complete framework to run your company from 5 people to 500.


https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Get-Grip-Your-Business/dp/B00A9Z973M/

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I have a 15 person startup that runs by it and a 100 person service / manufacturing company that runs by it. It takes all three parts of your business (Cash, Sales and Production) and puts them into an easy and awesome framework (Vision, Traction, Issues, People, Data, Processes) and get's you focused on the business and what really matters quickly.

​

Once you have traction implemented and running (it's the operating system for your company) - then start learning and taking your leadership team through The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.

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https://www.amazon.com/15-Commitments-Conscious-Leadership-Sustainable/dp/B00SM8MMJO

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15CoCL will then be your operating system for YOU as a leader and for all of your leadership team, managers and ideally all employees.

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Traction = How you structure and run your company.

15Cocl = How you structure and run yourself.

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Those two together and you will avoid every pitfall from a person and org level and keep you and your entire team focused on what makes you better and different (your product, service, etc.) - not your internal issues.

​

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Venture Deals is a great reference.
There is no shortage of discussion on various blogs, Fred Wilson and Mark Suster are two of the best.

For actually drafting up terms...get a lawyer. Preferably one that deals with companies at your stage and investments on a regular basis.

Valuations are market driven, it's the price that you and the investor can agree upon. Convertible notes and SAFEs do not avoid this, read this outstanding post as to why. Active investors are setting your price based on their other options.

Honestly, check out The $100 Start Up. It's pretty straight forward and has some cool stories of people starting up businesses with little to no capital and experience, just doing what they love. I'm about half way through and I find it really interesting and refreshing from other business books I've read.

A few books that I absolutely love are; Good to Great, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (this isn't exactly a business book, but a lot of the principles in it help you be a better leader/person which is extremely important when running a business) and Rework

Check out "The partnership charter" by David Gage. There are some interesting insights, and he suggests something that always helps we avoid wrong partnerships. Try to create an agreement between three of you about shares, responsibilities, how to buy out someone's shares and what happens when one of the partners wants to leave by himself.

If partners don't trust each other or someone tries to get advantage of others it becomes obvious because in agreement it has to be clearly written who does what, how much, what he gets in return and what happens if he doesn't do his part.

Venture Deals is great and I'd also strongly recommend Mastering the VC Game by Jeff Bussgang. It's a really easy read and brings a lot of clarity to the subject of equity financing.

Amazon link

I find the original Steve Blank and Eric Reis books tough to recommend these days as they tend to ramble and have since spawned much more approachable work since being published. The two below are part of Blank and Reis's official "Lean" series and much better (and easier to implement) than the original works.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Customers/dp/1492023744/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3HD1KWE1NUKRB

https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172/ref=sr_1_2?crid=30ZKXBRBIBAZO

Jessica Livingston's book, Founders At Work is great simply because it covers a ton of different area's and different perspectives. If anything, the reader should come away with the realization that 1. luck plays a big part and 2. there's no one way to be successful.

Here is a good read about the startup environment and the challenges they face. Author is a former exec. Best of luck in the interview!

The Lean Startup
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004J4XGN6/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1569879228&sr=8-3

Hi /r/techsin101,

I have a few resources that don't match exactly what you're looking for, but were interesting non-the-less.

• Founders at work, a book by one of the core people at Y-Combinator: http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1430210788
  
• Bootstrapping stories: https://37signals.com/bootstrapped
  
• A bit dry, but fascinating if you have the mind for it, a review of the SBIR Program (a government program that gives grants between 150k and 750k to small businesses) http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11929.html
  
• browse medium, there's thousands of stories there

I recommend a book by Brad Feld,

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119259754/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

It would also be wise to read the SAFE primer. As a founder of a semi-successful seed stage startup, I wouldn't use a convertible debt note to raise money.

https://www.ycombinator.com/docs/SAFE_Primer.rtf

Plug: https://www.fastcompany.com/3068575/will-ride-hail-be-free-by-2021-the-startup-ad-platform-vugo-says-yes

Obvious answers for engineers are tech infrastructure --

Web App: AWS/Heroku

iOS: Developer Account

Have you guys run a company/startup before? The best thing you can do is invest in mentorship and advice. Generally accelerators seem to be heavy on pitch building and raising money but light on actual 'how to run a business' advice.

How about 10 hours of legal consultation from a firm in town and basic incorporation fees? Supplement with your local Small Business Administration office for more general business advice.

Some great startup textbooks:

Startup CEO - Matt Blumberg

The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz

Venture Deals - Brad Feld

Do More Faster - David Cohen

Makes sense now, thanks for explanation. Maybe something about decision-making or more specifically about weighing the options might be useful. I'm thinking that probably Smart choices could be a good book to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Choices-Practical-Making-Decisions/dp/0767908864

You've got this. If you have the time, I would strongly suggest picking up the book, Designing Your Life.

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3K0H7JUCS8F28&keywords=designing+your+life&qid=1570294285&s=books&sprefix=designing%2Caps%2C217&sr=1-1

It really helped me to stay calm and focused when I went through a similar period.

Just bought this book-- may be of some help:

http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Startup-Reinvent-Living/dp/0307951529

With free webframes, you can start a web business for almost nothing. Check it out!

Focus on point 1) only first. Read the Mom Test and preferably some more literature (/blogposts/listen to podcasts/etc.) on idea validation. Do the interviews.

For 2) after: do a competitor analysis on a wide range of competitor & substitute products, preferably look at a similar product line where similar need & trends showed up. Draft up your first idea of a business model (e.g. with Business Model Canvas).

Return here after with a better idea and understanding in your mind and better questions.

Before you even get a partner, get this book, lock you and your potential partners in a room and go through every section. This is a must-read for any partnership.

The Partnership Charter

I learned the hard way that an operating agreement will not cover and protect you from all the potential pitfalls that comes with partnerships. If I read this book before I went into business with my friend, I would have never gotten into business with him.

Do More Faster

The startup bible. Written by the founders of TechStars, one of the biggest startup incubators. Has a great section all about finance, and everything else under the startup sun.

I am new to this, but here is one book that has been very helpful so far - The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law.

You might want to check out this book, Mastering the VC Game. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-up/dp/1591843251

It talks about Angels and VC's. It is also pretty timely. There is a bit in there about term sheets, what to watch out for, how to valuate, what angels and vc's are looking for, etc.

You'll find an infinite amount of fragmented resources for your question. I found one book that centralizes and summarizes that information into a process. Disciplined Entrepreneurship. https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284. If you're serious about succeeding, pick up this book and follow the steps.

The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki

Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur - Dermot Berkery

Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms - Jeffrey Bussgang

And not specifically about the "money part," but an absolutely invaluable book:

Four Steps to the Epiphany- Steve Blank

And don't neglect reading Paul Graham's Essays, Fred Wilson's Blog, Ask The VC, and Feld Thoughts.

whats the purpose of the research ?

read founder at work http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Problem-Solution/dp/1430210788

Disciplined Entrepreneurship is a step-by-step guide to starting a business and here's a [PDF summary] (http://www.disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/downloads/Disciplined_Entrepreneurship_Poster_Aulet.pdf)