Archive for 2016

As the non-technical co-founder you will need to learn a hard lesson… you have to let your developers develop.

Drop me a line at justin@justinlloyd.org if you want to grab a “no pressure” coffee and just talk about cool technology and neat ideas in S.F. or San Jose this weekend.

The secret (shortcut) to getting early customer traction for your SaaS project is to stop diddling your keyboard and get out and meet people.

I take a consultative approach to mentoring rather than a prescriptive approach.

I’ll show you the pond where you can get a drink, it is up to you whether you drink.

Brilliant product design happens in the last ten percent of effort after everyone else has given up and called it good enough.

Think of the subject line in your cold emails the same way you are thinking of the titles for your articles. Engage me in that limited space of a subject line and I will open your email.

Make me disengaged and I hit the REPORT SPAM button faster than you can hit SEND.

You cannot find and hire great people if you expend the minimum amount of effort necessary in finding and hiring them.

Hello, my name is Justin.

I am a recovering entrepreneur.

It has been two years since I last launched a start-up.

I struggle with entrepreneurship every waking hour and think about launching another start-up six or seven times a day.

Never hire an engineer that isn’t curious.

If you want to be in charge, you have to learn how to sell.

But if you want to lead, you have to learn how to sell hope.

And if you want to effectively lead, you have to learn how to sell hope to those that may not have any.

A pint of sweat saves a gallon of equity

My guerrilla tactics of sourcing and hiring great engineers will bring your ability to only spend money on the hiring pipeline to its knees every single time.**

**Certain restrictions apply. Google & Facebook are exempt from my previous statements. 😉

Bosses and leaders.

Too many people want to be the former without realizing (or knowing how) they should be aiming to be the latter.

Many years ago…

I was the CTO with about 25+ years experience of launching and running businesses than my co-founder had.

Ex-Co-founder: “You’re just an engineer. You’re not here to solve problems, you’re just here to write code.”

And he wonders why he is no longer my co-founder…

Specialists save your arse right now.

Generalists save your arse.

I will happily give away tips, and pointers and five minutes of help all day long for free.

The step-by-step instructions that I have to personally guide you along and ensure you don’t wander aimlessly cost money.

We just connected on LinkedIn.

Please don’t send me four emails.

Sign me up to your weekly newsletter — eight months old but only two newsletters published so I guess I should be thankful for that.

Text me on my phone.

Connect with me on Skype

And leave me two voicemail all in the space of four hours.

Because you really need to find a CTO to work on your unfunded idea.

You’re very earnest and enthusiastic, I like that!

But there’s earnest and enthusiastic, and then there is border-line crazy.

Talking != Communicating.

Or “Talking <> Communicating” if you are a BASIC programmer.

There are few jobs on this Earth that require perfection yet so many people try to make it their job to require it.

Frequently the reason an organization does not want their pain cured is not because they like the pain, but because they fear the unknown cure more.

There are many products or services we fall in lust with, but we never fall in love with.

That brief fling, a honeymoon period where the product or service can do no wrong, then BAM!

It’s all over and someone is accusing someone else of commitment issues.

I didn’t ask about your budget because I want to take you for everything you’ve got.

I asked about your budget because I want to make sure that my solution is realistic.

Nothing a for-profit college ever did was naught but marketing.

School tours, fancy websites, cheer squads, football games, graduation ceremonies, dances and exclusive rankings; they are all marketing material.

If someone can figure out how to market information and sell it for $100,000 that you can get from $100 worth of books, then you can figure out how market your SaaS or mobile app for $20/month.

If you believe that these are tough economic times and your start-up is failing because of that, you are right.

If you believe that these are tough economic times and your start-up is successful in spite of that, you are right.

If you believe these are good economic times and your start-up is a success because of that, you are right.

If you believe these are good economic times and your start-up is failing in spite of that, you are right.

It’s not the economy that dictates success or failure, it’s your attitude.

Ignore the doomsayers and the naysayers that predict the doom of start-ups left and right.

But in the same regard, ignore the soothsayers and the pundits who predict the success of start-ups ahead and behind.

Just keep focusing on building your business and making forward progress day after day.

Open a café.

Each day is routine.

Put the tables outside, open the blinds, heat the coffee, put out the pastries, serve the customers, clean the bathrooms, wipe down and put away the tables, throw out the stale pastries, turn out the lights.

Day after day.

Start-ups are like that.

We see them as something exciting to be involved with.

But it is persistence and consistency that keeps the start-up moving forward, day after day.

The only difference is, somedays we don’t have time to turn out the lights before the next day’s work begins.

We don’t win (American) football games with a single, defining pass.

Every move, every play, every tackle, and yes, every failed pass moves the team down the field another four yards.

You do enough short plays, and eventually, you reach the touch down.

It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve seen so much digital ink spilled over how so many companies are going to fail “real soon now.”

If you keep sounding the bell of doom, eventually the bell of doom will be correct.

People focus almost exclusively on the beginning, the end, and the big events.

How it all got started.

How it all ended in tragedy.

How we went through a successful IPO.

They’re interesting, but not as interesting as the little details and decisions that lead up to the kickoff, the lead up to the launch, to lead up to the IPO, and finally lead up to the catastrophic bankruptcy.

Networking meetings are low ROI (return on investment) ways to generate business and leads and raise funding for most people.

They attend.

They wander around aimlessly.

They drink a few drinks.

They pitch their product, idea or start-up.

And then they go home.

And if you read any of the terrible articles you find online about how to network, everyone says you should follow-up after the event.

But nobody ever does.

If business cards were collected they are inevitably thrown in a pile on the desk and the collector feels guilty about not doing anything with them for a year or two before finally throwing them out.

Here’s a neat trick to increase your ROI – hire a wing man and take them with you.

When you go networking its really awkward to break in to a conversation, its difficult to talk about yourself “I’m this fantastic software developer and designer and you should hire me to fix your dumb project. By the way don’t bother talking to me because I am slightly introverted, socially stunted and want to act like I am aloof from all this and not desperate for more work, no, not at all.”

But it is incredibly easy to talk about someone else “Ohmygosh! Have you met Justin yet? He’s this brilliant software developer and designer and project manager. I absolutely need to introduce you to him if we can just get a few minutes of his time. I know he is super busy, but let’s see if we can talk to him.”

It’s why I have 10x Management representing me.

I cannot imagine my agent, Michael Solomon, talking about how awesome he is and why you should hire him.

But I can imagine Michael talking about how awesome someone else is – “yeah, we have this brilliant Python developer, he’s one of the best in the field, worked at eBay and Facebook and was an early hire at Google.”

Hire a wing man.

It’s not hard, not terribly expensive (if you are serious about networking), and really helps to break the ice.