Nuggets from Startup Grind

Great takeouts from Aussie Entrepreneur Lacey Filipich https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gold-from-guy-kawasaki-more-startup-grind-apac-2018-67-lacey-filipich/ 

follow Lacey here https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceyjfilipich/

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this conference, so was thrilled to walk away with some absolute gold from the presenters:

Guy Kawasaki

Hands down, Day 1’s highlight was Jules Lund’sinterview with Guy Kawasaki. Jules was brilliant as interviewer. His questions were succinct and he resisted the temptation to add his own opinions into things, focusing on drawing out depth from Guy (there's a not-so-suble hint for anyone finding themselves in the interviewer's chair there). It was pure pleasure to watch two consummate professionals do their thing.

Key takeaways were:

• Sales fixes everything – having cashflow from sales will keep investors off your back and solve most problems. If there are problems sales don’t fix, at least sales give you the money to fix the other things.

• Fear is healthy – an entrepreneur is either afraid or stupid/lying. Fear is an excellent motivator. Guy credits fear of having Steve Jobs’ critical eye land on him as one of the reasons he did some of his best work at Apple.
• Declare victory – Silicon Valley is good at this (victory keeps the hype and therefore value of companies up) but Australians aren’t. We need to get better at it.
• Implementing is hard – having the idea is the easy part. If you’re worried about your idea being stolen, then your idea isn’t a good one. Most of the work comes from the implementation which puts everyone off.

Jessica Alter

Jessica Alter’s chat with Sheree Rubinstein (another excellent interviewer) was fabulous, and Jessica’s attitude was awesome.

My key takeaway as a founder was to get good at receiving difficult feedback – you know, the stuff you don’t want to hear. If more than one trusted person is giving you the same feedback, you need to consider that they might be right, and be open to listening to it, then acting on it.

Justin Dry

The co-founder of Vinomofo Justin’s chat with Judy Anderson (again, fab interviewer) was equal parts funny and enlightening. 

I won’t embarrass Justin by sharing the words on his mirror that he repeats each morning – great work Judy finding out about that. I’ll share instead something I learned about Vinomofo’s hiring: 

Every new hire (and they’re over 100 people now) does the Gallup Strengths Finder test and the Five Love Languages test.

I think this is brilliant. 

For those who haven’t heard: Gallup Strengths Finder is a test to help you work out what you’re best at, so you can focus your energy there. You also acknowledge what you’re not good at, and accordingly you can make sure you have people around you that cover those weaknesses.

I’ve done Myers Briggs (ENTJ) , Belbin (Resource Investigator) and others. Gallup’s the closest I’ve come to feeling like it describes me and like I can apply it meaningfully (especially with Michelle Pope's help). If you’re curious, the below image is a couple of screenshots from my report ordering the 34 possible strengths from strongest (1) to weakest (34) in my case:

By knowing the strengths of his employees, Justin and his team can make sure they’ve got the right people working on the right stuff.

 Re: Love Languages, he theorizes that by understanding how an employee likes to be shown appreciation (a.k.a. love), Vinomofo can choose the best reward for them. It’s more commonly applied in personal relationships – between married couples and their children – but the application in the workplace seems like a no-brainer (I’ve not seen it done before).

Having read the book, I know I’m a ‘words of affirmation’ type.  

If you knew what kind of love your individual employees preferred, how much more effective would your reward and recognition programs be? 

Justin just might be a genius.

Craig Blair

The co-founder of AirTree Ventures shared a couple of gold nuggets:

• Timing is critical – in fact, Craig considered timing more important than any other factor in a business’ success. This TED talk from Bill Grosssupports Craig’s belief.
• Pitches are getting better and bolder – using storytelling and more TEDx-style delivery is improving the quality of the pitches they’re seeing (hear, hear), and Australian startups are getting bolder in their visions. Craig sees these as good things. 

Layne Beachley AO

Taking the stage barefoot on Day 2, Beachley knocked my socks off.

Using a story of riding a 50ft wave in Hawaii (two, actually) she illustrated what she calls the 3C’s of success:

• Courage – to face our fears, to use the adrenaline to focus entirely on the moment. She loves fear for the clarity it gives her.
• Conviction – the belief that you can do it, because you’ve done the work. Squashing that voice of self-doubt in your head, which is programmed to appear in times of crisis, and reminding yourself that you’ve got the skills to finish the task. What you focus on expands, so focus on what you can do.
• Consistency – doing the 100 small things, again and again.

Jemma Green

Funny to find myself hearing Dr Jemma Green speak in person for the first time in Melbourne when I live in her hometown of Perth, where she speaks regularly. But absolutely worth it.

Her advice for hiring echoed Justin’s. To use her words: hire like your life depends on it, because it does.

PowerLedger’s founders interview all new hires (they’ve grown rapidly from 5 to 30 this year) and they intend to continue in this fashion. 

I also loved her advice to not sacrifice quality for speed. It’s tempting as a founder to rush everything, but demonstrating the care and attention to make the right decisions and produce quality results sets the culture of an organisation. Don’t be tempted to rush if it will jeopardise the quality of your outcomes.

Personally, I am absolutely thrilled that she sees building a market in Perth as a priority. We are lucky to have her in our city.

At this point, my brain exploded with all the goodness and depth of advice from these and 60-odd other awesome people, and I had to take a break. 

I’ll go back for the wrap-up this afternoon when I’ve reassembled my head :)