🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

Realize your strengths and weaknesses. Understand that the people around you really do have superhuman abilities compared to what you may have. You need other people and identify where people are strong, so you can synergize and make something bigger than what you are on your own together. That's a real thing. You can't do it all alone, so you need to find the right people to help bring something...

You, Devin, are a consumer. If you were going to hire you to do the job you do. What would you look for and, what would you want to know? And I think we forget that we are consumers. We look at it as business owners, marketers, and the person building the thing.

One of the biggest mistakes I think we see is people thinking about intellectual property too late. They start to run up against those deadlines and lose out on some of those property rights. My biggest piece of advice would be to think about intellectual property early and often. Intellectual property is one of those things you can lose out on. And not just from the typical ways that we hear inve...

First and foremost find a mentor. Find somebody who has what you want, is going where you want to go, is willing to mentor you on how to get there, and listens to what they have to say.

I think it is always good for entrepreneurs to keep an eye out as to what the competitors are doing. Not a fear necessarily but, I think you need to be aware of other companies. Being a little bit paranoid about that is actually a good thing. That is one thing we always try to see if our product is differentiated enough and has enough defensibility in the market when we go talk to customers. I wou...

First, don't give up. It's going to get tough. Don't think it is going to be so easy. And then get advice from people you trust their sense of judgment. You need mentorship. Be open to change your idea. Sometimes your original concept can change along the way. So be willing to listen to professional advice and don't give up.

Entrepreneurship is a journey. It never ends. It's not something that you can say I am going to be an entrepreneur today and, then tomorrow it's off. No, if you start entrepreneurship today, you are in it all of your life. It will never stop. When I am saying entrepreneurship is a journey I am also saying be patient. Don't believe all the things you see on social media. Most entrepreneurs are not...

Think in terms of what your audience wants to hear rather than what you want to say. We all get so hung up on these are all things I want to tell people about my company, my brilliance, and my services. And instead, turn it into what are they coming to this for. What is the value that they want? And make that the first thing you give them.

Don't be shy. Do a lot of cold calling. The nice thing with cold calling is they don't see you on the other end. You can just smile and dial. Ask the silly questions. You can always hang up and dial the next person. So don't be afraid of cold calling. The next thing is to have an outlet. You have your 9-5, you have your family, your kids, your side hustle you're trying to do. So I say have an outl...

I think you should start with your own personality and really understand yourself and your strengths and weaknesses. What are you drawn to and what do you avoid? In this game, when there is only a couple of people, and you don't have a lot of structured accountability you, can really go off the rails if you don't pay very close attention to the stuff you know you are going to avoid. It's like driv...

I'm a really big fan of finding customers before you start building anything and that is what we did as well. We got early customers who believed in what problem we wanted to solve. And build the platform with some early feedback from them. It really helped us validate the idea we were working on. There were times when investors would be like, no, that's not a great idea. I don't think there is a...

You need to make sure that you are looking at sufficient cash flow to be able to do what you are doing. I think one of the biggest mistakes startups make is they don't recognize the amount of cash it will take to get a business off the ground. It usually takes twice as much as you think and twice as long. So it's really important to be mindful of that.

I would say three things: One is to work hard. The second is to be persistent. And third is to do things differently from others. A lot of times, people want to do what everyone else is doing and, that is just going to put you in a normal category. If you do things differently from everyone else, that makes you different from everyone else. There is a better chance of breaking out and reaching you...

Really figure out what KPI's you think make sense to track for whatever initiative you are working on. And don't let yourself get distracted or deviate from those. Actually iterate on improving those KPI's. If you decide click-through rate is what you want to improve, actually start measuring that. Layout a plan to achieve that. If you have to change the plan because it's not good or it's not work...

We tend to think that intellectual property, patents, trademarks, that kind of thing are higher on the list. But, we also are ready to acknowledge that sometimes maybe getting together a prototype might be a little more important than getting that patent if you have to choose between one or the other. A lot of times being able to make those decisions and then commit to it. We are here to help busi...

Start with a brand strategy. I think a lot of people dive straight into trying to get their website up. Whenever somebody has an idea there are so many steps that tend to get skipped in the early stages. What I always like to tell people is to take these ideas that you have and put them into a strategy for how you want to be representing yourself and bringing it to your audience.

Start small and start with a minimal viable product. It does not have to be perfect when you launch it. It does not have to cost a lot of money. Even if you have to do it manually to see if you can get traction, interest, and an audience, then you are on to something. I feel like there is so much talk today about these startups. And you have to raise all this money and hire this team and build out...

I think managing your own expectations. We all want to manage our customer's expectations but, we forget about ourselves. When I get into a business, I know there are going to be a lot of hurdles.  I know there is going to be an issue. When those issues do come, you have to remember, oh yeah, that's what I expected. Instead of getting frustrated and stressed out about it, you work through it....

This is my take from that. This is what Mark McCormack said who built IMG into an incredible company. He said: "when you are looking at your pnl, and you're looking at all your projections and everything, and you are feeling good, do this. Double your expenses and cut your revenue in half and tell me how you feel." The second is going back to being a smart guy. I kind of use proxies mentors, and o...

I like to make it super clear to lay the tech foundation. Create one page of content for every single keyword you want to rank for. If you are in a big niche, you will want to rank for thousands of keywords. And then get other websites to link back to you. Those are the three things that compile SEO. And any SEO company that is good will be creating content and getting links for you.

Don't be afraid to go first. Provide value first. Everything is a relationship there is no b to c or b to b. It's all human to human. If you can find a way so that you are providing value right out of the gate, your close rate, conversion rate, and the whole experience is going to be better throughout. The more that you invest upfront the more value you provide the more that you are going to extra...

You can have a great idea you, can even have the funding for it. But you need to leave room in the execution of that model to have that variance, the human condition variance. You can pull all the data, you can interpret all the data, you can look at all the comps, you can see all this stuff. I will tell you that you have to go with your gut. You have to do gut checks all the time. And you have to...

I would say before you jump in headfirst, ask yourself a question. Do you have the DNA of an entrepreneur? Yes or No? In most cases, the answer is no. To become a successful entrepreneur, it takes a tremendous amount of grit, resilience, and the ability to take the pain and get back up. It will be a very painful journey. You have to know that before you launch yourself. If you ask me right now, I...

If you have a business idea, do the smallest possible next step towards it right away. If you think that you want to start a new social network or something for dog lovers, call up five of your friends that love dogs and ask them what could be better about the social networks they use. If you have an idea for say I want to get into lawyer referrals. Maybe I should call up lawyers and ask them how...

Pick your mentors they are very helpful. One thing that I was fascinated by when I moved to the US was that people are always available to help all you have to do is ask. Don't feel shy, don't feel that you are cool reaching out to a random person and they will ignore you. People talk and like to help, and pay it forward. One of the biggest things I learned from my mentors when I went back to them...