Author: Derek Sivers
Do you have an idea for a website, online business, or application, but need a programmer
to turn that idea into reality?
Many of my friends have been in the same position, so here's my best advice, below.
But first, a quick request: If you are a programmer, please leave a reply below with YOUR best advice. Feel free to include your URL and email for anyone to contact you. I know my advice is not complete, (and you may totally disagree!), so any further advice is appreciated.
1. Reduce your big idea to “Version 1.0”.
First read my short “Version Infinity” article. Dream the big dream of everything your site/service/company might be some day, and
write it all down. But then think of the bare minimum that would make you happy, and people would find
useful. What are the three most essential features? What is the most essential feature? Call this Version 1.0. Save the rest for later. No need to even tell people about the rest unless
they're really really interested. A programmer is much more likely to say, “I can do that!” to this simple version.
Your goal here is just to get Version 1.0 built. That, alone, will be a huge accomplishment. Everything below is describing only Version 1.0.
No position in a company is more important than the CEO and, as a result, no job gets more scrutiny. Sadly, little of this analysis benefits CEOs as most of the discussions happen behind their backs. This post is a step in the opposite direction. By describing how Andreessen Horowitz evaluates CEOs, I am at the same time describing what I think the job of the CEO is. Here are the key questions we ask:
- Does the CEO know what to do?
- Can the CEO get the company to do what she knows?
- Did the CEO achieve the desired results against an appropriate set of objectives?
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And while an internship program might be appealing to a startup as a way to recruit a cheap but enthusiastic labor force, Babbit and Bottner argue that there are both practical and legal guidelines to consider when creating an internship position.
1. Create a Work Plan for the Intern
Although interns do expect to do a certain amount of menial work, Babbitt argues that Gen-Y is predisposed to creative projects and as such, interns want to contribute, not simply make coffee. Students choose internships because they want experiential education, and so it's important to devise a work plan for an intern ahead of time, with clear tasks and expectations.
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Calacanis writes, "As CEO, I was faced with a conundrum: Should I fire a hard-working and loyal team member for making a huge error? In this case, it was the first serious error made by an otherwise 'good kid.' Why did he make the mistake? He doesn't even know; perhaps a lack of focus or just a bad day. That's the problem with mistakes: their cause can be difficult to pin down."
Calacanis goes on to examine the three categories of that mistakes and employees can fall into and discusses his thoughts on who and when to fire:
1. A great team member who makes a big mistake
Verdict: Don't fire them. Talk about the mistake, and brainstorm ways to fix it and to make sure it doesn't happen again.
2. An average team member who makes a big mistake
Verdict: Fire them. In fact, Calacanis makes the argument that you shouldn't hire average employees at your startup in the first place. "Your advantage at a startup is that you can demand employees who crush it and who are above-average, and compensate them with stock options. Average people should work at average (by which I mean big) companies. Big companies actually run better with average folks, because those people don't rock the boat."
3. A great team member who makes multiple mistakes
Verdict: It's complicated, and unfortunately, it's all too common. Calacanis says that when faced with this, he does try to work through the person's problems. And while he notes that founders might not have the time or the training to do this, he stresses its importance. "When you try to save a flawed, yet at other times effective, team member, you send the other members of your team a positive message: loyalty."
VC Ben Horowitz recently wrote a blog post entitled "Why Startups Should Train Their People," in which he makes a case for ongoing functional training in startups, so that employees and management have the right skills to do their job.
Because at the end of the day, it probably takes more time to hire and fire someone than it does to train them.
Author: Karin Price Mueller
When you work for someone else, you earn a salary for the work you provide. Pretty simple.
Being your own boss is another matter entirely. You need to bring in money to run your personal affairs, but the business needs cash, too. Deciding how much income to take compared to what you should leave for the business is a quandary, indeed."It is imperative that the business owner know their income revenue cycle, payables and receivables. A critical issue to understand is cash flow, which is the lifeblood of any small business," says David Morganstern, a certified financial planner with CMC Advisers in Portland, Ore.That includes paying yourself. Here are some tips to help you take the income you need while leaving your business with a decent operating budget. 1. There is no formula
As a business owner, taking a salary is not as simple as being satisfied with what's left in the till after expenses are paid. Having a fixed salary, while inviting, may not be realistic because the financial health of each business is different--and fluctuates from year to year.
Your first consideration should be not about the business, but about your own personal living needs. Determine how much you need to pay the mortgage, food bills and other expenses, and that's the amount you strive to meet. But of course, business profits aren't likely to be as stable as your personal money needs, so you have to be flexible.Lifestyle overhead should remain low to avoid any undue stress on the business, says Curtis Smith, a certified financial planner with Interactive Capital Management in Sugar Land, Texas. Low personal expenses will leave more money available for the business to maintain operating capital--and hopefully a cash cushion--for the future.
Every member of the team should be subject to vesting. Unless you are planning to go it alone, in which case who cares, every member of the team should be subject to some form of appropriate vesting. Consider the divorce rate among practicing Catholics, and they are expecting to suffer eternal damnation if they break up. Breaking up may be hard to do, but people do it a lot. Like the Boy Scouts, Be Prepared, in case it happens to you. If Sally had followed this policy, no matter how sure she thought she was about Harry, she would have been OK when he bolted.Consider this, if Harry leaves with a big chunk of equity and won’t give all (or some) back, you are going to have to figure out how to dilute his position. This means getting more stock into the hands of the remaining productive team members. This topic is beyond the scope of this post, but you probably can’t just give everyone (other than Harry) a pile of new shares. If you did, then everyone is likely to have phantom income equal to the value of the new pile of shares. So, you have to consider options (which have other drawbacks). You also have to consider the impact on your investors, if any, and what rights they have in connection with your issuance of shares and options. Fixing the capitalization once the shares are issued and vested is hard to do.
I never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees. I can tell that the heat is going to fly from people on this post. It all started yesterday when Jason Calacanis sent a Tweet telling GenY’ers / Millennials or whatever people under 30 want to be called these days that job hoppers look like “flakes.” I simply sent a supporting Tweet saying that I agreed. He specifically called them “trophy kids” a reference that this is the first generation in which everyone got a trophy as Bill Sledzik outlines in this posting, “Dear Millennials: Your Parents Lied to You.” One simple Tweet and I started getting flack (Trev, if you’re a founder and have tried to build 3 companies you get a carve out) on Twitter (Sumit, your business school professor was wrong).
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Downsizing, rightsizing, layoffs, furloughs and terminations: Whatever name you use, all the actions conclude with the same result. You end up with fewer resources, particularly human capital, to perform the same amount of work and sometimes more. Unfortunately, financial realities occasionally force you to take actions that may reduce the number of people you employ. What can you do?
