Lessons from the Field (A Top-10 List)

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 09:40am by Brian Lash in Start-Ups

In the spring of my junior year of college I spent some time working for a local tech startup. It was a neat opportunity to gain some entrepreneurial experience while making some money and �learning by doing.�

The company was developing social computing software with a mobile spin, and was readying for its first (gated) release to the local college community.

I entered the firm at a stage when the only guys involved were its founder and the software architect, so there was plenty of opportunity to get my hands dirty.

I share the Top 10 lessons I took from that experience here:

Brevity counts:

People are busy. They only listen when they know you�ll respect their time.
Be proactive:

The launch was released to about 200 users, but not one of them would have logged on had they not been recruited by someone.
Take feedback seriously:

I remember when a group of students was solicited for its thoughts on a set of possible names for the company�s product. Interestingly, the name that was adopted didn�t win the kind of support you would expect for the name of a company�s flagship product.
Your market will tell you what it wants � or doesn�t want � from your product:

There are exceptions, but generally the market knows more about its wants than you do. Your product must conform to its needs, wants, and expectations. Ask what they are, then conform.
Assigning �big� titles is a two-edged sword:

People see through it. If an employee � especially an entrepreneur-employee � is given a big title without big authority and responsibility to match, s/he will resent you.
College students will work for less than you think:

I was amazed � The project had eight student-leaders � people who met and planned and invested real time into the product launch � and I was the only one on the company books as an employee.
�but their work won�t be the quality you expect:

There�s a difference � a big difference � between brainpower and performance potential.
Some employees weren�t meant for entrepreneurial work:

After an interval with the firm I was able to recruit an employee who would report to me. I selected a female colleague from my school�s business program because I knew she was a hard worker, and because I saw a good fit. And she would have been, had the firm been more mechanistic, more bureaucratic (read: less entrepreneurial). I selected her based on the wrong criteria and later paid for the decision in the form of an ugly break-up.
Appreciate informed dissent:

I made a terrible call about the product�s release date: I wanted to launch on a Friday night, which seemed to me like that time when people are most looking for something fun and relaxing to do on the Internet. When my group of peers disagreed with me, a part of me resented them. Then I realized how right they were � that no one wants to spend their Friday night networking on a computer. They got their way. I got over myself. And the product launch � thanks to their dissent � was saved.
Inauthentic delegation is ineffective:

The owner disagreed with me about the tone of an e-mail I wanted to send. He re-wrote my message and forwarded it to me so I could see the changes. When I explained that I had reservations taking his approach he said, �Well this is the one I�m sending.� I left the firm shortly thereafter.