10 things I wish I knew earlier about starting businesses.

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It’s easy to look back at our mistakes and wonder how things might have gone differently, if only. There is only so much value to be had in that mode of thinking. The moment has passed, the decisions were made and paths were taken.

Here is a list of 10 things I’ve learned along the way that might help you improve your decision-making process.

Episode Transcript

Conor McCarthy (00:08):
10 things I wish I knew earlier about starting
businesses, it's easy to lookback at our mistakes and wonder
how things might have gonedifferently. You know, if only,
there's only so much value to behard in that mode of thinking,
though, when you think about it,the moment has passed. And the
decisions we made, meant that wetook certain paths and they've
led to where we are today. Butwhat does remain is the

(00:29):
learning. It's kind of likeresidual growth that can, if
treated non judgmentally canactually be the root of future
successes. The only thing to dowith a good failure is to sit
down, appreciate it, and thenmilk it for all it's worth. Save
yourself, move over ego, I amabsolutely mining this failure
for everything that it's got. Mycurrent work of exposing the

(00:51):
paths of Business Buildersjourneys to the first 10
customers has really forced meto examine my own paths to this
point, and the many things I'velearned along the way. Most of
these things were unfortunatelylearned the hard way. But all of
them have taught me things thatare now part of my kind of
subconscious judgement whenmaking decisions. I don't need
to wonder why this decisionfeels right or wrong. Past

(01:13):
experience has taught me thatthe other way, didn't get me
where I needed to go. It alsosaves me a lot of time rather
than chasing possible futures, Ican immediately ignore the ones
I know from experience won'twork for me. What I've also
found interesting in speakingwith founders on the first 10
podcast is that some of thesemissteps seem to be universal,
they crop up again and again,easy decisions hard one is the

(01:36):
term I give to this class ofknowledge I've gained. In future
blog posts, I'll detail thelittle trips I made with
previous ventures that didn'twork out. But for now, here's a
list of 10 things I've learnedalong the way that might help
you improve your decision makingprocess when it comes to finding
your first 10 customers orgrowing your business. Number
one, figure out what the marketneeds. Look, the statistics on

(01:58):
failed startups are not pretty.
But that doesn't mean we shouldignore them. Their truth is an
important warning to us. When westarted to build a business.
Knowing that most new businessesfail because they don't address
a need is the only motivation,we should need to make sure that
we don't fall into the sametrap. I once started an online
repair service for brokenheadphones. I was absolutely
scratching my own itch. I'm ahuge music, music nerd and I go

(02:22):
through a lot of headphones. Iwent through so many I realised
Hey, what if what if I justrepaired these. So I found
someone to help me do therepairing. And I started this
little mini venture and aftertwo sales in about three months,
where I was promoting it quiteheavily. I just kept the whole
idea because it turned out thatthe market was telling me an
important message about theirdeeds. So when it's okay to

(02:44):
scratch your own itch, find outif there are enough other people
who have the same itch toscratch. Number two is building
strong relationships. When Ithink back to any success I've
ever had in business, it's beenmostly because of who I met and
not the thing I produced. Thatsounds weird to say because in a
lot of cases, I was providing athing such as a product or

(03:06):
service. But always that thingwas in service of a person.
Whether it was the customers Iwas selling to the clients I
collaborated with, or thepartnerships I got involved with
is the people who make it happenand make it real. In the
background. I've written anunholy amount of emails,
proposals, landing pages, youname it, but at the end of the
day, it's us endlesslyfascinating humans that make all

(03:28):
the difference. doubling down onyour relationships, or
understanding what makes peopletick is time well spent. Number
three is to find your minimumviable audience. Minimum Viable
audience, I learned this conceptway too late into my career.
Figuring out the smallest numberof people you need to make your
business work is essential andmaking progress. And it works on

(03:50):
a couple of levels. Firstly, ithelps you to focus on the match
between what you're offering andwhat your customers need, which
I talked about a moment ago.
Secondly, it helps us avoid thedelusions of grandeur, that
could quickly overtake ourthinking, and lead us into
making something for everyone,ie something kind of bland.
thinking deeply about yourminimum viable audience really

(04:12):
does enhance everything fromyour story to your impact.
Number four, get involved inthings you're not that
interested in. I'm always opento collaborations, and putting
myself out into the world hasbeen a fun and enjoyable way of
getting new ideas out there. Butin the early days, when I had
more of a scarcity mindset, Ifound myself saying yes to

(04:34):
collaborations on ideas. I hadzero interest in. So for
example, an online homeinsurance platform. Sure I'll
work on that. Oh, no way. That'sa terrible idea for me to work
on a collagen based healthsupplement company. Okay, let's
go. Actually, let's not go. Iwas way too eager to say yes to
everything that was happeningaround me. Saying no, has

(04:57):
actually served me far, farbetter than saying yes But it
takes a bit of practice to getused to saying no.
Number five, get out there andtalk to your customers. Steve
Blank said it best when hecoined the term get out of the
building. His advice was forstartups was to get out and meet
their customers as much aspossible to get the vital

(05:17):
feedback that could help themfind the elusive product market
fit. He wanted them to leavetheir laptops behind and have
actual conversations. I realisedonly recently that a side
benefit of doing this was thatyou also escaped what I call the
anchorman syndrome. This is whenyou brainstorm a new idea with a
group quietly in the background.
Groupthink sneaks into the room,and it sets in and it's so hard
to get rid of, suddenly,everyone agrees that this new

(05:40):
idea, or this new approach isthe best one, simply because it
was said and we all agree it is.
It's easy and comforting toagree with our colleagues and
friends that this is the bestway to go. But the reality is
that we the people in the roomconstitute an exceptionally
small sample size. And again,it's only by bringing it out to
our customers and seeing whatthey think that we get any real

(06:03):
information about our ideas.
Number six is be specificbecause clarity is kindness.
When I first started coaching,my pitch was basically I coach
people to do things. And it wasa real uphill struggle to get
clients. After a while I bravelyrefined this to I coach business
people to change their corner ofthe world, which was slightly

(06:23):
better, but still not great. Itwas too broad, it was too
watered down. I really struggledto find clients, always thinking
that all I needed to do wasimprove my sales skills, get a
better website by anothermarketing course. But it was
only when I hit on the messagingof I help business builders find
their first 10 customers thatall of a sudden, I heard and saw

(06:43):
people say, oh, right, yeah, Igot it. And I became really
busy. being vague, not only didme no favours, but it also
wasn't generous to those I wastrying to serve. It was putting
the onus on them to try andunderstand how I could help them
instead of being clear andfearless about what I was
offering. Again, clarity iskindness. Number seven, in this

(07:04):
specific lies the universal.
This is related to the clarityhis kindness point. Early on
being vague was also a case ofme trying to throw a very big
marketing net out there to seewho I could reach. Most people
pass right through that net. Iattempt to time and again to

(07:24):
narrow my offering. But anunderlying fear of going so
specific or niche that Iwouldn't be able to find anyone
always scared me away. What Ifound when I landed on the first
10 Customers idea was thatwithin one simple idea, lay a
plethora of options. It wasincredible podcasts, blogs,
workshops, sprints, coachingengagements, so much suddenly
became available to me that I'mno longer stuck for ways to

(07:46):
provide value to those I serve.
It's only when we focus on theatom, can we see the
constellation inside of it?
Number eight, understanding whyyour customers by doubling or
even tripling down on the marketneeds and Minimum Viable
audience points above, I have tosay it again, Know thy customer.

(08:06):
In a conversation aboutunderstanding customers with my
friend Ian, he advised me to,quote, find someone with a first
name at a blood type A realperson you can build for this
way you can solve for actualneeds and get direct feedback
from the people you seek toserve. That way, instead of
building it for some genericpersona, you build it for a
genuine person, ie dissolves Xfor Samantha, unquote. We could

(08:31):
spend all day thinking aboutdemographics and psychographics.
But the realisation that I neverever buy something, because I'm
aged between 40 and 50. And I'ma homeowner, because I have two
kids or work for myself. Thiswas a lightning bolt moment for
me. There may be a correlation,but it wasn't causation. The
reality is that I and youlistening to this buy things to

(08:52):
make some sort of progress inour life. If you've heard of
jobs to be done, we buy thingsto get the job done.
Understanding this helped me onthe road to truly understanding
the same and those I sought toserve. A key to this is
understanding my customerreviews and how and appealing to
those first. And not the factthat they're a homeowner, for
example, enabled me to trulystep into their shoes.

(09:15):
Number nine, get comfortablewith uncertainty. When you work
for yourself, no two days arethe same. It's such a cliche,
and as much as you need to getused to this idea, and also get
used to the fact that this isoften portrayed in a positive
light. Just imagine the fun ofno two days being the same. The
reality is a constant feeling ofspinning plates, juggling tasks,
and just a dim sense ofuncertainty about what's going

(09:38):
to happen next. In seeking thefreedoms that no self employment
are after being comfortable withuncertainty is a necessary skill
in the context of a day filledwith tasks of varying priorities
and content. That can meanputting aside any feelings of
what the day should look likeand tackling what the day
actually is. There's a greatsaying you know, eat a frog

(09:58):
first. You know get your mostimportant tasks out of the way
early, even if they're a bityucky, use GTD planning, getting
things done the various ways toto select productivity weapons.
But most importantly, spending alittle time creating some kind
of a plan for dealing with theoverwhelm that will show up is
time spent. Number 10 321 Go.
This is a little trick that hasoften gotten me through the

(10:24):
tasks where I say, Oh, I know Ineed to do this. But I really
don't want to do this. If Istart the day, and I see a task
looming that I pre plan to do,that now looks boring or
difficult. I just give myself athree second countdown to start
it. That's it, I see the taskand I feel that emotion rise up
and I go 321 Go on a jump in.

(10:46):
I'm not entirely sure why thisworks. But it does. And that's
good enough. So try foryourself, see if it works.
That's lessons one to 10. Therewill be more lessons in future
podcasts and blog posts. And ofcourse, the learnings don't just
stop here. What should beobvious is that none of these
failures were game Enders. Theywere just waypoints on the

(11:07):
journey. And of course therearen't just 10 of these. So
please do keep an eye out formore of those learning
experience slash cleaners thathave occurred in my life that
I'm happy to share with you sothat maybe you can avoid the
same mistakes I made and gainsomething from the learnings I
made along the way. Helping youfind your first 10 customers is
what I do. So do pop over to mywebsite at Conor mccarthy.me. To

(11:29):
read more about how I can helpyou get your first 10 customers.
Make sure while you're there tosign up to my mailing list, you
get some free resources on howto find your first 10 Customers