Advice For First Time Founders (How Not to Fail)
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about the 3 biggest fears you have as a non-technical founder, and how you can overcome them. 1. Fear of failure 2. Fear that you re not going to get any customers 3. Fear you re going to fail These are the 3 areas that are going to help you overcome these fears.
Transcript
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you know that you're not building something nobody wants because that is the ultimate risk
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Hey there, Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy. In this
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episode, I've got a really fun one, okay? I was on Twitter the other day and I asked the
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question about you know what's the biggest fear you have as a non-technical founder starting a
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software business okay so i got everybody's answers literally i've got like 55 000 followers and i had
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dozens of replies and i took all the replies and i put them into three answers to the biggest
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buckets the biggest fears and i want to share with you like i know if you're starting a software
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business and you can't write code that's a scary proposition like you if you're starting a
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restaurant and you'd never cooked a meal but you're just passionate about being in the hospitality
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in the restaurant space like there's a lot of motivation but crazy fear anxiety that you're not
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gonna you know get any customers come through the door uh you're gonna get somebody sick with food
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poisoning you're gonna have a menu that's too complicated or that isn't profitable or there's
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like all these pitfalls that you're not even aware it's the unknown unknowns right so what i want to
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share with you is what i heard from twitter and the three areas that is going to help you overcome
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these fears because if you don't know my story i've built over um 30 different prototypes okay
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and a lot of them i didn't even code so i've built a ton of prototypes clickable prototypes
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you know code-based prototypes i've scaled and exited four software companies i've coached a
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thousand plus SaaS founders, software as a service people that are in the technology industry.
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I've invested in 50 plus companies. I tell you all that so you understand that like
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my background is one thing, building technology companies, building software, managing engineers.
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So all these three strategies are based on that level of experience. And I want to give it to you
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if you're in anxiety and fear and doubt and concern, I'm hoping that this is going to help pull you
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through because what I know is that when we build software, we unlock the human potential that's in
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the world. If you think about it, every tool, software is tools, it's workflows. Steve Jobs
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called it the bicycle of the mind. Every software will help people get their time back, make less
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mistakes to be able to be more creative. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping software
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founders grow and scale and help you if you're thinking about getting into it. So here's what I
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got number one skill development so here's the deal if you start your software business
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and you completely fail here's what i know is you will develop a new skill you will become
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better at managing projects on a remote team probably managing software these are all things
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that are actually very very valuable in the market you know i recently hired a new program lead
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and his background the the person that's leading this had a failed startup software
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or how to fail a software startup and what i love is that anybody starts building a technology
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company they build the skill of product management they build the skill of talking to the market and
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trying to translate that into a workflow and interface activities and that is an incredibly
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valuable skill that for me translates into program ownership you know product development so you know
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don't underestimate how valuable going into the business and developing new skills like i know
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when i started coaching in my youtube channel one of the biggest skills i want to develop is
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communication and i knew that the more i did this the more i got in front of a camera and i talked
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to people and guess what one take right took me months to get to this point where i can get in
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front of a camera and just talk about the strategies that i knew in my heart when i was talking to a
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I didn't need an outline, I didn't need a script,
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I didn't need a teleprompter, why can't I talk about it?
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Just the same way I would do to a friend at a dinner.
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even if my YouTube channel didn't get 10 bazillion views
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in everything I do, and I wouldn't change a thing.
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but I've published every Monday for the last six years,
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I haven't missed a week ever, and I don't plan to.
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I gave myself a 10-year commitment, which is a long time,
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And I really want to encourage you to just do it,
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but that's one of the big beliefs that I want you to adopt.
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Anybody in business at some point thinks to themselves,
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And then they work out the numbers and they go,
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And usually go back to the thing they were doing.
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I haven't even invested in a restaurant as an investor.
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you want investment here's my money but for all those building software businesses find a technical
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friend okay so i remember when i was building my company uh spheric and i needed to build even a
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new part of the code i found this guy named scott wadden scott was working as a teacher at the
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college the way i found him is how i tell a lot of people is call your local college and ask who
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their top students are in the programming class and what was funny is everybody kept saying because i
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Because I would talk to the students and I would say, who's the smartest program we've
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We met at this coffee shop on Mountain Road at Tim Hortons, right next to the Community
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He had a big freaking beard and glasses and a big winter jacket.
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And he looked like a technical person, a guy that liked to write code and listen to music.
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And I remember talking to him and there's just something about his demeanor.
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He was obviously bright and talented, but he was also somebody that I was like,
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So I invited Scott to help me work on this new project
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and go deep on the analysis of what we were trying to do.
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And over time, eventually he left the college and came and worked with me full time.
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Clarity was founded because Scott was my technical co-founder.
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So you can ask them to look at what you're doing.
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And I've talked about it so many different episodes.
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starting an event is one of the most powerful things
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can do as an entrepreneur because it's going to teach you the whole thing it's going to teach you
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what to name the event how to recruit speakers how to sell tickets how to manage logistics and
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it has a finite date you know many of my friends that i've met it's because i've encouraged them
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they were like trying to be entrepreneurial and i was like just start an event and they did the
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event and they learned all these skills and then they realized they wanted to be in business and
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i like them and hey let's build a business together and literally some of my my buddy
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Marcel. That's how we became business partners. He called me up. He wanted to start a business.
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I wanted to do an event. He wanted to help me with the event. I said, don't do my event,
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do your event. That's an awesome idea. And he did. And it just kept snowballing from there.
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And I share that because the pre-selling before you build, essentially that's how events work.
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You build an events page and you pre-sell tickets to the event. And then hopefully you sell enough
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tickets that one day you got to deliver the event. And people think, well, I can't pre-sell
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my software yeah you can well who would i sell it to that's the problem guess what you could go spend
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100 grand to build your software and you're still gonna have that same problem so if you can't solve
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that problem before you build the software it's still gonna be a problem that you're gonna have
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to solve and and to me that has always been my approach everything i've done even today pre-sell
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i just got involved i sit on the board of a company called pila and they came out with a
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a new product called Lomi and we did the largest crowdfunding product launch. It was $20 million,
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20 some millions in the ecosystem ever. So even today in my world, when we have access to tens
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of millions of dollars on the board of this company, we did pre-sales. We listened to the
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same philosophy. Why? Because the biggest risk in any business is not the product risk. Can we build
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this it's does anybody want to buy it and those are the three things that i see non-technical
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founders make the mistake all the time it's the fear that keeps them up at night and i'm giving
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you the answer to overcome it and that's what i heard on twitter and those were my replies to all
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those people that are saying this so quick recap number one understand that even if you fail and
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you probably will 80 chance you'll probably fail you will develop some new skills number two
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that if you find a technical friend they can give you advice you're going to reduce the potential
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of building you know bad code but you'll also find somebody that could become your technical co-founder
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maybe in this company or a future company just like in my case scott did and then finally make
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sure you pre-sell before you launch before you go and raise money from friends and family and spend
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all this time building stuff like go find some customers talk to the customers get them excited
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about it have them make a financial kit commitment to you so that you know that you're not building
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something nobody wants because that is the ultimate risk in software world so i hope those three
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strategies landed for you that help you overcome the fear because at the end of the day i really
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really really encourage you to start something software is one of the most rewarding industries
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it's why the valuations are so high it's why you see multi-billion dollar exits on a daily
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and it's why i think you know i've gotten to the position i'm at i just absolutely love the
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the reoccurring nature, the subscription nature,
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It just speaks to the chaotic world I grew up in.
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So I just wanted to share those ideas with you.
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please subscribe to this channel and leave a comment below.
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Let me know what was the number one takeaway for you?