The first installment in my series on going from 1 to 50 employees. You've got to start hiring somewhere. So, start by hiring yourself.
Before GrubHub was a business, it was just a hobby. I played around with a website, got some information about restaurants, put together a business plan, had an advisory board did some advertising. All of these activities certainly look like a business, but really they are just a hobby. A great adviser told me... This thing will never get off the ground unless you really commit to it. He was right. The mental difference between doing something cool and running a business to pay the bills is night and day.
Once I jumped on full time I found out quick that there was a profoundly large amount of work. By necessity I resolved to do exactly 2 things: Sell the product by day. Improve the product by night. Sure, there were a million other things to do... SEM/SEO optimization, business licenses, scalability, etc. But I put all that on hold and went into a relentless, sell -> improve -> sell -> improve cycle for about 6 months.
Another important step was to commit to paying myself from day 1. This isn't going to be a hobby, I'm not going to do this for free for 2 years. If I can't support myself within the first 2 months, I was going to quit. Which really just focused me to do the important stuff... make some money... which leads us to the first tool in the bootstrapped businesses toolbox: revenue
Tool #1: Revenue. Apparently there are business models that are proponents of not making money right away, but I don't get them. Cash allows an entrepreneur to hire people and resources to get things done. At first it is all about increasing velocity on the sales -> product -> sales cycle. Successfully executing that cycle then requires supporting activities... billing,finance,IT infrastructure, etc
Before GrubHub was a business, it was just a hobby. I played around with a website, got some information about restaurants, put together a business plan, had an advisory board did some advertising. All of these activities certainly look like a business, but really they are just a hobby. A great adviser told me... This thing will never get off the ground unless you really commit to it. He was right. The mental difference between doing something cool and running a business to pay the bills is night and day.
Once I jumped on full time I found out quick that there was a profoundly large amount of work. By necessity I resolved to do exactly 2 things: Sell the product by day. Improve the product by night. Sure, there were a million other things to do... SEM/SEO optimization, business licenses, scalability, etc. But I put all that on hold and went into a relentless, sell -> improve -> sell -> improve cycle for about 6 months.
Another important step was to commit to paying myself from day 1. This isn't going to be a hobby, I'm not going to do this for free for 2 years. If I can't support myself within the first 2 months, I was going to quit. Which really just focused me to do the important stuff... make some money... which leads us to the first tool in the bootstrapped businesses toolbox: revenue
Tool #1: Revenue. Apparently there are business models that are proponents of not making money right away, but I don't get them. Cash allows an entrepreneur to hire people and resources to get things done. At first it is all about increasing velocity on the sales -> product -> sales cycle. Successfully executing that cycle then requires supporting activities... billing,finance,IT infrastructure, etc
Comments