Startups in the Early Stages are Super Unglamorous

It is always nice to see when some one leaves a big pay check, a prestigious job with one of world’s biggest companies and ventures out into the unknown. It takes a lot of conviction, grit and perseverance to make it. Nest Co-Founder Matt Rogers explains why careers can be made on taking on the challenges and projects unloved by others.

A few notes from one of the most inspiring startup stories.

  • Growing up with technology at a young age changes your mindset and how you interact with the world.
  • Doing end to end in technology is really complicated.
  • The best teams are the ones with a culture that gets going when things go wrong.
  • For startups, PR is the best means of early marketing.
  • Growth metrics are very different for physical items. For  apps it may be  downloads in millions. For physical items, a few sales from each store is good.
  • The early stages of a startup are fun but may be very glamorous – lots of market research, cold calling, talking to people to hire, white boarding, sketching, prototyping, brainstorming, trying out different things and building.
  • To be a good startup, you need to have an intentional processes, deep technological integration and great design.
  • You need to build things that are really easy to use.

I enjoy listening to ETL (Entrepreneur Thought Leaders) podcasts. They normally get good speakers and the audience ask great questions. I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did.