November 19, 2021 • 9 mins
The First 10 things I Wish I Knew are here.
Like anyone who works for themselves, I have a litany of things I learned the hard way.
All of them have taught me things that now are a part of my subconscious judgement when making decisions.
They help me be less wrong in the future.
In speaking with founders on The First 10 Podcast about how they found their first 10 customers, I have discovered that some of these mistakes and failures are universal.
The only way to learn from your mistakes is to reflect on them and the only thing to do with your failures is to juice them for all they are worth.
Don’t let them leave the building without picking their pockets.
Here is a shortlist of 10 (more) things I’ve learned along the way that might help you improve your decision-making process and general judgment.
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Episode Transcript
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Conor McCarthy (00:09):
10 more things I wish I knew earlier about
starting businesses. Like anyonewho works for themselves, I have
a litany of things I've learnedthe hard way. All of them have
taught me things that now arepart of my subconscious
judgement when making decisionsthat basically helped me to be
less wrong in the future. Inspeaking with founders on the
first 10 podcast about how theyfound their first 10 customers,
(00:31):
I've discovered that some ofthese mistakes and failures are
kind of universal. The only wayto learn from your mistakes is
to reflect on them. And the onlything to do with your failures
is to juice them. For allthey're worth a big believer in
that. Don't let them leave thebuilding without picking their
pockets first. So here's a shortlist of 10 more things that I've
learned along the way that mighthelp you improve your decision
(00:53):
making process and generaljudgement. Number one, waste
time to save time. This is asteal from Amos Tversky, the
late collaborator of Nobelwinning psychologist Daniel
Kahneman. Amos once said, quote,The secret to doing good
research is always to be alittle underemployed, you waste
years by not being able to wastehours, and quote, I used to
(01:16):
think that being really busy wasthe best and only way to
succeed, cram it in and figureout a way to squeeze the most
every minute of every day. Andyet, on reflection, it was the
breaks that I took the holidays,two days off the long locks were
friends, sometimes even the timecleaning the house, that led me
to have these kind of newthoughts and new breakthroughs.
(01:36):
So having some slack in thesystem means your brain can do
what it does best. And that'sthink. Number two, you have two
ears and one mouth for a reason.
Back in the days when I thoughtmy ideas were the best ideas
solely because I had them. I hadmany conversations where I
pitched people on new businessideas I started with me and I
talked about myself, literallywas this pitching approach. But
(01:59):
it was the worst. I pretty sureI missed a tonne of insights
from customers that could havehelped me pivot my idea, or
simply to create new businessesbased on their true needs, and
not what I thought their needswere. So in a nutshell, listen
first, actually listen first andsecond. Number three, backwards,
forwards. I used to sit down andstart my day by opening my
(02:25):
email, big loops, the day wouldinevitably lead to me living in
the wrong quadrant of theEisenhower matrix. And over the
long term, not really gettingmuch done, or just getting a lot
of the wrong things done thereally urgent things. Over time,
I've built a solid framework ofreflecting and planning that not
only helps ensure I'm doing theright things, but also helps me
(02:46):
better visualise the trajectorythat I'm on. And the progress
I'm making. I spend just onehour per week reflecting and
planning and that compoundsimmensely over time. Number
four, this is related to theprevious point about backwards
forwards. Using what I know thehumble alphabet, I use a simple
a Zed B framework for trackingmy progress. What are the
(03:09):
Stanford so a? If you imagine atimeline, A to Z? A is where I
am now. Z is where do I want tobe ultimately? And be is what
can I do next? What is the nextstep? So the main point here is
that it's not all the steps.
It's just the next thing that Ican do based on where I am, it
(03:29):
makes it very clear, it helpsyou to visualise the next step.
This works because I could seetruly where I'm at. And that
that matters the most whenprojects are multifaceted,
reminds me of where I'm going.
Because if I don't know whereI'm going, how will I know when
I get there. And mostimportantly, it just helps me
focus on that next step. Not allthe steps, just the next one.
Once I've done my A Bz, I saidbe planning, I use the acronym
(03:53):
FST to help me plan my actualdays. I know this is like
alphabet soup. But this reallydoes help. My theory is that if
I get just three worthy thingsdone every day that move my
projects along that will add upover time. And it seems to be
working so far. It's actuallypretty simple. So f is the first
thing. That's the most importantthing that day. I do not proceed
(04:14):
until I've done that firstthing. That might be a proposal
that takes me a few hours towrite. That might be a blog
post. It could it could be a twominute phone call. It's just the
most important thing I need todo. And sometimes it requires
honesty sit down and go. Is thisthe most important thing or is
the thing that I'm fearingattacking first, the most
(04:36):
important thing usually it'sit's where the fear lies. S is
for the second thing, that's thesecond most important thing that
day, I do not do my s taskwithout doing my F task. So do
the first then do the second. Iguess what T stands for third,
the third thing on I O to dothat when the first and second
things are done. I know this islike planning for children. But
(04:57):
keeping it simple works.
Number five, start smallunperfect. In the very early
years of the festival that Istarted called the street
performance World Championship,which became one of Ireland's
largest outdoor events, therewere many, many stories of near
failure and subsequentlearnings, one that sticks out
(05:19):
the most came from my brother,at what crucial point when it
looked like always lost, and wewouldn't get the funding we
needed. And that the previousyear, his work was going down
the drain. I told my brotherabout what was happening. And he
replied, simply saying, Look,even if you have to put on a
festival in your backyard andjust do something, don't let
that work go to waste. Itdoesn't matter if it's small,
(05:40):
just that it happens. Now, whenI work with people who are
trying to build something bigand are in danger of overwhelm,
I always posed the question,what to small and perfect look
like here. Number six,experiment more. Make little
bets. Not everything has to behuge. Not every decision will
crash and burn your business, doa little bit of fear setting and
(06:01):
just keep going. As RobertPirsig, who wrote Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenancewon't set an experiment is never
a failure solely because itfails to achieve predicted
results. An experiment is afailure only when it also fails
adequately to test thehypothesis question when the
data it produces don't proveanything one way or another.
(06:24):
Number seven, maybe it's themarket, maybe it's the medium,
maybe it's the message. I'vemade mistakes in all three of
these areas market medium andmessage, I've neglected to find
a market first, I fail toapproach the right market in the
right way. And most of all, afail to use what my customers
were telling me to communicatewith them. That last one
deserves the biggest facepalm ofall. First we listen to
(06:47):
understand, then we communicatethat shared understanding.
Number eight, there is no therethere. projects will lead to
more projects will lead to evenmore projects. And further to
that collaborations lead to morecollaborations which lead to
even more collaborations. Sodespite the fact that each new
project or collaboration feelslike it could be the last one,
(07:09):
it never really is. I played keyplaying. And that's been a
really helpful way for me toframe my entrepreneurial
journey. Number nine steal likean artist David Bowie once said,
The only art I'll ever study isthe stuff that I could steal
from. When I work with newbusiness builders, I often
discover an unnoticed desire tocreate something brand new,
(07:29):
something the world has neverseen before. And something that
world will go down because it'sso different. But speaking as a
member of the world, a lot ofthe time, I just want something
to work better, to work faster,or to be cheaper. I don't
necessarily need new and shinythings, I usually just need
something of substance. Myadvice in these situations is
usually to see what's workingand artfully steal that
(07:51):
everything could be aninspiration. And often we can
get 90% of what we need bynoticing and learning from what
has gone before. Number 10. It'ssimpler than it looks. So this
is related to steal like anartist. Because I find that I
often stick with the productsand services I pay for it
because they're simple in someways. They're easy to use,
(08:11):
they're easy to understand,they're easy to share. Keeping a
simple feels like an easilyignored cliche, but it's pretty
powerful if you give it a minuteto sink in. So that's it for the
10 more lessons that I have toshare here. The lessons learned
here were learned throughcareful reflection. I had to
chase them a little bit to getthe true essence of what they
(08:31):
meant to be. Many of them couldhave been easily missed. But I
really did sit down at spendtime figuring out what didn't
work or how I could do thingsbetter. I reflected on my
failures and mistakes and itdoes pay off. Of course as I
mentioned before I also stoleaplenty. Thanks for listening
and do get in touch at Conormccarthy.me If you're out there
looking for your first 10customers or seeking to grow
(08:54):
your business
10 more things I wish I knew earlier about
starting businesses. Like anyonewho works for themselves, I have
a litany of things I've learnedthe hard way. All of them have
taught me things that now arepart of my subconscious
judgement when making decisionsthat basically helped me to be
less wrong in the future. Inspeaking with founders on the
first 10 podcast about how theyfound their first 10 customers,
(00:31):
I've discovered that some ofthese mistakes and failures are
kind of universal. The only wayto learn from your mistakes is
to reflect on them. And the onlything to do with your failures
is to juice them. For allthey're worth a big believer in
that. Don't let them leave thebuilding without picking their
pockets first. So here's a shortlist of 10 more things that I've
learned along the way that mighthelp you improve your decision
(00:53):
making process and generaljudgement. Number one, waste
time to save time. This is asteal from Amos Tversky, the
late collaborator of Nobelwinning psychologist Daniel
Kahneman. Amos once said, quote,The secret to doing good
research is always to be alittle underemployed, you waste
years by not being able to wastehours, and quote, I used to
(01:16):
think that being really busy wasthe best and only way to
succeed, cram it in and figureout a way to squeeze the most
every minute of every day. Andyet, on reflection, it was the
breaks that I took the holidays,two days off the long locks were
friends, sometimes even the timecleaning the house, that led me
to have these kind of newthoughts and new breakthroughs.
(01:36):
So having some slack in thesystem means your brain can do
what it does best. And that'sthink. Number two, you have two
ears and one mouth for a reason.
Back in the days when I thoughtmy ideas were the best ideas
solely because I had them. I hadmany conversations where I
pitched people on new businessideas I started with me and I
talked about myself, literallywas this pitching approach. But
(01:59):
it was the worst. I pretty sureI missed a tonne of insights
from customers that could havehelped me pivot my idea, or
simply to create new businessesbased on their true needs, and
not what I thought their needswere. So in a nutshell, listen
first, actually listen first andsecond. Number three, backwards,
forwards. I used to sit down andstart my day by opening my
(02:25):
email, big loops, the day wouldinevitably lead to me living in
the wrong quadrant of theEisenhower matrix. And over the
long term, not really gettingmuch done, or just getting a lot
of the wrong things done thereally urgent things. Over time,
I've built a solid framework ofreflecting and planning that not
only helps ensure I'm doing theright things, but also helps me
(02:46):
better visualise the trajectorythat I'm on. And the progress
I'm making. I spend just onehour per week reflecting and
planning and that compoundsimmensely over time. Number
four, this is related to theprevious point about backwards
forwards. Using what I know thehumble alphabet, I use a simple
a Zed B framework for trackingmy progress. What are the
(03:09):
Stanford so a? If you imagine atimeline, A to Z? A is where I
am now. Z is where do I want tobe ultimately? And be is what
can I do next? What is the nextstep? So the main point here is
that it's not all the steps.
It's just the next thing that Ican do based on where I am, it
(03:29):
makes it very clear, it helpsyou to visualise the next step.
This works because I could seetruly where I'm at. And that
that matters the most whenprojects are multifaceted,
reminds me of where I'm going.
Because if I don't know whereI'm going, how will I know when
I get there. And mostimportantly, it just helps me
focus on that next step. Not allthe steps, just the next one.
Once I've done my A Bz, I saidbe planning, I use the acronym
(03:53):
FST to help me plan my actualdays. I know this is like
alphabet soup. But this reallydoes help. My theory is that if
I get just three worthy thingsdone every day that move my
projects along that will add upover time. And it seems to be
working so far. It's actuallypretty simple. So f is the first
thing. That's the most importantthing that day. I do not proceed
(04:14):
until I've done that firstthing. That might be a proposal
that takes me a few hours towrite. That might be a blog
post. It could it could be a twominute phone call. It's just the
most important thing I need todo. And sometimes it requires
honesty sit down and go. Is thisthe most important thing or is
the thing that I'm fearingattacking first, the most
(04:36):
important thing usually it'sit's where the fear lies. S is
for the second thing, that's thesecond most important thing that
day, I do not do my s taskwithout doing my F task. So do
the first then do the second. Iguess what T stands for third,
the third thing on I O to dothat when the first and second
things are done. I know this islike planning for children. But
(04:57):
keeping it simple works.
Number five, start smallunperfect. In the very early
years of the festival that Istarted called the street
performance World Championship,which became one of Ireland's
largest outdoor events, therewere many, many stories of near
failure and subsequentlearnings, one that sticks out
(05:19):
the most came from my brother,at what crucial point when it
looked like always lost, and wewouldn't get the funding we
needed. And that the previousyear, his work was going down
the drain. I told my brotherabout what was happening. And he
replied, simply saying, Look,even if you have to put on a
festival in your backyard andjust do something, don't let
that work go to waste. Itdoesn't matter if it's small,
(05:40):
just that it happens. Now, whenI work with people who are
trying to build something bigand are in danger of overwhelm,
I always posed the question,what to small and perfect look
like here. Number six,experiment more. Make little
bets. Not everything has to behuge. Not every decision will
crash and burn your business, doa little bit of fear setting and
(06:01):
just keep going. As RobertPirsig, who wrote Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenancewon't set an experiment is never
a failure solely because itfails to achieve predicted
results. An experiment is afailure only when it also fails
adequately to test thehypothesis question when the
data it produces don't proveanything one way or another.
(06:24):
Number seven, maybe it's themarket, maybe it's the medium,
maybe it's the message. I'vemade mistakes in all three of
these areas market medium andmessage, I've neglected to find
a market first, I fail toapproach the right market in the
right way. And most of all, afail to use what my customers
were telling me to communicatewith them. That last one
deserves the biggest facepalm ofall. First we listen to
(06:47):
understand, then we communicatethat shared understanding.
Number eight, there is no therethere. projects will lead to
more projects will lead to evenmore projects. And further to
that collaborations lead to morecollaborations which lead to
even more collaborations. Sodespite the fact that each new
project or collaboration feelslike it could be the last one,
(07:09):
it never really is. I played keyplaying. And that's been a
really helpful way for me toframe my entrepreneurial
journey. Number nine steal likean artist David Bowie once said,
The only art I'll ever study isthe stuff that I could steal
from. When I work with newbusiness builders, I often
discover an unnoticed desire tocreate something brand new,
(07:29):
something the world has neverseen before. And something that
world will go down because it'sso different. But speaking as a
member of the world, a lot ofthe time, I just want something
to work better, to work faster,or to be cheaper. I don't
necessarily need new and shinythings, I usually just need
something of substance. Myadvice in these situations is
usually to see what's workingand artfully steal that
(07:51):
everything could be aninspiration. And often we can
get 90% of what we need bynoticing and learning from what
has gone before. Number 10. It'ssimpler than it looks. So this
is related to steal like anartist. Because I find that I
often stick with the productsand services I pay for it
because they're simple in someways. They're easy to use,
(08:11):
they're easy to understand,they're easy to share. Keeping a
simple feels like an easilyignored cliche, but it's pretty
powerful if you give it a minuteto sink in. So that's it for the
10 more lessons that I have toshare here. The lessons learned
here were learned throughcareful reflection. I had to
chase them a little bit to getthe true essence of what they
(08:31):
meant to be. Many of them couldhave been easily missed. But I
really did sit down at spendtime figuring out what didn't
work or how I could do thingsbetter. I reflected on my
failures and mistakes and itdoes pay off. Of course as I
mentioned before I also stoleaplenty. Thanks for listening
and do get in touch at Conormccarthy.me If you're out there
looking for your first 10customers or seeking to grow
(08:54):
your business
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