Execution is Everything: Start Up Bootcamp

Michael Staton

Columbus Day had to offer a bay area style event at MIT, Start Up Bootcamp – #sb. You can check the videos on YouTube here.

Now, I’ve been to these things so much I can almost lip sync their presentations, but I hadn’t seen cool folks like Alex Ohanion of Reddit, Adam Smith of Xobni, or Drew Houston of Dropbox speak.  In addition, at some point you start to notice the little nuances that nobody else really notices, and it can get fun. I was going to type up some notes, but a fellow named Adam Marcus already got around to it.

Here’s some of the good take-aways I found worth noting:

• A great way to start a business is start consulting in a space and back your way into a product.  You can cover costs and learn about the business, and buy yourself time to build. (Dan Theobald, Vecna)
• Hire the absolute best people and align incentives.  This is harder than one would think, and the most difficult to navigate but universally regarded most important.  Recommended reading: On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B, by Steven Kerr.
• Build a Following before you build a Product (Dharmesh Shah).  If you can’t build a following of twitter and blog readers based on your market insights, you probably shouldn’t build a product in that market. Building a product in conjunction with an audience increases the probability you’re spending time on the right things.  In addition, you have an instant beta user-base.
• Feature freezes can be good for user growth.  (Aaron Schwartz).  Expect lots of new features to fail.  Don’t attach yourself to the sunk cost, just move on and move fast.

Me with Laura Fitter (CEO, OneForty) & Robin Chase (CEO, Zipcar)

One thing that was echoed over and over: it’s good to make mistakes, if you’re not making mistakes you’re not taking enough risk and you’re not moving fast enough.  Just be really responsive and learn quickly. Another thing: Don’t worry about your competitors.  You can do it differently, and execution is everything.  Your biggest competitor is ignorance and indifference, in that order.