Horngren’s Cost Accounting A Managerial Emphasis, Canadian 9th edition soluti...
7 Lessons That Would Have Made Me a Better Entrepreneur
1. Rand Fishkin | Founder & CEO
7
Lessons that Would Have
Made Me (and will make you) a
Better Entrepreneur
2. A) This is Rand’s personal experience.
Disagreement welcome.
Caveats
3. B) The following is intended to apply to early
stage companies (0-200 employees, $0-
$50M in revenue)
Caveats
4. C) These are merely patterns. Counter-
examples of successful companies doing
the opposite of all these exist.
Caveats
5. D) I do not define success as $billion+
outcome. Success to me is building a
business that survives, that you love, that
you’re proud to work at.
Caveats
10. Known People & Brands:
#1: Have an easier time attracting attention & press
#2: Earn links, rankings, & traffic organically with far less effort
#3: Have lower ad costs & higher clickthrough rates
#4: Every visit is more valuable b/c of higher conversion rates
#5: Benefit from a powerful network & low friction, high response
outreach efforts
17. Quality & Complexity Are Inversely
Correlated in Early Stages
High
Med
Low
TortuousConvolutedSimple Tricky
ProductComplexity
Ease of Producing a High Quality Product
19. For a Long Time, I Believed the
Classic Advice
Big Markets > Small Markets
Execution > Ideas
Low CAC + High CLTV > Products People Love
Better Product > Better Marketing
These aren’t all wrong,
they’re just not the
whole story
31. Before, Things
Were Like This
Here’s How
The problem
triggers a negative
emotion
The resolution
triggers a positive
emotion
Our Company is the Solution
32. To Craft Your Story:
Start with the most emotionally resonant problem you solve
Center the story on individuals, not groups
Tell the story in a way that triggers your own emotions
Practice the story over and over, with different variations, learning which
styles and bits resonate most
34. Relative Difficulty Level: Insane
Build for an audience that you don’t have any connection to (other than
a belief that they have $$ and a problem)
Chase a market that’s big enough to have billion $+ outcomes by
pursuing broad, mainstream appeal
Serve a hot, growing market that dozens or hundreds of other well-
funded companies are also pursuing
35. Relative Difficulty Level: Low
Build for people who already know, like, and trust you
Earn amplification from a group of passionate, raving fans
Serve a market that’s underserved because others don’t believe it’s “big
enough”
Avoid competing against firms with millions in funding
36. easier to reach
harder to reach
Know you personally (& would happily meet for coffee)
Know of you, like you, & follow your work closely
Are already connected to you via email
Already follow you on social media channels
Have visited your website at least once
Have heard of your company (and can recall it)
Are in your target audience/reachable via FB+GG ads
41. easier to reach
harder to reach
Know you personally (& would happily meet for coffee)
Know of you, like you, & follow your work closely
Are already connected to you via email
Already follow you on social media channels
Have visited your website at least once
Have heard of your company (and can recall it)
Are in your target audience/reachable via FB+GG ads
Pro Tip: Having a lot of target customers in
your personal network makes EVERYTHING
about starting up easier.
48. Glorifying Hours Worked is Just Dumb
“Be extremely tenacious and then just work like hell. You just have
to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week.”
“If other people are putting in 40 hour workweeks and you’re putting
in 100 hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing …
you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to
achieve.”
-Elon Musk
Via Vator.tv
49. Productivity Over Time
40
30
20
0-20
QuantityofOutput
PerHourWorked
Number of Hours Worked/Week
50
10
0
21-35 36-50 51-60 61-80 81+
The first ~35hrs we work each week tend to
be the most productive
After 60+hrs, we’re not just getting less
(& lower quality) work done, we’re
eating into next’ week’s potential
productivity
54. People Often Rapidly Improve Knowledge,
Output, & Work Quality
Strong
Rand’sSEOSkills&
Knowledge
Top Notch
Crap
2002
Decent
2004 2006 2008 2010
Mediocre
55. People Rarely Improve Affinity for a New Set of
Values, Beliefs, & Culture
Strong
Rand’sCulturalFitforLater-
Stage,LargerCompanies
Top Notch
Crap
2002
Decent
2004 2006 2008 2010
Mediocre
56. Hire for Culture. Train for Competence.
Via Lost and Founder
(img credit: Dawn Shepard)
62. All of these are on the table:
Self
fund
Bootstrap Revenue
loans
Smallbiz
loans
Friends
&family
Angel
$
Conv.
debt
Crowd-
funding
VentureAccel-
erators
Exit Requirements
5+ Year Survival Rate
10X+$$$
orbust
5%+YoYis
totallycool
<10%50%+
63. All of these are on the table:
Self
fund
Bootstrap Revenue
loans
Smallbiz
loans
Friends
&family
Angel
$
Conv.
debt
Crowd-
funding
VentureAccel-
erators
We need to stop
worshipping & amplifying
only these
And start telling stories, and elevating all the rest of these
65. You Don’t Have to Follow Anyone Else’s Path
Ask Yourself:
What do I want to create?
What am I seeking professionally?
What level of risk is acceptable?
What level of reward is enough?
Why that? Is it for me? Or someone else?