100+ tips and habits for building a successful startup I learned from 100+ mentors

Vit Horky, Co-founder & CEO of Brand Embassyhorky@brandembassy.com

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Over years, I have had the privilege, and honour, to meet, share insights and receive invaluable feedback from hundreds of mentors, accomplished entrepreneurs and investors across the globe on what makes a (startup) business successful.

I've collected over 500 pages of notes from meetings with various VCs, fellow entrepreneurs and Fortune 5000 CEOs. Although I tried to remember the important learnings, I found it impossible to recall them at the time I needed them most - when I had to make decisions swiftly.

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I went through all of my notes recently and selected 100+ tips and habits that works for me best. Many can be considered as no brainers, some may perhaps suprise you.

Either way, they helped me and my fellow partners at our company to build our startup from 0 to 200%+ consecutive revenue growth over 5 years, gain 150+ enterprise customers in 30+ countries and raise over $2.5M from prominent VCs and angels.

Whether you are a startup founder, company manager or an aspiring entrepreneur, I believe you will find it useful. And if you apply just a small part of it tomorrow, I bet you are closer to achieving your goals.

Brand Embassy Inc. 620 Folsom Street

San Francisco, CA 94107United States

About Author:

Vit Horky, Co-founder & CEO +1-415-936-7979, horky@brandembassy.com

Vit Horky is the co-founder and CEO of Brand Embassy, a Top-Rated customer service platform with customers in 30+ countries.

Vit gained BSc. (Hons.) at University of Teeside (UK) before he drop out from college.

In past, Vit founded a leading European digital marketing agency (successfuly exited) and a software distribution company (failed with style).

Vit on the picture with Damian, a co-founder of Brand Embassy

By the way, not every mentor we met shared our specific outlook or values (of course!).

Over time, we developed a filtering process for implementing the best and the most relevant mentor recommendations into practice.

5Mentor Feedback Filtering Process, Vit Horky

100+ Tips and habits for building a successful startup I learned from 100+ mentors

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Maintain safe cashflow

Lead by example

Build close investor relations

Deliver on key metrics

Build stable legal basics

Learn every day and inspire others to do the same

Build agressive and predictable salesBuild customer-led product development

Scale result-oriented marketing

Build crazy buzz around the company

Hire right, fire fast

Stay obsessed by productivity

Download and print the High-resolution Mindmap including all tips or just read the following slides in this document.

Maintain Safe Cashflow

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Raise funds whenever possible

Investors often say you are either too early or too late to raise, don’t worry, the right investors will be eager to invest anytime.

Founders to maintain equity and voting majority through Seed and Series A.

Convertible notes for Seed / Pre-Series A is convenient and fast fundraising method

Raise Seed round pre-revenue to avoid discussions over whether current revenues are good enough.

Plan cashflow on 50% of the realistic sales planPlan cash on doubled sales cycle than in a realistic sales plan

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Forget Macbook Pros and PAs

Don’t spend the money from investors on unnecessary equipment and staff

- Increased spend must follow increased revenue within few months

Lead by Example

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CEO updates entire company continuously

Founders avoid being representatives of just certain teams

Travel and meet new people every monthGet a fresh feedback and motivation continuously

CEO re-iterates and explains the vision and reason of existence min 1x month

Support your team members unconditionally or let them go

Acting otherwise damages culture and performance

Lead by Example

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Divide clear responsibilities between founders

CEO to build sales, partnerships and get investorsCOO to manage company internally and keep morale high

Lead by Example

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When travelling often or working across continents, apply following habits:

1. Set smart goals with your partners 2. Make routine daily status calls 3. Respond early to emotions and signals from the team

4. Get involved in daily topics via team chat

5. Frequent report both successes and failures to the entire company

6. Grow a relevant network through introductions

7. Travel home regularly and have fun with your colleagues

8. Continuously explore unique local opportunities

9. Meet new friends, keep an exercise routine and read every day

Share your progress and ideas regularly to receive feedback and intros to job candidates

With business partners

With family and friends

With random people you trust

2 31Build Close Investor Relations

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Communicate failures and under-delivery fast and straight

Ask investors for introduction to prospects

Keep investors involved on topics that matter to them and that they can help with

Don’t cold call, get new investors only through current investor introductions

Prepare investors to help with additional funds when needed

Offer 5-10% commission Offer 3-5% finders feeSend monthly report to investors and advisors

2 31Deliver on Key Metrics

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Set one key metric as a mantra in the company

● Product user engagement

● Customer Retention (churn)

● Satisfaction (NPS, CSAT)

Set up secondary “Health check” metrics

Exceed your goals sometimes to improve morale and make investors excited

Improve goal setting every quarter

Booking revenues (enterprise sales) or monthly recurring revenue (SME/B2C sales) in revenue generating companies

Build Stable Legal Basics

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Incorporate British Ltd. or Inc. in Delaware (USA) - Investors like it, customers respect it

Document all your IP (code) continuously, you will not have time when investors demand it

That's David, our lead developer, printing over 5,000 pages of our IP documentation over one night before we signed new investors. Not recommended.

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Create 8-12% employee stock option plan before first

investor roundGrant stock options to employees based on:

Relevant experienceStrategic importance for company future

Job Seniority Job Role

Vesting 3 yearsCliff period 6 months

Learn Every Day And Inspire Others To Do The Same

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Spend one hour a day on learning something new

Define 3 learning goals for every year: Choose the most appropriate learning form for you and your goals:

To achieve your work goals

To feel better every day

To fulfil your dreams

Books

Audio Books

(Video) Lectures

Coaching

Learn Every Day And Inspire Others To Do The Same

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2 31Find a mentor you trust Read a book every week Read weekly in-depth news and

editorials, avoid distracting daily news

Each founder to spend 1-2 hoursa month with a mentor or a coach

Offer stock options if you lack cash

You don't have to finish all, take notes and implement at least one thing from each non-fiction book.

TIP: The Economist has an awesome audio version and iPad/Iphone app.

Share book recommendations with your team

Build advisory board early

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Meet 1-to-1 or via Skype group call

Giving stock options not necessary, offer opportunity to learn, network, being part of something big

Change members annually based on the current needs

Finance SalesBusiness Dev.

Product Development

MarketingE-Commerce

StrategyFundraisingM&A

To help to perfect the go-to-market strategy To receive a reality-check To get introductions

YOU &your partners

Build Aggresive And Predictable Sales

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2 3Read a book every week

You don't have to finish all, take notes and implement at least one thing from each non-fiction book.

Build predictable pipeline by OUTBOUND sales

CEO to create and update the winning sales methodology

CEO to ensure all sales people qualify deals the same way

CEO to drive learning on repeating sales successes and avoiding sales dead-ends

Focus on month-to-month % progress rather than absolute goals

Build INBOUND lead generation with minimum spend, prove ROI, than increase budgets

Build Aggresive And Predictable Sales

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Don’t ever take “No” from a prospect for an answer.

A door was closed? Get in there by window.

Create TOP 100 customers to win and work on them fanatically

A prospect not interested? Amaze them with a customer insight.

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Build Customer-Led Product Development

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2 31Build agile product development early, make developers responsible

Ask leaving customers and lost deals for feedback on informal 1-to-1 basis

Insist on developers attending min.1x demo or trial a month

Insist on all developers working directly with customer support feedback

Spend 10-20% of development time on technical debt.

Ask developers continuously if there is something the leadership ignores.

Build Customer-Led Product Development

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GET CUSTOMER FEEDBACKMIN 2x A YEARFROM 70% OF CUSTOMERS

Request testimonials and introductions from promoters

Make turning key detractors to promoters the key company priority

Don't get dependent on key customers in product development

Scale Result-Oriented Marketing

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2 31Focus 70% of efforts on delivering marketing qualified leads

Attend / Sponsor only conferences that bring sales qualified leads within 2 weeks

Build close relationship with 3 selected journalists / market influencers

Don’t pay analysts for featuring you in studies, build a personal relationships instead.

Forget brand-awareness building with no direct performance results

Change them if they don’t cover you continuously

Build Crazy Buzz Around The Company

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Share successes and announcements monthly

Stand out by language tonality - use full spectrum of language, appeal to emotions.

Share authentic stories

Position the company as a category ownerPosition your CEO as a spoke-person of your market category

Build Crazy Buzz Around The Company

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Share failures openly and how you support “failing forward” attitude

In October 2015, we had one of the worst days in the history of our company. We openly shared our struggle and people loved it - Customers reported increased satisfaction, many supporters have shared our story, our team turned distaster into an advantage.

Hire Right, Fire Fast

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HIRINGHire sales hunters, not farmers, you need to focus on new sales

Hire senior engineers, there is no time for training

Hire key people that can become C-level gradually

CULTUREDon’t create culture, it’s made by who the founders and early employees are

Prioritise hiring the right character and culture fit over hard skills, focus on:

Coachability

Curiosity

Respect to Culture

Intelligence

Prior SuccessImprove things based on early feedback of a new hire

Let go if clearly set KPIs are not met within 3 months + 1 “last chance” month

Stay Obsessed by Productivity

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BLOCK BREAK

Schedule your day into a time blocks

25 min - suitable for most individual meetings and statuses

50 min - suitable for most individual activities, when you need to product something

1:20 hod - only for workshops, typically 50 min is more productive

Schedule 5-10min breaks after each activity

REFLECTION

Schedule a time for reflection after every 3 blocks

How do you feel about the progress?

Re-read notes

Think about how it went

Plan how to improve next time

Stay Obsessed by Productivity

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Prepare what are you going to do before you turn on your laptop

At home: What I want to do today?

On the way: How am I going to do it?

In office: Just do it.

When you get stuck Redirect > Reflect > Finish later

What’s the point of a Vision?

Problem: BEEs want to improve in time management.

Idea: We are going to make a workshop.

Goal: BEEs will feel great about being in better control of their time, they have more fun, they will appreciate our effort.

WE A L L L O V E Y O

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Envision how your team / customer will be happy once you achieve your goal.

Say NO to most of the things that can distract you.

Stay Obsessed by Productivity

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Reward yourself for achieved goals

Small rewards for daily achievements

Medium rewards for monthly achievements

Big vacation or similar fora game-changing successes

Stay Obsessed by Productivity

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Apply strict prioritisation process

1. What are the tasks someone else is waiting for?

2. What will help me to get closer to achieve my current goals?

3. What simple urgent tasks can I resolve immediately?

4. What tasks will I enjoy working on?

5. What tasks will help me to learn in the area I am interested in?

+ Delegate: What are the tasks someone else will do better?

Reflect the day before you go to sleep

What have you done you have positive feeling about?

And negative feeling?

What are you going to change tomorrow?

Thank you, my partners, mentors and advisors.

The names of all the great mentors and experts I’ve met and I am grateful for their time and feedback would make another blog post, here’s just a short and definitely not definite list of those I would like to thank especially: Terry Valeski (T-Mobile, Pacific Bell), Jiří Pavlicek (J&J, Orthimo), Ondřej Bartos (Credo Ventures), Alex Reidl (Volvo, Mercedes-Benz), Jiri Sýkora (Wood & Co), Sherylin Shackel (Marketing Academy), Jakub Havrlant (Allegro, Rockaway), Ondřej Fryc (Netretail Holding, Spread Capital), James Hart (AVG, Jabra), Andrej Kiska (Credo Ventures), Vojtech Horna (Index Ventures), Peter Gajdos (Presidio Partners), Peter Irikovsky (LRJ Capital), Rasta Turek (Pexeso), Simon Vostry (Zoom Int.), Tomas Laboutka (Hotel Quickly), Alfonso de la Nuez (UserZoom), Karel Obluk (AVG, Evolution Equity Partners), Tony Kypreos (DUPL, INSEAD, Springboard), Petra Hubacova & Nikola Rafaj (TechSquare), Petr Ocasek & Lukas Hudecek (StartupYard, Node5).

Brand Embassy Inc. 620 Folsom Street

San Francisco, CA 94107United States

Thank You!

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Vit Horky, Co-founder & CEO horky@brandembassy.com