#13 - What you learn as a repeat startup founder | Julien Smith & Sam Corcos
Jan 24, 2023
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Julien Smith, CEO of Practice, and Sam Corcos, CEO of Levels, discuss startup lessons including product intuition, hiring, and Think Weeks for strategic thinking. Levels empowers health goals with continuous glucose monitors.
Focusing on core competencies in business involves excelling in key areas without trying to manage all skill sets, empowering team members to make decisions and fostering a culture of high ownership and strategic thinking for long-term success and growth.
Startup experiences bring valuable lessons like understanding when to raise capital, finding product-market fit, and delegating tasks effectively, highlighting the importance of intuition and adapting business models for growth.
Outsourcing non-core competencies is essential for businesses to focus on their strengths, particularly in software ventures, allowing strategic decision-making and driving business success by identifying strengths and outsourcing tasks that do not align with core competencies.
Deep dives
Core Competency in Business and Personal Level
Focusing on core competencies in business involves excelling in key areas without trying to manage all skill sets. This principle also applies at a personal level, where individuals should leverage their strengths, like storytelling, to inspire and lead others effectively, fostering growth and success.
Lessons Learned from Startup Experiences
Startup experiences bring valuable lessons, such as avoiding failure by understanding when to raise capital, finding product-market fit, delegating tasks effectively, and prioritizing building features that cater to user needs. Insights shared by seasoned founders highlight the importance of intuition, empowering team members, and adapting business models for growth.
Outsourcing and Understanding Core Competency
Outsourcing non-core competencies is essential for businesses to focus on their strengths, particularly in software ventures. Understanding core competencies helps in strategic decision-making like outsourcing logistics for hardware and concentrating on software development. Entrepreneurs should identify their strengths and outsource tasks that do not align with their core competencies to drive business success.
Building a Business Strategy Through Mailing Lists and Product Development
The podcast episode discusses the importance of building a successful business strategy through the use of mailing lists and product development. It emphasizes starting with an initial product and gradually expanding the reach to a larger audience through mailing lists. This strategy allows for the introduction of new features, products, and partnerships as the business grows, ultimately leading to the establishment and growth of the company.
Transitioning from a Reactive to Stable Leadership Role in a Growing Company
The episode highlights the transition of a CEO from a reactive problem-solver to a stable leader within a growing company. It underlines the importance of CEO delegation and empowering team members to make decisions. By fostering a culture of high ownership and strategic thinking, the CEO can guide the team towards long-term success and growth. The discussion also touches on balancing urgency with importance, remote team management, the impact of investor quality, and the significance of caring deeply about the market and customers in building a successful business.
When you work in multiple startups—especially when you’re in a leadership or CEO role—there’s a lot to learn as you progress through life as a founder on the C-Suite level. Here’s what Julien Smith, co-founder and CEO of Practice, a business management platform for coaches, and Levels CEO Sam Corcos have learned over the years from leading startups, from product intuition to leaning into your core competency and outsourcing the rest, and learning to hire the right people for the job. Sam and Julien discuss the importance of Think Weeks for strategic thinking and assessing problems with an urgency versus importance chart.
Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health.
Look for new shows every month on Levels - Inside the Company, where we have in-depth conversations about how the Levels startup team builds a movement from the ground up in the health and wellness tech industry.
