Blog 3.8 - Lesson #8 about year 1 of Start-up
Blog Caveat
? This isn’t going to include the obvious ‘lessons’ that aren’t really lessons because they’re inherently known and understood to be fact: "It’s hard" "takes a lot of work" "requires a lot of patience" "a little bit of luck" "it ain’t always pretty" etc...etc.
? After writing the list with full explanations and getting to 3,000 words, I’ve come to the conclusion that ain’t nobody got time for that! So due to the limitations of the style of blog LinkedIn allows I’ll release the details of each 1-day at a time. #Cliffhanger
? Comments and questions are greatly appreciated. Let’s start a conversation.
Lesson #8 about year 1 of Start-up
8. It’s really hard to motivate people without paying them
Issue this alleviates: When you’re starting out, you’re going to want to do as much as possible yourself between the founders, and then try to strike gold with the amount of free help and support you can get.
What happened for us: As we tried to rapidly expand our team in the beginning, creating job and role descriptions, doing interviews and writing contracts that state what’s expected etc. We noticed that what we were doing (although it was super cool and hobby related) was always going to play a back-up role in everyone else’s lives. While we did get a good amount of effort that we are grateful for, we found it uncomfortable to push people or demand more when we weren’t able to provide pay for their work. So we created some minor commission structure and tried to provide perks and meals when possible. However, as a business owner, it definitely isn’t advisable to bring on people when there isn’t any money to-go around.
Why this was important: We learned investing our money into the business includes putting it into people who can complete our tasks; i.e. coding and platform development, sales, experiential marketing, and pay them accordingly. Further, we learned to keep ourselves accountable as Founders to complete the brunt of the back-end work and strategy until we’re financially stable. It’s important to provide financial incentives to people for their work and that as a company, we aren’t in a position to expect free labour to match the intensity and passion we feel for our business.
Lessons 1-7, 9 - 10
1. It really helps when your product serves the needs/interests of your friend group
2. How you portray yourself to your market is more important than the reality
3. You need to be cocky enough to believe you will be the 1% that is successful
5. Identifying and asking someone to be your mentor is the most invaluable relationship
6. Don’t be afraid to take a step back and pivot
7. It’s okay to take up a job when you realize you need money to keep you going
9. Talk to your parents about what you’re doing
10. Every platform is super important to be on, even LinkedIn for the eSports industry
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