Startupfest 2014 - "You chose to start a company (or embark on an endeavor). You are passionate about your idea. But often this same passion makes us deaf. We hear feedback, but don’t listen. We miss opportunities to make our product and company better and sometimes we miss the opportunity to succeed. Your ability to listen to information you are hearing is critical to building a company (or project or product) to last. That said, it is hard. Hard to hear things as they are, not as we are. But as JFK said regarding the US choice to go to the moon “…that goal [in our case listening] will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” My goal with this talk is to give you 5 tips and techniques to take your hearing to listening; your listening to learning; your learning to winning. Why should you listen to me? I’m a start-up person that’s been lucky enough to have a number of battle wounds and wins to share from helping build companies and ideas with some amazing teams: PTCG (logistics software, sold to American Airlines); Lycos (went public); Apps.com (online applications, sold to Intuit); Spreadshirt (ecommerce, 3x growth in 4 yrs) and Basis Technology (internationalization, re-positioned responding to market conditions); and Intuit’s Innovation Lab (founder) and Quickbase ($1mm to $10mm in 3.5 yrs). My biggest learning is that listening is the most critical and most underused tool that we have."

1. Listening is Hard

2. Jana: jana@janaeggers.com, @jeggers

3. How bad is our listening problem?
• 2.5% correct for listeners
• 25% retention @ 48h
• My estimate: 5-10% “right”

4. Listening can save your life
http://blog.startupcompass.co:
• 90%+ fail
• 74% due to premature
scaling
Listening #1 for discovery
& validation & efficiency

5. Listening
• produces success in business (Covey,
1989)
• minimizes the damaging aspects of
performance appraisals (Kluger & Nir,
2010)
• increases sales (Drollinger, Comer, &
Warrington, 2006)
• highly correlates with perception of
leadership (Allen, 2010; Bechler &
Johnson, 1995; Kramer, 1997)
• highly correlates with job-satisfactionLife is better
listening

6. And your brain is amazing!

7. Let’s build ear muscle

8. Before your visit

10. Human curiosity,
the urge to know,
is a powerful force and is
perhaps the
best secret weapon
of all in the struggle to
unravel the workings of
the natural world.
Aaron Krug

11. Exercise 2:
2 ears, 1 mouth
You have
2+ hours
and
3 questions

12. Exercise #3: car sits

13. Exercise #4: the HONY

14. During the visit

15. Exercise #4: the HONY
Step 1: It isn’t the
words, it’s the energy
Step 2: Realize your
approach
Step 3: Explain your
goal
Step 4: Broad
questions, slowly
escalating

16. Exercise #5: pen beats keyboard

17. Exercise #6: cheetah
Anticipate
the
speaker’s
next point
Identify
supporting
elements

18. Exercise #7: boomerang
Clear off
distractions
Find a visual
cue
Play a game
Take a break

19. Exercise summary
1. Curiosity State: primed to learn
2. 2 ears, 1 mouth (or ear jacks):
guidelines, not constraints
3. Ear sits: clear your mind
4. The HONY: set the stage
5. Pen beats keyboard: write it out
6. Cheetah: be responsive
7. Boomerang: bring your mind back

20. Actually doing it

21. Where do I find the time?

22. How do I find customers?

23. Now, go off and set records!
Your coach:
jana@janaeggers.com