I will admit that I am not the biggest fan of the self-promoting Guy Kawasaki, but occasionally I do find a good article by him. For those entrepreneurs who want to learn the ropes of the startup game, there is an excellent post on this topic by Guy at Always On. I have said this many times before in different ways - it is important to always set expectations low and to overdeliver. As most venture investors will tell you, it is the rare entrepreneur who does this.
Here is my favorite part of the post:
"Startups face one primary challenge: To never run out of cash. So when projecting costs, we heeded Guy’s advice that “the three most powerful words you can utter at a board meeting are, ‘We beat projections.’” This convinced us to develop the worst possible financial model that could still be used to raise money."
The most interesting aspects of this post is information provided by the entrepreneur behind Redfin. I don't really know much about Redfin but Glenn Kelman provides rare insight into the actual numbers behind his financial models. I have spoken repeatedly many times about "metrics" - whether they be financial metrics or company metrics. Having metrics and analyzing them is essential to monitor progress and to gauge success.
For those of you that are looking for a benchmark to compare, please check out Mr. Kelman's notes as many of them are dead on.
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