{"id":2444,"date":"2014-03-05T13:53:07","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/05\/problem-startup-advice\/"},"modified":"2024-03-07T16:09:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T16:09:49","slug":"problem-startup-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/blog\/problem-startup-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem with Most Startup Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have even a passing interest in starting a new business, you\u2019ve probably read a book, listened to a podcast, or scanned several blogs (or all three) looking for advice on how to do it right. We write a lot about this, so maybe that\u2019s how you found us.<\/em><\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve probably come across a lot of startup advice like this: Hire fast, fire faster. Eat your own dogfood. Or, focus on the customer.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar? We may even be guilty of it ourselves with our weekly posts of startup inspiration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: too much of it is\u00a0obvious stuff.<\/p>\n

If this kind of advice isn\u2019t intuitive, maybe you should reconsider your plan for a startup.<\/p>\n

Wait, focus on the customer? That\u2019s ingenious. I was going to create products no one would want, but thanks to this business-saving advice, I\u2019m going to focus on my customers. Wow!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See what we mean?<\/p>\n

We got to thinking about this after reading Sarah Lacy\u2019s review<\/a> of Ben Horowitz\u2019s\u00a0The Hard Thing about Hard Things<\/em><\/a> which she describes as the best book about starting a new business. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

There is real, practical business advice in here that contradicts everything anyone else in the Valley will tell you.<\/p>\n

An example: \u201cHire a worldclass team!\u201d\u00a0<\/em>they say.\u00a0\u201cMake a wish list of who you want and go after them!\u201d \u201cA players only want to work with A players, so don\u2019t hire B players.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Wait a minute\u2014you are saying I should\u00a0try\u00a0<\/em>to hire great talent? Because I was just going to walk outside and yell that I had jobs available.<\/p>\n

\u201cHire a worldclass team\u201d is about as helpful as telling someone to \u201cTry their hardest.\u201d Anyone building a company likely already is, and if not, you telling them isn\u2019t going to suddenly make them try harder.<\/p>\n

You know what\u2019s hard? Hiring a worldclass sales manager when you have a company that is trading at less than cash at the wake of the dot com bust. Astoundingly, the best sales managers in the world just weren\u2019t returning Horowitz\u2019s calls. So instead\u2014in one of my favorite sections of the book\u2014he describes hiring Mark Cranney.<\/p>\n

It was a decision most of his board and his executive team were violently against. (Lesson to Horowitz: \u201cNo one else gets a vote.\u201d) Cranney actively made people feel uncomfortable\u2014not what you want in a sales guy. Horowitz describes him as physically looking like a perfect \u201csquare.\u201d But he was a savant at how to build an effective sales team.<\/p>\n

My favorite passage is when Horowitz sat down to explain to his cofounder\u2014and to many, the face of the company\u2014Andreessen why he was hiring him:<\/p>\n

I let Marc open the conversation\u2026by listing his issues with Cranney: doesn\u2019t look or sound like a head of sales, went to a weak school, makes him uncomfortable. I listened very carefully and replied, \u201cI agree with every single one of those isues. However, Mark Cranney is a sales savant. He has mastered sales to a level that far exceeds anybody that I have ever known. If he didn\u2019t have the things wrong with him that you enumerated, he wouldn\u2019t be willing to join a company that just traded at thirty-five cents per share; he\u2019d be the CEO of IBM.\u201d Marc\u2019s reply came quickly: \u201cGot it. Let\u2019s hire him!\u201d<\/p>\n

That is\u00a0the reality<\/em>\u00a0of how you hire as a startup CEO going through any degree of shit, which let\u2019s face it, they all are. Unless you are Facebook, you can\u2019t call whoever you want an offer them a job. (And truth be told, even Facebook doesn\u2019t have a 100% batting average on hiring.) You have to find the person the best at the single unique skill you need and tolerate everything else that comes with them. The reason they aren\u2019t running IBM despite their skills.\u00a0That<\/em>\u00a0is helpful hiring advice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We couldn\u2019t have said it better ourselves.<\/p>\n

Advice is like theory. And in theory, the theory works. In practice, things are a lot harder than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have even a passing interest in starting a new business, you\u2019ve probably read a book, listened to a podcast, or scanned several blogs (or all three) looking for advice on how to do it right. We write a lot about this, so maybe that\u2019s how you found us. And you\u2019ve probably come across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,42,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-start-ups","category-success"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Problem with Most Startup Advice | LogoMaker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most startup advice is too simple or formulaic to really help you solve the problems your business faces. 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