Startup to Last

Here are the topics from this week:Tyler and Rick both have interns and need to figure out what projects they should be working on.Rick has been working on a client referral program.Tyler is wondering if there's anything for him to do to partner with customers who love LACRM.Rick was considering an intrapreneurship opportunity (working as an entrepreneur within a larger company) and decided against it.Tyler is struggling to prioritize product improvements.Less Annoying CRM will need to raise prices at some point. Tyler is wondering if now is the right time.

Disclaimer: This is an awkward topic to discuss, but it needs to be discussed. We do not claim to be experts, but we believe that as privileged white men, it's our responsibility to try to learn, challenge ourselves, and evolve. This conversation is a part of our attempt to do so.

Here are some of the topics we covered this week:Tyler's interns started and they're keeping him busy.Rick took a vacation over Memorial day weekend and feels refreshed.Tyler has been brainstorming his product strategy more since last week.Tyler gives an update on how May has been for Less Annoying CRM financially.Rick has added his first non "beta" client.Tyler used GDPR to get a company to delete some data.Rick has a new professional opportunity that would come at the expense of LegUp Health.We discuss the merits of masterminds and talk about the Microconf community.

Here are some of the topics we discussed this week:Rick made his first revenue with LegUp HealthTyler pimped out his home office with a new chairRick is using Heap for product analyticsLess Annoying CRM had a "CRM Coach day of rest" where developers handled support for the dayRick's intern has started and is already paying offTyler has a new framework for thinking about product improvementsWe discuss how several tech companies are moving to a more permanent remote work model

Here are the topics we covered this week:Tyler got a new standing desk.Rick hit a wall with his product.Both Rick and Tyler have interns starting soon. There's a lot of work to do to prepare.Less Annoying CRM had a breakthrough with their demo call workflow.Rick learned from the wisdom of Charlie Munger.Tyler is thinking about analytics because of a fan suggestion.LegUp Health got their first user referral.

We tried out a new format in this episode. Instead of picking a deep dive topic and spending most of the time on that, we both had a lot of updates to give, so we spent the entire episode on that. Here are some of the topics we covered:Rick finished a project for a consulting client that probably won't get used. He talked about how deflating that feels, and how managers should be careful when doing this to employees.Less Annoying CRM just received money through the PPP and we discuss what should be done with the extra cash that frees up.Rick is dissolving one of his businesses as of July.Tyler reached a better understanding of when optimizations are good (i.e. everyone benefits) vs. when they're bad (i.e. the company makes money but the customer experience becomes worse)Rick's business taxes are done and we discussed the value of having an accountant who understands your unique needs.Tyler is thinking about moving Less Annoying CRM's marketing site to Webflow. We discussed the merits of building web sites in-house vs. using a third-party platform.Rick is looking into analytics tools to help understand user behavior.College students have been reaching out to Rick asking about internships for Startup to Last.

The main question we addressed this week was whether Rick should spend his time selling within his personal network (which would be sure to work, but isn't really repeatable or scalable) or start building out a repeatable marketing channel. The main takeaway is that the repeatable channel would be more effective if he had more budget to spend on it, and the way to get there is by getting his revenue up as quickly as possible (which means using non-repeatable methods for now).

Takeaways from this episode:It's important to separate marketing tactics from strategy. It's possible that specific tactics make sense, but you need to understand why you're doing those things? What's the goal?It's important to focus on a segment or niche, but not all niches are created equal. The goal is to find a niche where the people within it share with each other so that your work can have a multiplicative effect.

Takeaways from this episode:Rick isn't at a point where he needs to figure this out right now. He thought he might need to know this so he could start courting potential employees for the future, but he can do that without knowing the details of compensation.Compensation is a combination of salary, benefits, equity, and other perks. One way or another, you need to put a package together that is competitive. One reason a lot of startups give stock options is because they can't afford to pay a high salary.Companies that aren't planning on exiting might not want to give equity because it's not worth much without an exit.If you want to share upside with employees without giving equity, you can offer a profit share. There are different models, and you can structure yours to align with the goals and incentives you want to provide to employees.

There were a variety of different ideas thrown around in this episode. Here are some of the takeaways:Ideally, a healthy remote culture won't just mimic an in-person culture, it will actually take advantage of the unique characteristics remote has to offer.After companies start going back to in-person work, we shouldn't just go back to business as usual. We should try to maintain the things that are better about remote.There are a number of subtle elements of in-person conversations that break down over video chat because of the lag and worse audio quality. This makes it difficult to have more than 5-6 people in the same conversation remotely.One solution to this is to break into smaller groups.Another solution is to add structure to the conversation (e.g. everyone goes in a circle taking turns at doing something) so that people know who's turn it is to talk.Many relationship-building moments are based around sharing experiences. Consider what experiences can be shared online (playing games, watching the same video, etc.)There's not currently a tool for high-fidelity, asynchronous communication at a business. This is an opportunity to explore.