- The top seven mistakes that great founders make.
Not true, redoing it.
(upbeat music)
Top seven mistakes that founders make.
In today's video I'm gonna share with you guys
how to avoid wasting resources.
If you've been building your company,
and you've made a couple pitfalls,
I'm gonna walk you through the seven most common
that I've seen people make over and over again.
Cause at the end of the day,
you don't have unlimited time, money,
or your resources on your team.
So I'm gonna walk you through the areas
you're probably spending,
to avoid making these mistakes.
Now, I've done over 1300 calls,
you know, just through Clarity,
and I've spoken at events,
and I've advised a bunch of different entrepreneurs
on how to grow their business.
And I've seen the patterns,
and these patterns come up over and over again.
I've extracted the top seven
to share with you in this video.
Just last week, actually, an entrepreneur named Fred
reached out to me with this SEO product that he built,
and he was like, "Hey, Dan, I'm having
"a hard time finding traction,"
and I realized he'd made two of the mistakes
I'm gonna share with you guys today.
And just walking him through that,
he was like, ugh.
I know, so that's why I'm creating this video
for you to learn.
The number one is starting with a freemium product,
and here's why.
Free means I'm gonna let people use this for free,
in exchange for advice.
That's the argument usually.
And eventually some people will upgrade to a paid plan.
Here's why that doesn't work,
is the advice you get from free users
do not directly correlate to ones that are gonna pay.
So what I would suggest is
instead start with the paid version,
or the premium version of the free,
and then use free as a marketing decision.
So that's number one.
Two, is have multiple ideas.
And that's cool in the early days if you're testing.
I'm game with that.
You have two, three different ideas,
two week iteration tests, totally cool.
What I have a problem with
is when I meet an entrepreneur and they're like,
"Well, I've got these two businesses."
To me, having two businesses is trying to use the toilet
on two separate toilets at the exact same time.
Yes, I gave you that visual,
because you need to understand
that you can't be doing that.
It's possible, but it's super messy.
So you're better off picking one and going deep
until, at some point, you learn that
maybe that's not the right idea.
But pick one idea, and go forward with it.
So that's number two.
Three is you don't solve a problem.
You have something that's cool,
some people use it, they like it,
but it's not a painkiller, it's more of a vitamin.
Just think about that concept.
It's a nice to have, not a must have.
And, to me, the best companies out there
are solving real pains in the market.
So make sure that you're actually doing that,
not just building something that's nice
and kinda cool, but not really gonna solve a major problem.
So that's number three.
Four is you go wide instead of focused, okay.
So, when I meet entrepreneurs and they're building
a tool, for example,
a social media marketing platform, I'm like, "That's cool.
"But it sounds like when I ask who your customer is,
"it's anybody in the world."
But I would suggest that in the early days
is you pick a niche, and you go deep.
So if you said, "I'm building a
"social media marketing platform for flower shops,"
that's incredibly powerful.
So I just call it the sub-category question.
This is the category you're in,
social media marketing,
but what's the sub-category?
Focus on that niche, get some traction,
and then you broaden it out.
That's number four.
Five is the process.
You know, I was on a call last week with an entrepreneur,
and they were raising money to
start and build their company.
And I said, "That's cool, and I appreciate it,
"but as an investor, I would never invest in
"a company that doesn't have a product in the market
"with some level of traction, customers."
Because in today's world,
when it costs very little to start
any business for that matter,
or even just approach a company
to get them to be part of a pilot
and pre-order your product, that's a huge signal
that you're gonna build the company wrong.
So it's really the process.
So, the high level is, you have an idea,
you build a prototype, you get pre-orders,
you deliver it, then you raise money.
So make sure that you follow a process
that's tried and true, or you might actually
be successful raising money, build a product
for a market that doesn't exist
or a customer that doesn't have the need,
and then you gotta go back to your investors
after you've lost all their money.
So that's a big one.
The sixth one is take feedback as gospel.
You know, when I'm talking to a customer,
I love getting feedback.
I answer all my customer support emails,
I cold call customers every Thursday.
I call it smile and dial.
I wanna talk and get their feedback,
but I put it into, kind of like this holding area,
and talk to multiple customers, and see a pattern.
The pain that I see in entrepreneurs
is when they talk to one customer,
they have a new idea, and they keep moving forward,
and then they find out, like,
nobody else amongst their customer base had the idea,
and they spent a bunch of time and energy.
So don't take it as gospel,
take it as just general awareness,
and then see if that pattern shows up again and again.
And honestly, if you're saying, well,
I have a free customer and a paid customer,
focus on the paid.
They're the one that are gonna give you the real ideas
that are gonna help you grow your business.
And seven is you don't pivot the customer,
you only pivot the product.
Here's what I mean by that,
is, instead of saying, you know what,
maybe, 'cause a lot of entrepreneurs
get into this feature release.
The next release is the silver bullet,
the next feature is gonna make the product
finally work for our customers.
And many times, you're talking to your customer,
and you realize this is a nice to have for them,
and there could be another segment,
another category, another industry,
where this solution would actually be a must have.
So I would argue that many entrepreneurs,
one of the biggest mistakes they make
is they don't pivot the customer,
they only pivot the product.
That's what I have for you today.
So I wanna quickly walk through.
One, freemium.
Two is you have multiple ideas,
when you should be working on one.
Three is you don't solve a problem.
You have a vitamin, not a painkiller.
Four is you go wide and you don't focus on a niche.
Five is you have a bad process,
so you're trying to raise money
before you build a product, as an example.
So have a better product.
Six is you take feedback as gospel.
Just put it in that holding tank,
process it, and eventually you'll figure it out.
And then five is you don't pivot the customer,
you only pivot your product.
Those are the top mistakes that entrepreneurs make.
I wanna challenge you to live a bigger life
and a bigger business, and I'll see you next Monday.
If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel,
where you'll get other videos
on how to start and grow your business.
I also have an exclusive newsletter,
where I share special invites to events,
community contests, and free training videos,
and if you want more content right now,
be sure to check out those couple videos,
and I'll see you next week.