We are going to cover a subject today that really gets both of us mad. Brainwashing. What we mean are the startups who mindless follow a model because “that’s the way it is done.” Too many entrepreneurs take a success story and try to “re-live” it. Today we want to tell you there is no one-way to success.

There is nothing wrong with listening to advice, podcasts, reading success stories,and getting general inspiration. It is when you don’t think about your own situation and try to run your business like someone else. Bias is the variable in all advice. What worked for one startup may not or most likely not work for yours.

Here are the topics we discussed:

How brainwashing starts

Why it is a problem

The 2 mainstream camps

One size does not fit all

Hiten’s advice for startup novices

Being flexible and adjusting with your business needs is a far more favorable strategy. Rather than taking a “road map” model and trying to shoehorn your business into it.

We also want to invite you to a live The Startup Chat Q&A session if you happen to be in the Bay Area on March 31st. It will be in Palo Alto, CA 6-9pm. If you are interested in attending you need to RSVP on our facebook page. Just join our Facebook group.

It’s great to have such an incredible group of entrepreneurs out there making it happen every day. We’d love to hear from you; please feel free to join our Facebook group and share your experiences, challenges, and motivation with us and the rest of Startup Chat community.

We appreciate having your email address at  The Startup Chat  because we’ll be sharing some special podcast episodes and other things exclusively with the people on our email list.  Click the link above and fill out the email address box to become part of the community today!

As always, you can hit us up on Twitter @Steli or @hnshah,  #thestartupchat.

 

 

Steli Efti:  Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti.

 

Hiten Shah:  And this is Hiten Shah.

 

Steli Efti:  And in today’s episode of The Startup Chat, we’re going to talk about common ways entrepreneurs are being brainwashed and why it makes us angry and how to change that. But before we go into the episode, we have a public service announcement. We are going to have the very first live and in person The Startup Chat event. It’s going to be this month, so listen up. It’s going to be on March 31st from 6:00 to 9:00 PM in Palo Alto. That’s in the bay area. If you’re in the bay area or if you’re willing to buy a ticket from wherever you are in the world and fly here, we’re not promising it’s worth it—

 

Hiten Shah:  Yeah, we’re not saying it’s worth it.

 

Steli Efti:  We’re not saying it’s worth it, but we won’t stop you if you can make it physically to Palo Alto on March 31st.

 

Hiten Shah:  At 6:00 PM Pacific.

 

Steli Efti:  6:00 PM Pacific. You’re going to be able to join an exclusive group of The Startup Chat listeners and we’re going to do a Q&A episodes where you can ask us questions, criticize, bullshit with us. We’re going to have some beer and pizza. It’s going to be a fun night. What you have to do to RSVP is you have to go to thestartupchat.com/fb for Facebook. Make sure to join the Facebook group if you’re not already part of it. I think you need to do a little bit of— the first post that is pinned is giving you the link to RSVP for the event. Is that correct?

 

Hiten Shah:  That’s correct.

 

Steli Efti:  All right. We want to see you there so make sure to go to thestartupchat.com/fb. RSVP for the event. March 31st 6:00 PM, Palo Alto, The Startup Chat live recording. Now that we got that out of the way, brainwashing.

 

Hiten Shah:  Yeah.

 

Steli Efti:  All right. So, what is that?