Perry Evans shares lessons learned from his experience leading startups and raising capital. He emphasizes the importance of building the right team, understanding your capital structure, documenting assumptions to create a value navigation dashboard, and being willing to adapt and pivot based on what the market tells you. Evans advises startup founders to rigorously test their ideas, fail early and cheaply if needed, and make sure their priorities and resources actually map to the key drivers of value creation for their business.

1. My Mistakes.Some advice from a well-worn path. Startup Camp Montreal #7January 20, 2011 Perry Evans

2. I’m not a startup junkie. I just reject working for someone else, or working on someone else’s ideas. I could stop anytime. If only I could turn off those little voices inside my head.

4. $1.5B cumulative investor value creationClosely, Inc. A personal angel network 7-person team Collaborative work space A pristine cap table <insert angelic voices>

6. Home banking

7. Online yellow pages

9. iNet 2000

12. Failure and success are intertwined. Indecision and success are incongruent.

13. Missed opportunity is the biggest tragedy

14. To some degree your start-up idea is fatally flawed. Failure is imminent. An entrepreneur’s job is to fix the idea and convert it into value.

15. VALUE ACHIEVED START-UP DEVELOPING

16. the path to failure is on the exact same terrain as the path to success

17. Equipment for the journey Your navigation dashboard Adapting to the elements ADAPT NAVIGATE EQUIP

18. People Are Your Equipment EQUIP The single biggest lever to value creation Balance “known teams” and critical knowledge Quality of attitude trumps Share values

20. personal exposureYou have to fearlessly lead the team, you are afraid to show weakness to investors, where do you turn? Build your inner circle: Mentors, Advisors, Independent Board Members

21. Your capital structure will determine the quality of your exit. The terms of EVERY round impact your choices on the next one. Take a moment of time to sanity test the relationship before you take money. Disconnect the capital from the person on the other side of the table. Don’t be embarrassed by what you don’t know. Don’t sign until you understand. Love your lawyer. Capital Equipment EQUIP

22. Your Value Navigation Dashboard NAVIGATE A large share of start-up decisions are “off map”, unintentionally Document the assumptions you’ve made that drive your value creation Build your value dashboard, record your proxies Write it on a piece of paper, and attach it to your monitor Circle the 2-3 things you (down deep) worry about the most Ruthlessly test and evaluate their achievement Connect it to your resource priorities Convert proxies to data

24. People love deals, see GroupOn

26. Iterate on how consumers get to know, dive into characteristics of best performance

28. Customers Competitors Market Actions Investors Adapting to the Swirling Elements ADAPT

29. ADAPT Stubbornness and passion are not the same. Proving yourself right is the enemy of value creation. Center your team on agility. Ears are the most attractive start-up body part.

30. Fast Failure & Pivoting ADAPT Make mistakes early, cheaply Listen very closely Absorb the input Gather as much data as you can for your value dashboard before you ask for money Don’t follow blindly, customer research is one verycritical signal, but not the only one.

31. ADAPT Pivoting A medicine for chest pain, sildenafil, was ineffective in treatment during the market trial, and exhibited certain side effects.

33. How you fit in the food chain

34. Ill-conceived go-to-market blueprints

35. Unproven or incomplete team

38. Connect Anytime: Follow: twitter.com/perryevans Email: perry.evans@gmail.com