In recent interviews we have mentioned our parents and how they influenced our lives. We decided that today’s episode would be about our parents  and just how much they’ve done for us.  Now we could go on for hours on this subject and there will probably be follow up episodes to this one. However today we’re just going to explore how our parents’ influence has helped us in business.

To begin with we have similar backgrounds. Both of us lost a parent at a young age, we both grew up with grandparents living in the home with us, and both our families had strong religious beliefs. Other than those similarities we share these main points.

Life for Steli’s mom and her incredible example.

Steli’s decision to leave this world without any regrets.

Hiten’s parents and how they came to America.

Hiten’s dad and his selflessness.

How Hiten’s mother’s death has affected him.

What these influences have meant to our business practices.

There will be at least a part 2 to this episode, but for today we hope we’ve touched on an appreciation you can see in your own family.

We invite you to 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.

Today we’re going  to talk about a part of business that really throws some people. We’re going to talk about having a plan. So many times in business people get stuck on a problem and can’t figure out how to get passed it. The only component business owners need to worry about is one question, “what’s next?”

We are going to give some tips on how to get out of the proverbial forest and move forward in your business and those relationships. Some of the points we hit on today are:

What’s at the root of most business issues?

The old “forest for the trees” analogy.

We answer a listener’s email.

Coming up with a plan that respects everybody.

We invite you to 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.

Today we are focusing on the relationships between co-founders and teams and some basic principles to guide the way we look at others. Human beings are flawed and how we accept others and understand their differences has great impact.

In any team or co-founder situation there will be times that the quirks of others will cause stress in our relationships over time. Being aligned on fundamental values early on can keep those relationships on course as we deal with the differences that often arise through the little things.

Accepting others for who they are is a the key to riding out some of the difficult times in a relationship.  In this episode we talk further on that belief, including these ideas and hacks to work with people we might perceive to be difficult:

Why it’s important to not get too excited about people

What it means to throw people into the deep end and how it leads to understanding

The need for open and early communication

How being a tattletale to the person about their own behavior can help

Avoiding the snowball effect of small issues

The importance of empathy

Today’s Tips:

Steli:  As an experiment, for the next 30 days don’t criticize somebody either externally or internally.  Stopping the inner dialogue can lead to interesting resolutions.

Also, in your team find one little thing that irritates you and talk about it to the other person with an attempt to find common ground.  It could lead to helping others improve or allowing you to feel differently about it.

Hiten: Whatever you’re thinking, think the opposite and think about what would happen if the opposite was true. You may find having the two opposing thoughts will allow you to be less judgemental.

We invite you to 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.

The word for today is Alignment. Today we discuss what alignment is and why it is important to your team and company. Alignment is a near synonym of disagreement. The difference is a disagreement puts up barriers in a relationship and alignment is a slight difference of direction. Disagreements lead to dead ends. Getting aligned with someone opens up a much needed conversation to get back in line.

Being out of alignment  with a co-founder, team member, etc. is not a bad thing. Because alignment can be fixed with a discussion and plan. As long as there is a follow-up conversation following the initial disagreement. We talk about how changing this one word choice can completely change your team’s and company’s effectiveness. We also discuss how encouraging alignment and transparency will cut down on negativity.

Our main points for today include:

Knowing when you are out of alignment with someone.

How to productively have the needed conversation.

Deciding on the next step to get back into alignment.

Encouraging others to see disagreement as just a difference in alignment.

We invite you to 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. 

 

Transcript:

Steli: Hello, everyone. This is Steli Efti.

Hiten: And Hiten Shah.

Steli: And in today’s episode of the Startup Chat, we’re going to talk about alignment. I'm looking at a smiling face full of expectations, curiosity and the wonderful wonder of where will this conversation go, and the funny thing is, it’s noåt even my topic. Hiten wanted to talk about this but I thought I'll do the intro as he was downloading a new timer app to make sure that we stay on point and within the 20 minute mark. So Hiten, why did you want to talk about alignment?

Hiten: I don't know. I feel like that is going to be my theme for the year, this year.

Steli: Oh, nice.

Hiten: Yeah. I just feel like it’s the one, big hammer that I'm gonna use to sort of get things going the way I think they should be in my businesses. And I've been thinking about it all year; it’s not been that long.

Steli: All right, so let me quickly stop you there. Is that something that you do? Because I've seen a number of people give the year a theme, or even just a word, as kind of a focus. And I thought that was kind of a cool idea. Is that something you typically do, or no; this has nothing to do with that?

Hiten: I got an emoji, too. It’s the rocket ship.

Steli: You have an emoji for the year?

Hiten: Emoji here, you have the word.

Steli: Nice.

Hiten: I usually just make it up. I don’t always do it; I just felt like making it up this year.

Steli: All right, I love it. I like it.

Hiten: Sometimes yo do things without a reason, right?

Steli: I like it. I'm just trying to understand –

Hiten: No, I just had a hammer. And in every situation I've seen in my own businesses, or even in my friends’ businesses, when I start using that word, people instantly know what I'm talking about. Because when you’ve got a car and you’re driving, and if you’ve ever had an alignment issue, it just veers one way, or veers the other way.

We’ve been doing the podcast for a while now, and during that time we have learned some things from each other and about podcasting. So many listeners ask us about the podcast and how we really feel about it. So today we’re going to talk about what this podcast has taught us. The list is pretty short, but it has been a fun and informing experience. Tune in and hear what we’ve learned from each other and just let us thank you for being a great audience.

Today’s Topics:

The 2 things Steli has learned about podcasting

Our interaction with our audience

What we’ve learned from each other

We love interacting with you guys! If you leave us a review on any of the episodes, and email us a screenshot of it; we will contact you and connect with you in some way. To email Hiten send the message to [email protected] and to send it to Steli use [email protected].  If you’ve listened to a number of episodes of The Startup Chat and have gotten something of value we would love to know about it.  Contact us by email, through our Facebook group or Twitter.

We invite you to 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.

Today we take a look at some common mistakes that startups face in the early stages.  In reality because they are just starting out they face every problem. Those problems range from starting the company, to finding co-founders to deciding exactly what they’re doing.

We break down some of the common problems and mistakes by founders in early stage startups, including:

Failure to have alignment on shared values with co-founders and teams

Trying to hack around failure by instead developing a “perfect plan”

Not being authentic and feeling the need to keep a certain public appearance

Lacking trust in co-founders and feeling a need to be involved in every aspect

False belief in your startup’s success

Trying to be somebody you’re not by looking at the success of other founders

Not understanding the need to tell your own story

Relying too heavily on promises from others  

Today’s Tips:

Steli: Early stage founders should not rely on the promises made by others.  It’s your responsibility to deliver whatever was promised. Founders need to manage that promise and make people deliver on what was promised or take responsibility for delivering it.

Hiten: Early founders make a big mistake in believing they need something before they can get started and not realizing what they actually already have.

 

We invite you to 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.

Here at The Start-Up Chat we place a very high value on words and how those words are used. Our topic today is how the power of words affects your business. The words you choose not only affects the perception of your company, but it can affect your team as well. Language should be clear and deliberate in business. Today we’re going to tell you why and how you can improve your word choices in your business dealings.

Why you should monitor your word choices are covered by these points:

How language can create both positive and negative imagery

Using We vs. I in your statements

Associated and Disassociated communication

The benefits of a colorful and creative vocabulary

Ways to listen more

Language is very important when building a company. These tips and exercises should help you become more self-aware in meetings and other official communications. The better you can express yourself, the better you can represent your company.

We invite you to 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.

We’re changing things up today. On today’s episode we are going to give basic tips on how to create an effective landing page. So many people create beautiful landing pages, but don’t have any clue how to use them. We’re going to tell you some of the common mistakes made with landing pages and what you should be doing with them.

Some of the tips we discuss today are based on these points:

How focusing on the landing page itself can be a waste of time

How to identify your ideal customer

Make sure you do your research

Follow up with your audience

Resources Mentioned:

Marketo

SquareSpace

Wordpress

Unbounce

LeadPages

We invite you to 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.

We have been noticing a trend in our Facebook group that points to startups trying to share their experience and advice with each other. We think that’s great, but it made us realize that we’re not that involved in the group. We want our group to be more than just a discussion forum. We want to give our audience some real value.

We’re going to try an experiment with the Facebook group. We are going to become a place for high quality and valuable content. Hiten is the king of this, and on today’s episode, he’s going to share how he finds his content and what he thinks makes it valuable.

We’re going to discuss content aggregation and curation. Here are some of today’s topics:

Our new direction for the Facebook group. www.thestartupchat/fb

Why Hiten prefers to share content instead of regurgitating the same information.

Hiten’s main sources for content.

Maker mode vs. Manager mode.

The future of content sharing.

Resources Mentioned Today:

Growth Hackers

Twitter

Facebook

Designer News

BuzzSumo

Medium

We invite you to 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.

Today we are sharing what we think is the biggest mistake a business owner can make. It involves wasting time trying to find the perfect business solution. Many newcomers want a magic wand answer to get to a certain outcome. Today we will tell you why there is no RIGHT way.

Business is a trial and error process. Everyone’s path to success is different and dependant on the person in the driver’s seat. We explain why it’s a false idea that there  is a “right way” to follow to reach success. Success is done by people who actually do things and find their own way to reach their goals.

For those who have no idea on where to start, we have two pieces of advice:

Explore all the options.  Make sure to study all the methods.

Be comfortable with making  mistakes and go out and do  it.

Although there is no textbook answer to success, following these two suggestions will help any newcomer find their own strengths and opinions. Go out and learn your own answer.

We invite you to 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.