What adding value looks like

One of the first pieces of startup jargon you’ll hear when creating a company is the importance of focusing on pain points, and adding value.

It’s a simple idea: talk to potential customers, find out what’s not working, create an experiment that addresses that pain point, and see what happens.

In lean startup language this is often called a MVP (minimum viable product) but it’s been around since the scientific method was invented, and maybe even longer.

For the most part, big data sets aren’t necessary at this stage. If you listen to your customers, look at their habits with respect to your product vs. what they do otherwise, you’ll find out quickly if you’re adding value to their life and/or work.

But adding value can work in a lot of ways, not all of them are real and/or sustainable on even a medium range much less long-term. Lyft and Uber used claims of revolutionizing transportation to create artificial growth and “solve” a pain point for consumers. Yet, both companies have heavily subsidized the cost for a majority of riders, and lost billions of dollars each year.

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When negotiation happens

Negotiation is one of the biggest challenges in growing a career.

We usually think of it in relation to getting a new job, asking for a raise, or requesting a more flexible work schedule.

But negotiation happens more often than we might like to admit…

  • A new project or opportunity arises, and it is not clear who will lead it.

  • An established workflow changes because team/company priorities have shifted.

  • Life circumstances arrive that change an individual colleague’s priorities.

The key in nearly every case is to recognize the moment, prepare the basics of what you need/want, and take time to process how you feel about the potential outcomes.

For most of us, each negotiation is a chance to learn. Almost always, you don’t get everything you want. That promotion or job title may come with added salary, but also with more responsibilities and ambiguity.

The chance to impact overall success by leading a new project is tempting, but can mean having to spend time thinking about learning styles, motivations, and how to hold each person accountable.

The important thing is to see that it is a negotiation, and practice. When you practice negotiating on the small things, you prepare yourself for the moments where everything is on the line.

A metric for investing in your team

Here is a thing not many people will say out loud: investing in your team is hard.

Often, it is an expected part of a founder, executive, or leader's job but not valued in the same way that revenue, customers, product use etc. are even though investing in your team is what helps you hit those goals.

Coaching / leading a team is also the defining factor in whether or not you are creating sustainable and responsible growth with purpose, with equity...or just floating some line about diversity or meritocracy.

How you design your internal choices (or not) and enable your team to keep iterating, changing, updating, seeing opportunity individually + together, that's the whole battle.

You'll never hear this at a board meeting or on a quarterly earnings call, but it matters.

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When things go wrong

Things can go sideways in any company or organization, regardless of size or industry.

You don’t have to be evil or stupid for this to happen. Markets change constantly, and timing and luck have a lot to do with whether your product is successful over time.

Often, there are opportunities to course correct before the problem(s) become major. But seeing those opportunities (and acting on them) depends heavily on building good culture.

At a team level, if you are a manager, director, or executive cutting headcount or delivering a performance improvement plan (corporate lingo for “you’re not doing well and need to get it together”), it’s already too late.

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Who is it for

At the beginning of every new venture, there is one question that matters…

Who is it for?

Often, our dream is for the new thing to reach as many people as possible. “Everyone!” we respond, knowing that what we are working on has the potential to change the world.

Experienced founders know this is a trap. You can always increase the scope of what you’re working on later, but growth begins by focusing on specific audiences and communities.

This is why we unconsciously dismiss brands or organizations that churn out huge and life-changing promises, but don’t deliver the specifics. We know, of course, that it is hard to change the world but seek relationships where people deliver on their promises.

At every moment, ask yourself, who is this for? And if you aspire to develop a strong and broad community …the answer isn’t “the ceo” or “the board” or “me.”

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