🚀 Lessons from 12 young founders
Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
This week, we're back with the greatest lessons learned from the most recent 12 founders.
Thanks again to all the founders for taking the time to speak with me. 🙌
If you know anyone who should be featured next, let me know!
Subscribe to receive the next 12 straight to your inbox!
🏎 Gaurav Gogoi: On launching fast
“Launching a good product today trumps launching the best product after 10 months. A team should have the freedom to make mistakes but the pressure to make them fast.”
🤝 Angelica Conraths: On learning from competitors
“Look to competitors for inspiration not for comparison. Everyone’s journey is completely different, so learn to focus on yourself.”
👍 Estelle Reardon: On learning how to evaluate your own company
“Venture Capitalists usually invest in the best companies with the most impressive track records and the highest probability of success. However, to get to that point as an early-stage startup, you have to learn to not look at yourself like that and not judge yourself by the same metrics. It can take time to grow and reach that point, and it’s important to not give up too early in the process.”
🕹 Phoebe Yao: On dealing with challenges as they arise
“Building a startup is like a series of mini-games. While it might seem like founding is just an abyss of challenges, really a lot of the challenges come in a sequential series.
For example, first, you figure out your idea and what you truly want to work on. This takes a lot of self-reflection. Then, you figure out what that MVP could look like to prove your idea. Then, it’s figuring out how to pitch and grow your team. It’s a series of challenges that will just come your way. And instead of charging into them blindly, take a step back and reflect on who in your network might have faced these challenges before, and ask them for advice.”
🧘 Vivek Pandit: On learning to follow your intuition
“Follow your intuition and your gut, but deserve to follow that intuition.
Make sure to go through a self-awareness process, constantly question yourself, learn the connection between your mind and body, and what emotions and people play a role in how you make a decision. Once you understand that, then you deserve to be able to follow your gut, even if you can’t explain why you want to make that decision.”
🎯 Henry Purchase: On learning to outsource and delegate
“Only do stuff that only you can do.
Within a team, you have got to trust that each person is working to the best of their ability. In the sense of working smarter and not harder, you really need to consider the key things that only you can do and focus on those while outsourcing the things that someone else can do too. It maximises efficiency and output.”
💭 Jaqueline Schaupp: On learning to not overthink
“Start somewhere, and figure the rest out along the road.
One of the biggest problems you can create for yourself is overthinking things and creating a perfect version in your head, which you are then unable to achieve in reality. What you do doesn’t have to be perfect at the start, in fact, it never will be.”
🤷 Simon Greschl: On making advice work for you
“If you want to work with and learn from external people, sometimes it can be really hard to transfer knowledge to them. It is important to remember this when looking for advice from others, for example. They might give you the greatest advice in the world, that worked for their context, but you need to find a way to apply it to your situation and derive value from it since you have so much more knowledge about your business than they do. What worked for them, might not work for you.”
💪 Evangeline Atkinson: On the advantages of being young
“Use being young to your advantage. Young people have different perspectives, and we often want something different from services and companies. This is a unique advantage because we have an insight into an audience that a lot of established companies don’t fully understand.”
🤗 Tash Grossman: On doing what makes you happy
“Do what makes you happy, because you only regret the things you don’t do.
This is a mantra I try to live by, because you only have one life, and life is too short to not take the chances you’re given and try your best. Somebody once asked me what was genuinely the worst thing that could happen if I started Slip, and the reality is, the worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t work out, and I feel a little embarrassed telling someone about it. And when I realised that, I decided I had to go for it.”
⚠️ Gabriel Tomitsuka: On taking bold risks
“Cultivate curiosity & work on ambitious projects/features that are not very likely to succeed, especially if you’re in a market that already has major incumbents.
Succeeding as a startup is really hard, as you usually need a product that is at least 3x better to convince users to switch. You need to take bold risks with ideas that are a bit crazy — personally, I go on long walks without my phone or music to induce boredom, as I find they are great for deep thinking.”
🪞 Cephas Ndubueze: On intentional leadership
“The biggest lesson I have learned is in leadership. Part of leadership is how you behave in front of your team. If you want the culture to be good, be the one who inspires that culture. You want people to be punctual, be punctual. You want people to jump in on Monday morning with a good mood, bring that good mood to the call yourself.”