The Startup Operator

Most startups bias towards sales and product in the early days. It’s right for leadership to invest most of their time and energy into enabling the first few successful sales reps or working with product teams building product, of course. But, soon enough this isn’t the best use of Leadership time and any additional effort only gives a marginal increase in gains. If you want your sales to extend beyond people and relationships, if you want to add more depth to your product, then you have no other way out than to invest in marketing to increase lead velocity and brand awareness.

Most startups bias towards sales and product in the early days. It’s right for leadership to invest most of their time and energy into enabling the first few successful sales reps or working with product teams building product, of course. But, soon enough this isn’t the best use of Leadership time and any additional effort only gives a marginal increase in gains. If you want your sales to extend beyond people and relationships, if you want to add more depth to your product, then you have no other way out than to invest in marketing to increase lead velocity and brand awareness.

The perfect employee fallacy goes like this - if a person on the team is fantastic at something, but lacking in other areas, we should enable him/her to improve on his/her weaknesses and measure progress on that basis. 

But, only a machine capable of producing reliable, quality work through all of those good characteristics. And humans are not machines. They have their natural proclivities and tend to bias one way or another. 

In this episode, we'll be talking about why you should avoid this mindset at all costs.

The perfect employee fallacy goes like this - if a person on the team is fantastic at something, but lacking in other areas, we should enable him/her to improve on his/her weaknesses and measure progress on that basis. 

But, only a machine capable of producing reliable, quality work through all of those good characteristics. And humans are not machines. They have their natural proclivities and tend to bias one way or another. 

In this episode, we'll be talking about why you should avoid this mindset at all costs.

Something we should beware of as operators and entrepreneurs is being under-leveraged when this crisis passes over eventually. One of the things that happen during these times is an increased focus on conserving capital. You comb through every line item of expense. But if you don’t continue to invest in your growth now, will you be able to capture the opportunities that'll come tomorrow?

Something we should beware of as operators and entrepreneurs is being under-leveraged when this crisis passes over eventually. One of the things that happen during these times is an increased focus on conserving capital. You comb through every line item of expense. But if you don’t continue to invest in your growth now, will you be able to capture the opportunities that'll come tomorrow?

Most people become managers like most people become parents - incidentally.  Similarly, as soon as you have a few people reporting to you, you are now a newly minted manager whose responsibility it is to align them into valuable contributors to the enterprise. 

It may not be as complicated as parenting, but being a manager does involve well-thought-out, deliberate choices.

Most people become managers like most people become parents - incidentally.  Similarly, as soon as you have a few people reporting to you, you are now a newly minted manager whose responsibility it is to align them into valuable contributors to the enterprise. 

It may not be as complicated as parenting, but being a manager does involve well-thought-out, deliberate choices.