18 guaranteed ways to ruin your startup's 2022

Your startup has more than 5 people

Want to leave 2022 weaker than you started?

Follow these tips

1/ Keep the high-performing asshole on your team

You've got a small team

1 of them is a jerk of epic proportions

But he's really good at his job

Don't worry

He'll get better or he's just that important. Keep him. It's worth it.

Your other teammates don't have other options in this job market

2/ Don't hire anyone unless they've worked at name brand company or went to a top tier school

There is no good talent anywhere else

Focus exclusively on pedigreed folks

3/ Don't talk to customers or users

You have a vision. Stick to it.

4/ Just keep talking to customers/users

Talk to as many as you can - 30, 40, 50

Why build based on feedback and then talk to customers when you can get all the feedback up front

Feedback is a gift, right?

5/ Build software that just works for everyone

Our solution works whether you are an SMB or an enterprise

If you're a mom with 2 kids or a college kid, you'll love it

Don't niche down. Go big or go home!

6/ Assume all input is good input

You posted on Hacker News and someone who isn't your target market (or anonymous) had smart sounding feedback

Be sure to adjust / pivot your idea based on what they tell you

7/ Ensure your startup involves web3, metaverse, AI, etc

A rising tide lifts all ships

The trend is your friend

Right?

Do what others are doing. It'll make the journey easier

8/ It's all about product-led growth so ensure you have that

It used to be about gamification, freemium, or whatever

But if you don't have PLG, are you even doing a startup?

9/ When a position is open for a while, fill it with someone who seems 'good enough'

By lowering your standards, at least the work will get done

And people sometimes just get better over time

A butt in seat is better than nothing

10/ Ensure you get funding

The quickest way to ensure people know you are successful is raising money

Do this with some urgency

11/ Ensure there is no technical debt. EVER!

Your code must be pristine at every step of the journey

Technical debt indicates you don't care

And you care deeply

So never ever have technical debt.

In fact, customers and revenue come second to ensuring no technical debt

12/ The key to solving your most pressing challenges is just one hire away

There are messiah hires out there

Find them and they will solve your most difficult challenges

Don't worry about solving these challenges on your own. Just find this messiah.

Watch this wizard do their magic

13/ Give everyone an important title

You're five people and your org is:

• CEO
• CTO
• CMO
• CFO
• CPO (people, product, etc)

This is good. 

This scales remarkably well

14/ Focus on scalability

You have 4 users today

What if that blows up and become 400,000 by end of month

Exactly!!!

Always build technology, systems, etc that scale

Cuz it's not a matter of if but when and you need to be ready

In meetings, always "will it scale?"

15/ Make sure you are trying new things in HR

• Our team only works 3 days per week
• After 1 year, we give every teammate a 3 month sabbatical

Focus on HR innovation early.

Not product innovation.

16/ Ensure you have killer snacks and perks

Google had these

Seen their market cap recently

Exaaactly

How will you recruit the best talent without these?

Biz models, flywheels, network effects, etc - ha ha. What a waste of time.

Kombucha, fresh fruit and gluten-free snacks

Get these right (or else)

17/ Attend as many networking events as possible

Conferences, roundtables, speaker series

Whatever - attend them all

Do not discriminate on the type of event

You might meet a VC or a future teammate or a customer

Ya never know, right?

Just go and watch the serendipity happen

Your network is your net worth right

Is there a better use of your time? Nope.

18/ Be sure to blindly follow this advice 

Many years ago, I wrote about my 68 screwups as a startup founder. Some of that might still be useful.

Also, CB Insights tracked 390 startup failure post mortems in case you want to see more tips on failure.