I’ve been around the block a few times as a technology leader. I’ve been fortunate to start a company, bootstrap it to profitability, skipping the VC rounds, taking it public on the NASDAQ exchange and then having a successful exit – this was over a 14 year span. I learned to manage, I learned the importance of leading by example. Since then, I’ve done another startup and performed three corporate turnarounds, all feeding my intense desire to learn how to build financially sound and insanely happy and productive companies. I thought I had heard and seen it all. Boy was I wrong.

This past year I have been working with 10 startup companies. Some through our accelerator here in Bend, Oregon, others through a recent Startup Weekend we held in Bend and the rest through my consulting practice. Not all startups are created equal. Some start with one person, others with more. Some start with a techie developing a killer mobile application, the other a mom with an idea on how to reduce her child’s asthma attacks and that’s it.

Working with these companies I’ve had the chance to see what has worked and where they’ve stumbled. I’ve been able to start understanding the Best Practices of a Startup Leader. The first thing you should note in my title is, I chose the word “Leader” over manager or founder. I strongly believe you lead people, and you manage things. Startups are about people, not the things. The things are artifacts of the production from the team. Production drops when people fail to lead.

If you’re thinking of founding a startup, or if you’re a founder of a startup, here are some of the Best Practices I’ve observed from the founders I’ve worked with:

1. They’re passionate.

They’re the Chief Customer Officer. They empathize and represent the customer. They’re subject matter experts in their field. They understand the customer’s persona and the problem they’re trying to solve better than anyone on the team. They know if they help their customer succeed, they will succeed.

2. They’ve got a good soul.

They’re grateful for people helping them in their startup. Not just the workers, but also the advisors and outsiders cheering for them. They choose to do the right thing over the easier path. They have integrity; they build trust and become trustworthy. They’re humble. They take responsibility for all setbacks and give credit for all the wins to others. They understand the power of two simple words, "Thank you."  They say it often.  People know they're appreciated because they're constantly reminded how much they're valued.

3. They’re a multitasker with a strong work ethic.

They’re often first to arrive and last to leave. They lead by example and are often task driven. They’ll jump across functional areas to lend a hand wherever they’re needed to kick the ball forward. They help people get unstuck. They’re not afraid of uncharted territory or learning a new skill.

4. They’re team builders.

They’re always looking for the talent and always recruiting and networking. People want to help them by volunteering, becoming advisers or working for equity. They understand it’s their duty to encourage and inspire others, because in turn it encourages and inspires within. They seek other positive, gung-ho team members.

5. They set great expectations.

They dream BIG and set huge expectations. They understand the power expectations has on the team. Saying we will have the MVP done by the end of the month, or we will have our first paying customer by Friday does work. They understand it’s not where you start that counts; it’s where you finish.

Obvisouly I could go into greater depth but I think you get the point.  Feel free to add to this list, as always, your comments are welcome below.

...Jim

This is an exceptional episode on ThisWeekInStartups featuring Nolan Bushnell. Nolan is know for many things, including founding Atari, being Steve Jobs' boss, starting the restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese's and, most recently, creating the educational startup Brainrush.

If you're an educator or interested in education, online education or distant learning, this is an excellent podcast to watch. You'll get to learn about brain decay and other cool things.

If you're just old enough to have used an Atari 2600 or played Combat or Pac-Man for countless hours, this is a great podcast to watch.

Finally, if you're 50, 60 or 70 years of age and still courous about the future and what can be, instead of focusing on what is, this podcast is worth your time.

Our VentureBox founders have finished week 5 of our 12-week Venture Launch program. The pitches continue to get better each week.  Feedback is critical to the learning process, so after each pitch we give the founder a breakdown of what we've heard, what worked and what didn't.

TechStars, a popular high-tech accelerator, has a great video series called "This Week in TechStars". This past week they did a breakdown of Flixmaster's pitch.

Enjoy!

This Week In Startups - A Damn Good Show!

If you have missed the first couple hundred shows, like I have, don't sweat it. They're all online. I actually subscribe to their iTunes podcast, and have been catching up on them while I hike with my dog Morgan. The last couple weeks have been remarkable, however, if you truly want to have fun, listen to some of the old tapes from 2009 and it will confirm just how fast our tech industry changes.

This Week in... is a web television network covering a wide variety of topics from tech to entertainment. Produced out of our Culver City studios, the shows feature guest experts, founders, movie stars, comedians, technologists and CEO’s — all keeping you up to speed on what’s happening this week with a fast and funny style. Informative and entertaining, ThisWeekIn is the place for whatever your interests may be.

The company was founded by Jason Calacanis (co-founder of Weblogs, SVP AOL, CEO of Mahalo), actor Kevin Pollak and Mark Jeffrey and is based in Culver City, CA.

I've been listening and occasionally watching some of the Podcast and have found them informative, educational, insightful and entertaining. Jason Calacanis is an excellent host with an amazing memory. If you're an entrepreneur or angel investor, especially if you don't hang out at all the startup events, you'll want to catch this show each week.

As I discussed in my previous post, we’re finishing up week 3 in our VentureBox Venture Launch class. The course is 12 weeks.  Each week the founders meet every Wednesday from 3-8pm for a formal class and workshop. Dinner is included halfway through. Here is the 20k foot view of what we’ve done with the 7 companies in the program:

• Week 1: Curriculum review, format discussion, introductions and company pitches. This was the first time all the founders got to meet each other. We have 7 companies, with 2 companies with co-founders, so we have a total of 9 founders in the room. The majority of the night was spent having the founders do their 10 minute investor pitch, followed by 20-30 minutes of Q&A from the rest of the founders.
• Week 2: Our partner, LUXr,  traveled to Bend from San Francisco and conducted a train-the-mentors on their Lean Startup Customer Development and User Experience curriculum using their Bento Box training materials. Then the Mentors (yep, me included) taught the materials the next day to our VentureBox class with Janice and Kate guiding us all the way. Each of the founders developed their first customer persona for their product. Their homework was to go out and do in-person interviews with people who match the persona's they created.
• Week 3: Tackled market segments and helped each of the founders understand how to figure out their first, highly focused, target market for their minimal viable product using The Lean Startup framework. I was privileged to co-teach this class with Steven Curley, a local marketing genus and one of VentureBox's Subject Matter Experts.

Alright, with this foundation set. I’m going to change gears and discuss my observations and less on the materials and process, at least for the rest of this post.

The five traits of a startup entrepreneur.

It’s hard to not fall in love with each of these founders and their ideas. Each of the 9 founders are amazing in their own right. They inspire me with their ideas, questions and drive to succeed. Since I have the privilege to work with each of the founders, I thought I would share with you some of the commonalities I have observed among the founders in the class.  

Not in any specific order, here we go:

1. They get their hands dirty every single day. A day doesn't go by that I don’t get an email, phone call or text from one of the founders asking a question. Even though all of them are juggling other jobs and obligations, they are doing a great job of blocking and tackling through the weekly goals and objectives. I’m extremely impressed by their work ethic and drive to figure out this week’s piece of the puzzle.
2. They’re constantly searching for the truth. I’m amazed by their ability to allow all of their assumptions to be challenged. They're making a focused effort to learn everything about their potential customers and look at specific issues about the problems they’re trying to solve. When we asked them last week to get out there and talk to people, face to face, about issues related to the problem they’re solving, I thought I would get push back. When they agreed to do it, I half-joking asked them to take pictures of the people they interviewed so I could match a face with what they learned. This week I was blown out of the water when they showed us pictures and key remarks from the interviews.  How can you not love their drive to seek the truth and to learn as much as they can about their future customers?
3. They’re on the lookout for the pivot. This is somewhat related to #2, but it deserves to be called out. A business pivot is a slight course correction of the business model, without changing the overall vision or idea. We teach founders to watch for pivots and to embrace them. Business models can benefit from continuous development just like product development. Our founders are on the lookout for pivots.  Watching their facial expression when you tell them they just stumbled on a pivot is priceless.  
4. They're excellent at selling their solution. This was a bit of a surprise to me because none of our founders have a sales background, but each of our founders are excellent with their sales pitch. It is because they have empathy regarding the problem they are solving, are passionate about their solution, and extremely knowledgeable on the topic.  Each of our founders will likely be better than the average sales person of their primary competitor. They also enjoy selling and welcome the opportunity to do a sales pitch to an audience. Also, none of them have shown any resistance to cold calling so far, which I find interesting.
5. They're coachable. They don’t blindly accept advice as marching orders; however, they’re appreciative of the advice and fight for feedback constantly.  During the breaks they often ask the tough questions which indicate their willingness to explore and test different ideas to see if we can get a better result. Now that we just finished our third week, it’s pretty cool to see the founders bonding as a team and watching how the founders respond to other founder’s suggestions. This week I saw evidence those suggestions may have carried more weight than the suggestions made by the Mentor team. This was a good sign, and a positive signal the founders are bonding.

I’m sure I’ll discover more over the coming weeks. Please comment below and help me add to the list, I'd love to hear any observations you've had working with startup entrepreneurs.

…Jim