Akylles Talks

So let me go through an example. Let's say I'm a founder of a SaaS software, generic SaaS software company. My goal for the next week and I just kind of launched and my goal for the next week is just to get five new paying customers. So here's just a sliver of things I can do to reach that goal. At the top, you'll see that the most impactful thing I can do is go to the offices of 10 potential customers who were actually insured to me by friends or whoever, and I know that if I show up at the office, I have a very good chance or some experience. I have a very good chance of convincing them to buy my product and so that's why that's at the top of the list. The next year is of meeting impact because they involve me filling up my pipeline which is one step away from landing new customers, but necessary to do. I also have the second thing here, I also have video demos I can do which for me aren't as effective as doing in-person, but worth doing as well because they do lead to some new customers. You'll notice that there are a couple of items at the bottom of this that involve programming. So a very common mistake technical founders make is to build things first and then go talk to users. And according to this list, to meet my weekly goal means they would be choosing the least impactful thing to do for that week. But with this method, if they're honest about it, they have no choice, but to get off their butt and go talk to users instead. So along with the impact that it might have on helping you achieve your weekly goal, we also need to consider our second dimension of how complex the task is. That is how long would it take for you and your team to complete it. Because there are many tasks within each category of impact, for example, there's like, four of here in medium and three in low. And sort of the question is how do I stack rank those within that category. And so this dimension of complexity helps. So we can grade complexity in three ways, easy, medium, and hard. So an easy task is something that you can do in less than a day. That means you can do a bunch of easy tasks in less than a day. A medium task is something that takes one or two days for you to do and a hard task is one that takes many days to do, and you may not complete it within the week.

So once you go grade all of them you'll have again the second dimension here where you have impacts and then also complexity and so now you can easily stack rank all the tasks in your list, and it's pretty easy to choose what you should prioritize. So giving the objectives to hit your weekly goal, the obvious choice is always to go something with the...to go for the combos of high easy combos and high medium. That is something, a task that has a high impact and is easy to do. You should always do those first and then go to high impact in medium complexity. And what you really don't wanna do is focus on these bottom things here, right? Something that has probably very low probability of helping you achieve your goal and it's very hard to do. It takes a long time to do. There's really no point in doing any of those things. So just as important as selecting the right task to work on is making sure you don't try to do everything at once. Pick enough tasks that you can complete and do well. Doing too many things means you won't be able to complete much of the task with much conviction and it makes it really hard to show progress from week to week.

So how do you know you are prioritizing? From the results

Make sure to check my guides on building your startup on www. startupkudos.com

IG @ramialame

Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured

I know you have a lot on your plate in starting this company, but what you need to do doesn't take a whole lot of time. For the most part, it's just some conversations with your co-founder. And so I came up with a list of six things that you can do now to help you or to help the likelihood of you building a strong and coherent culture. First one, be proud of the problem you're solving. Kind of seems silly to say, but you need to, right? If you don't have the problem yourself, you need to identify with the people that do have the problem. And you need to be really proud of the fact that you're solving it for them, right? Because as I'm sure you've heard already, and you'll continue to hear, you know, building a company is hard. It's a long process and there will be some really difficult times. And if you're not proud of what you're doing, it's really hard to maintain the level of energy and enthusiasm you need to sustain the company, right?

Sometimes where we see founders go wrong is they choose an idea with their ego. They choose an idea because it sounds good to tell their friends at a party, right? And when times get tough, you know, it's really hard to maintain that level of energy. And the reason energy and enthusiasm are important, not just for sustaining the company, but everyone around you will see how you feel about the company, right? And to a large degree that will set the tone for your culture.

Make sure to check www.startupkudos.com for guides on how to build your culture.

IG: @ramialame

A vision is crucial for your business it has many facets, many variables, and can impact on so many levels in your business.

What is the Vision for Tesla?

To Accelerate the world's shift to sustainable energy

Why?

1. It was an entry point to the market especially in California and the Tesla Roadster was an amazing social message that people bought to show their willingness to move to sustainable energy.

2. It is a magnet to attract the specific people you want to attract

3. It is the roadmap for product development.

Tesla, "To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy." Pretty inspiring, right? No mention of an electric vehicle. You know, if you said, "Oh, we're building the world's best electrical vehicle," that's good. You'll inspire a handful of engineers who implicitly understand kind of the technical challenges that come with that. But if you're gonna build a big company, you need to attract kind of a broad array of people. This does that. Another example, Microsoft's original, "A computer on every desk in every home." It's kind of laughable now, but in the early '80s, like this was crazy talk, right? Computers were only for businesses and hobbyists. But this vision, you know, laid out by bill Gates and Paul Allen, attracted the right type of people to their company, right? The hobbyists that had the capability to help them build the type of company they needed to build saw this and were excited about it. It attracted and allowed them to kind of build the type of culture that they needed at Microsoft.

Last one, one you're all familiar with, "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Again, no mention of the product, it doesn't say, "We're building a kickass search engine." All right. So once you're able to come up with kind of an inspiring vision to attract the right people to your company, the next thing you should do is have a conversation with your co-founder about the types of values and behaviors you wanna cultivate inside of your company, right? Ultimately, the purpose of this at this stage in your company is to use it as a filter for the hiring process, right? It should be a shortlist. And at this stage, it's fine that it's informal. If you're lucky enough to move on and grow, like ultimately, maybe this list becomes a more polished corporate values list, this is probably the seed of that, but at this stage, it doesn't need to be polished, right? You don't need to publish a blog post on it. It's just a shortlist, less than five things.

And this will help you during the hiring process to make sure that you're getting the right type of people inside the company, right? This is in addition to that skill list that you'll need, you know, job description, the skills that person needs. This is, you know, above and beyond that. So let me take you through a couple of examples. And I apologize, these are actually more corporate value lists. They're a little more polished. Yours won't need to be this polished.

Make sure to write your vision even if you are going to change it later on.

Check the full guide on Vision, Mission & Goals on www.startupkudos.com

IG @RAMIALAME

What is ideation? It is the process of creating ideas to implement. This is the Most F..... up Concept out there, because there is no standalone ideation. An idea starts

with a problem, with a concept with a “pain”. This pain is what will take you forward and what will make you generate these crazy ideas and crazy concepts that can turn into solutions.

A lot of people ask me how do we start? How do we get an idea? And my answer always is: You can create many ideas but the Billion Dollar idea is within you, within your past, your experience, and the things you went through.

Now if we talk about Design Thinking, it is a different story because this is one of the most amazing underrated fields you can discover. There are many frameworks that derive from design thinking and designing ideas and problems that work.

Some of the Frameworks:

1. Unmet needs

2. Juxtaposition

3. Unbundling

4. Bundling

5. Tech for Legacy Business

6. Going to Science Fiction

We are looking for one of the following:

An important new disruption that can be matched with

An unmet need that you realize can be solved.

Check out the full guide on: https://startupkudos.com/products/ideation-pitch-deck-guide

If you are feeling the pressure of being an entrepreneur, this episode is for you. Yes, there is no urge to be an entrepreneur or to be a startup founder. With the new disruptions, more and more companies are changing their cultures, the way they do things and are adopting more and more the startup vibe.

You think you can work less. ...? You work more

You think you can work whenever you want. ... No you work all the time

You're not willing to financially cut back. ... You will cut back

You're not willing to do the stuff you dislike. ... You will do a lot you dislike

You have an entrepreneurial spirit. ... Yes you can implement that in your team member position.

You want to be your own boss. ... Yes, it is possible in certain companies that give you that.

You like to learn. ... You can learn anywhere.

You're bored at work.... Yes, you will have some boredom as well.

You do not do become an entrepreneur for these reasons, you become an entrepreneur to make a difference, you have a huge urge to change and disrupt the world.

I have added content related to the United States but these concepts apply wherever around the world relative to the laws in place. Read the concepts and PLEASE understand this is in NO WAY LEGAL CONSULTATION.

Moonlighting is a term used to refer to holding a second job outside of normal working hours. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 7 to 8 million Americans -- about 5+ percent of all workers -- work multiple jobs moonlighting while working for a private employer is governed by the policies of the employer. Public employees seeking to hold a second job may be subject to federal laws and agency regulations, depending on the position and classification.

Outside employment policies vary by employer but typically define a certain amount of time spent devoted to other activities, which may be compensated or uncompensated. Outside employment policies may require disclosure of outside employment or approval of outside employment. Such policies are promulgated out of concerns regarding conflicts of interest, a distraction from job performance quality or scheduled work hours, misuse of employer's resources, the appearance of impropriety, and others. Misrepresentation or confusion of others may be a concern. For example, when an employee runs their own accounting business, there may be a concern that his/her accounting customers think the work is performed by the employee under the auspices of the company.

Outside employment is generally defined as 1) employment or consulting in outside work or activity, 2) receipt from an outside source of a regular retainer fee or salary, or 3) regular or periodic involvement with a business or company in which the employee has a principal interest or a non-profit organization in which the faculty is an officer, board member, etc.

In federal government employment, employment essentially includes any compensated non-federal employment or business relationship for providing personal services. Compensation may be direct, indirect, or deferred (actual and necessary expenses not included). Different federal agencies have their own policies, so the outside employment policy of the particular agency needs to be consulted to determine applicable requirements.

Outside employment regulation also depends on the classification of the employee. For example, special government employees (SGEs) generally don't have to obtain prior approval. An SGE is appointed to perform temporary duties on a full-time or intermittent basis, with or without compensation, for no more than 130 days of any period of 365 consecutive days. Full-time, non-career presidential appointees (generally presidential appointees with Senate confirmation) may not receive any outside earned income for outside employment. E.O. No. 12674. Full-time, non-career SES employees may not:

Have outside earned income exceeding 15% of the annual basic salary for level II of the Executive Schedule, or receive compensation for:

providing professional services (e.g., legal) or allowing their name to be used by an entity providing such services; serving as an officer or board member of any association, corporation, or other entity; or teaching, without the prior approval

Members of a Uniformed Service (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, etc.) on active duty may not receive pay from another government position, except during terminal leave, or unless specifically authorized by law. Enlisted personnel may be employed part-time during off-duty hours in the Department of Defense non-appropriated fund activities. Members of the Armed Forces Reserves and members of the National Guard may receive military pay and allowances, in addition, to pay from another Government position.

Federal civilian retirees will have their salary reduced by the amount of their annuity unless an exception is approved, and retirees under age 70 may have their social security check reduced if their annual earnings exceed the established limit. Most retirees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) will have their hourly pay reduced by the hourly rate of the annuity when reemployed by the federal government.

Generally, federal employees, civilian and military, are prohibited from receiving payments from more than one federal government source. This prohibition applies to agencies in the executive, legislative and judicial branches, corporations owned or controlled by the government and non-appropriated fund organizations under the jurisdiction of the armed force. However, there are exceptions, such as agency approval, U.S. Postal Service employment, and emergency services relating to health, safety, protection of life or property, or national emergency.

The most fundamental ethics-related rule of governmental service is that the employee's focus in taking any governmental action is doing what is best for the public. This is known as the "public trust." This means that if the outside employment could affect the employee's financial interests, they should not take official action, even if they know that their intentions are good and noble.

Some of the prohibitions typically applicable to federal employment include:

1) DON'T REPRESENT OTHERS BEFORE FEDERAL OFFICIALS OR ACCEPT COMPENSATION DIRECTLY RELATED TO REPRESENTATIONS MADE BY OTHERS TO FEDERAL OFFICIALS.

This would include:

Acting as agent or attorney for prosecuting a claim against the United States, or receiving a gratuity, share, or interest in such claim in consideration for assistance in prosecuting the claim.

Advocating, irrespective of compensation, the interests of your outside employer, your private corporation, or outside clients, to or before any Federal official, whether in person, by phone, or in writing.

Being compensated for work you do in support of another's representations before any official of the Federal government.

Lobbying a federal agency for your outside employer.

Submitting, under your signature, a grant or loan application on behalf of your family corporation.

2) DON'T USE NONPUBLIC INFORMATION, GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, OR OFFICIAL TIME IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR OUTSIDE EMPLOYMENT.

3) DON'T USE NONPUBLIC INFORMATION, GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, OR OFFICIAL TIME IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR OUTSIDE EMPLOYMENT.

4) DON'T SERVE AS AN EXPERT WITNESS OTHER THAN ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES.

When employed what do you do to start your business? You do not leave your job before having:

1. identified the pain

2. Started the ideation process [Check the guide available on www.startupkudos.com].

3. Do surveys with family & friends

4. Prepare your pitch deck

Once all of this is done, add them on google drive and add a list of investors, incubators, partners you want to contact. Prepare a financial forecast for your funds to last you for at least 8 months after you leave your job so you have the time to raise capital and grow your business.

The Startup Kudos became an initiative aimed at sharing content, guides, ideas, tricks, and news related to Startups from around the world. It is a community of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators sharing and interacting. On startupkudos.com you can find guides, books, and material to help you start, grow and scale your business. On Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ99egUh7y3iAFkQNC51MQ you can find videos, news, tips for startups. The Akylles Program is the program that helps startups start and build their startups from scratch, raise funds and understand all concepts related to startups as they are building their ventures.

The World of Startups is a very exciting, enriching world that joins thousands and thousands of enthusiasts looking to make an impact, a change, a transformation in previously undisrupted concepts.

In this podcast, we discuss concepts related to startups, entrepreneurship, and the journey to raise funds, and scale internationally. There will be 3 types of Podcasts: The lectures, the talks [Interviews], and the Tips & Tricks episodes.