2. Communication
1. Co-Founder Alignment (2:32)
-Agree on the Mission
-Agree on roles (figure out a way how to split up the work intentionally)
-Understand communication style (between founding team, work-style, between employees) (work-life balance) (how people like to receive feedback) must be candid and look at whats not working
– If not communicating well peoples minds tend to wander
– Being direct about sharing bad news is very important, discuss what to do, brainstorming
– Great performer (not liked) vs Poor Performer whos well liked (founders need to decide how to handle these situations)
-People hired in the early stage super important, roles will change when you enter the scaling stage – different people – this will change over time
-Have spousal/S.O. Buy-In
– Set time and expectations with your loved ones, risks, sacrifices your going to take, time constraints (critically important, sacrifice and time of sacrifice)
– Most people don’t spend enough time on this
2. SETTING THE TONE WITH YOUR TEAM (9:15)
When should a founder formalize communication standards and guidelines with the team? – As soon as possible, its really important that you set the tone very early and be professional
setting professionalism early trickles down to employees – ex) we communicate via email, sms – aligns team
so easy in early startups to party and drink together
-Unprofessionalism can spread and lead to all kinds of bad situations
-instead of happy hours have lunches and make it about the company
“Not in front of the kids”
-Co-Founders will have disagreements, important not to take these disagreements onto the startup floor, always handle and hash out behind closed doors. Co-founders need to present a unified front for the rest of the company.
-Its not always about the idea, your initial team may be with you because they believe in you and not necessarily the product.
-Don’t create chaos, it makes it harder for people to focus on their work.
Over-communicate (mission, goals, roles)
-want to make sure everyone knows what they are working towards
-goals are different than mission: this is what we want to get done this week, this month, etc.
-must repeat the mission and goals all the time
Be Transparent
-early employees are stakeholders (if have stock)
-let them know the high-level challenges about what is going on in the company so everyone can be focused on solutions together
*have a plan a and a plan b, etc.
3. SMALL TEAM COMMUNICATIONS (under 10 people) (24:23)
Make sure you have your communications streamlined – Make a 12-Week Plan
-Revenue Goals (weekly milestones)
-Hiring plans (specific conversion metric)
-Weekly touch bases (what are the goals, where are we tracking against those plans)
Track Yourself Against that Plan
-Daily reports EOD Report (each employee sends daily summary of bullets and links of what they’re working on)
-In most cases the companies and people that make plans and track themselves against it -> do better
-Measure what matters, be ambitions
-Better to make a plan, not succeed, and learn something than not make a plan and not learn anything
-Can use to combine roles, expand roles, shift responsibilities
Use Lightweight Communications
-EOD planning cuts down on other communication
4. MID-SIZE TEAM COMMUNICATIONS (33:39)
How does communication change from 10 to 20 to 30 employees
-take the rubric you’ve built for communication and expand
-Instead of a 12 week plan, Make a 12 Month Plan
-Track Yourself Against that Plan against yearly goals may be at team level at this point and the individual team will have goals
-Past the point where everyone can talk at a meeting
-Start with the anxiety, who needs help, now have team, lets utilize our resources (people can help each other out)
Invest in Communication Tools
5a. TOOLS FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATION (36:10)
Establish Processes
-Slack can be highly distracting but its good to see what everyone is doing
-Set Up Data Feeds (ex google analytics, linkedin application feed, signup or leads come in) nice way to get up to date on whats happening now
Use Checklists
-envision for application design
-asana for tasks
-can lead to other people jumping in and helping you
*the checklist manifesto read (good for repetitive tasks)
5b. TOOLS FOR EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Organize Incoming Communications
-organize where communications are coming from and where they are going to
-zendesk
Sales team:
-pipedrive & mixmax feeding into slack
-Create Sequences for Prospecting and Qualifying (mixmax)
*outreach is another tool – manage the flow of leads and automate part of the email process
Publish Documentation for Your Customers
-FAQs (ex same support questions coming in, get the answer published somewhere)
-Public Knowledgebases
-Communities/Messageboards can be a place to offload certain customer support requests
-Try to start every communication on 2nd or 3rd base – gets you 50-60% of the way though the process
-Snippets allows you to speak with consistency and accuracy
6. TOUGH CONVERSATIONS (43:49)
Get Out of the Office (walk and talks)
-provides a nice objective atmosphere
Seek Outside Help
-don’t keep tough conversations to yourself
-co-founder therapy
-different advisers or investors that you have
-HR Reps
-Other people will most likely be more experienced than you
Your against the clock in startups, don’t waste time fighting about things that are not important to the ultimate success of the business
Don’t Cross the Net
-Don’t speak for or communicate what others are feeling
-Only speak to what you are observing, not what you think they are observing
-Avoid emotional confrontations, try to remove yourself, don’t want to be making decisions while your emotional, come back to it when you can think about it objectively
7. COMMUNICATING WITH INVESTORS (50:07)
Send Monthly Updates
-Send your key metrics, most likely (revenue, runway, risks)
-eventually your top metric will be revenue
-extremely important to keep your investors updated, the are invested with their time and their money
-great exercise for founder to monthly go through your metrics/goals and plotting it out
-by keeping investors updated regularly they are following along on your journey and more apt to help if they can see the path through the challenge to success
-being transparent about what your problems are, what do you really need help with, is very important
Start Board Meetings Early
-adding governance to your company early is important so you set yourself to a standard and be professional
-can use this time to invite investors who are really involved, makes them feel important, gives you important feedback
-hits the ground running and makes you look really good when the formal board meetings start
-If you have board mins from 4 meetings, employee stock options, board decks, projections, valuation 409a – you look like you have it so together–>merge with next bullet
-Projecting a certain level of professionalism can make the VCs more apt to invest (feels more professional, feels more organized, feels less risky, eliminating the risk of this company not being high functioning
Be Proactive w/ Target Investors for the next round
-reach out and add to monthly updates or just add them if you’ve met with them in person (free information / intel to potential investors)