Tell HN: Four (hopefully) unique and useful start-up tips

153 pointsby ackkchooover 15 years ago

I've read a lot of posts here on HN about start-up tips and advice. Many are good, but some are too vague to be actionable. Others, while useful, sometimes repeat common themes.I run a start-up that is relatively successful. I am a long time lurker on HN, and wanted to give back to the community. I don’t have a personal blog, and HN is the primary audience I want to share this with, so apologies in advance for the formatting.Although they might sound similar to other posts, hopefully these tips will be unique enough for someone to find useful. I know that they've been worthwhile for me.== 1. Learn to say "no" gracefully == A lot of tips stress the importance of saying "no", turning down projects that you can’t do, and focusing on your core competencies. This is all great advice. However, in my experience, saying no is not always an easy task. Often times, you’ll be saying "no" to an existing partner, or someone with whom you might want to develop a business relationship in the future. It’s important to learn how to say "no" gracefully, burning no bridges in the process. By all means, be clear in your response, but don’t be a jerk about it, and leave the option open for future discussion at a time of your choosing.Most online industries have relatively small social circles, and it’s important to be respectful, even if you can’t possibly understand why you might want something that another person is offering. Situations and circumstances change; you might need those connections in the future.== 2. Negotiate everything == Get in the habit of negotiating everything. "You don’t ask, you don’t get". Remember that phrase and repeat it to yourself. Revenue shares, commissions, server costs, bandwidth costs, CDN costs, software costs, marketing costs, conference ticket prices and contracts are all negotiable. At first you might feel weird asking for a discount, but pretty soon you get used to it, and it will become natural. Contrary to what you might assume, most people won’t find your request offensive, and you wont sound like a jerk. You don’t ask, you don’t get.You’ll find it changes your life, not just your business. I negotiate everything now, and it’s probably saved me thousands of dollars this year alone, all for a few minutes of work. Car repairs, hotel prices, restaurant reservation times, and most recently an engagement ring from a high end jeweler that supposedly "didn’t negotiate" ;) Remember: you don’t ask, you don’t get.== 3. Don’t obsess over stats == If you run an online business, it is easy to get caught up in the habit of checking your stats repeatedly throughout the day. Maybe you check your revenue reports every hour. You know how it’s "supposed" to look at 11AM on a Friday, and if it isn’t hitting your past targets you get discouraged and distracted, searching for a reason. Maybe your traffic is slightly down from what it was a week ago.The problem with this is three-fold. First, it’s a huge distraction. It takes your attention away from other tasks you could be doing. It distracts your focus from long term, strategic thinking. Second, day to day (or even hour to hour) data is unreliable and unpredictable. There are seasonal trends. There are 500 other factors outside your control. Third, it accomplishes nothing. Checking your stats isn’t going to change them.Start checking your stats only once a day, at most. That way, you’ll be alerted to any potentially significant changes (i.e. your ecommerce engine is down), but still be able to keep focused on your daily tasks and the big picture, which is going to make more of a difference in the long run.== 4. Make money == Ok, so this one is pretty obvious. But it’s shocking how often it is ignored. There are plenty of reasons to justify starting a business. Maybe you want to work for yourself, maybe you like the challenge, or maybe you really want to change the world. But it won’t matter if you aren’t making any money. Trust me.A lot of times you will be faced with hard choices. Should I put this ad up here? Will this feature make my app/site look too commercial? Should I charge? If you don’t have a proven business model, you need to make figuring it out your NUMBER ONE priority.If you’re only getting 1,000 visitors a day, it might seem hard to justify putting up an ad to get what might seem like chump change. But, by doing so, you’ll understand where your money is coming from, and what kind of traffic levels it will take to get you to where you really want to go. Most importantly, you might find that your business model doesn’t really scale, and it will force you to think of a new one. Better now than later. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise, or you’ll just be delaying the inevitable.

8 comments

jbondover 15 years ago

I, too, negotiate everything. You would be surprised at how much wiggle room there is at a national retailer like Best Buy for big-ticket items.Here are some ground rules and the steps I use to haggle: Haggling works better if you can pay in cash. Know how much you are willing to spend and do not exceed it! Never, ever reveal to the salesperson how much you are willing to spend.1. Express a casual and not too focused interest in the item (HDTV is a perfect example).2. Show that you understand the product and are in the market for a new television.3. Mention how the store's competitors and the internet are making it easier to price compare.4. Ask if there are any specials on your particular model (are they throwing in a Blu-ray player? Free DVDs? Sales price that doesn't go into effect until the weekend?).5. Let the salesperson know that the currently advertised price is more than your are willing to spend and ask him/her if there is anything they can do to bring the price down. If they ask what you price you would like to see then give them a number below your predefined maximum spending limit. It's up to you to gauge how much lower, and you will find that after time this number gets to be farther and farther from your max limit the comfortable you get at negotiating.6. Make the deal at this price, or continue to haggle until you've crossed your limit and are ready to leave.7. If you don't make the deal, you have four options:<pre><code> You can go back tomorrow and try with a different sales person You can head to a different store and try again. You can raise your max spending limit (not recommended). You can decide that you really didn't need the product anyway. </code></pre> Hope this helps!

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wvlover 15 years ago

<pre><code> Start checking your stats only once a day, at most. That way, you’ll be alerted to any potentially significant changes (i.e. your ecommerce engine is down) </code></pre> I agree with this advice, however I would sincerely hope that it doesn't take reviewing your stats at the end of the day to notice that your ecommerce engine is down! Monitoring should be in place to achieve this.

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unohooover 15 years ago

== 2. Negotiate everything ==I've found this to be a very much cultural thing. Bargaining / haggling is quite common in Asian cultures. Since I'm originally from India, I initially was surprised to find that haggling is not an acceptable thing in the american society.That hasnt stopped me from my efforts at haggling one bit.My latest conquest - a free shield and case for my iphone when bestbuy made me wait for about 45 minutes to get a new connection. Even before starting with the process, I made it clear that I want freebies thrown in - else,I'll simply take my business elsewhere.

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tptacekover 15 years ago

This is awesome. I'd love a small conversation thread about how to find openings to negotiate things; I'm getting adequate at negotiating when negotiation is expected (like in professional services), but I suck everywhere else.

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zaidfover 15 years ago

Definite resonates! What's your startup?<pre><code> If you don’t have a proven business model, you need to make figuring it out your NUMBER ONE priority. </code></pre> Amen!Naturally this will bring up facebook, google etc. who may not have focused on business model for a while. Like Steve Blank said in one of his talks, if you think you've a google/facebook on your hand, ignore every rule and good luck:)

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RiderOfGiraffesover 15 years ago

If you want this on the web, email me and I'll put it up. I've temporarily put up a version that you can download, edit and email back to me if you like. You can find it at www.penzba.co.uk (slash) StartupAdvice (dot) htmlI won't put anything else on it, I'm not looking for traffic, I've just got a parking space if you want it. I'm sure others could make similar offers in case you're interested.If I don't hear from you in a few days I'll remove it - the above is obfuscated to avoid having links to something that might disappear.

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patio11over 15 years ago

One of the key disciplines with stats, which is unfortunately not helped by the default configuration of most popular tools (looking at YOU Google Analytics), is that it either drives decisions or it is useless. If you are checking stats more frequently than you're making decisions based on them, you're wasting time.Spend an hour and condense the stuff you absolutely need into a dashboard, and schedule time to do any drill down or reporting you need to do on a regular basis. Then, ignore the flowing river of noise your tools would otherwise distract you with.P.S. If you find yourself rationalizing a once-an-hour check as a sanity test, either put it in a dashboard that you can check out of the corner of your eye while doing productive work, or reduce your heuristic to code and then fire it on a cron job. The computer's time is cheap. Yours is not.