10 (more) things I wish I knew earlier about starting businesses.

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.

Transcript

Conor McCarthy: 0:09

10 more things I wish I knew earlier about starting businesses. Like anyone who works for themselves, I have a litany of things I've learned the hard way. All of them have taught me things that now are part of my subconscious judgement when making decisions that basically helped me to be less wrong in the future. In speaking with founders on the first 10 podcast about how they found their first 10 customers, I've discovered that some of these mistakes and failures are kind of 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're worth a big believer in that. Don't let them leave the building without picking their pockets first. So here's a short list of 10 more things that I've learned along the way that might help you improve your decision making process and general judgement. Number one, waste time to save time. This is a steal from Amos Tversky, the late collaborator of Nobel winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Amos once said, quote, The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed, you waste years by not being able to waste hours, and quote, I used to think that being really busy was the best and only way to succeed, cram it in and figure out a way to squeeze the most every minute of every day. And yet, on reflection, it was the breaks that I took the holidays, two days off the long locks were friends, sometimes even the time cleaning the house, that led me to have these kind of new thoughts and new breakthroughs. So having some slack in the system means your brain can do what it does best. And that's think. Number two, you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Back in the days when I thought my ideas were the best ideas solely because I had them. I had many conversations where I pitched people on new business ideas I started with me and I talked about myself, literally was this pitching approach. But it was the worst. I pretty sure I missed a tonne of insights from customers that could have helped me pivot my idea, or simply to create new businesses based on their true needs, and not what I thought their needs were. So in a nutshell, listen first, actually listen first and second. Number three, backwards, forwards. I used to sit down and start my day by opening my email, big loops, the day would inevitably lead to me living in the wrong quadrant of the Eisenhower matrix. And over the long term, not really getting much done, or just getting a lot of the wrong things done the really urgent things. Over time, I've built a solid framework of reflecting and planning that not only helps ensure I'm doing the right things, but also helps me better visualise the trajectory that I'm on. And the progress I'm making. I spend just one hour per week reflecting and planning and that compounds immensely over time. Number four, this is related to the previous point about backwards forwards. Using what I know the humble alphabet, I use a simple a Zed B framework for tracking my progress. What are the Stanford so a? If you imagine a timeline, A to Z? A is where I am now. Z is where do I want to be ultimately? And be is what can I do next? What is the next step? So the main point here is that it's not all the steps. It's just the next thing that I can do based on where I am, it makes it very clear, it helps you to visualise the next step. This works because I could see truly where I'm at. And that that matters the most when projects are multifaceted, reminds me of where I'm going. Because if I don't know where I'm going, how will I know when I get there. And most importantly, it just helps me focus on that next step. Not all the steps, just the next one. Once I've done my A Bz, I said be planning, I use the acronym FST to help me plan my actual days. I know this is like alphabet soup. But this really does help. My theory is that if I get just three worthy things done every day that move my projects along that will add up over time. And it seems to be working so far. It's actually pretty simple. So f is the first thing. That's the most important thing that day. I do not proceed until I've done that first thing. That might be a proposal that takes me a few hours to write. That might be a blog post. It could it could be a two minute phone call. It's just the most important thing I need to do. And sometimes it requires honesty sit down and go. Is this the most important thing or is the thing that I'm fearing attacking first, the most important thing usually it's it's where the fear lies. S is for the second thing, that's the second most important thing that day, I do not do my s task without doing my F task. So do the first then do the second. I guess what T stands for third, the third thing on I O to do that when the first and second things are done. I know this is like planning for children. But keeping it simple works. Number five, start small unperfect. In the very early years of the festival that I started called the street performance World Championship, which became one of Ireland's largest outdoor events, there were many, many stories of near failure and subsequent learnings, one that sticks out the most came from my brother, at what crucial point when it looked like always lost, and we wouldn't get the funding we needed. And that the previous year, his work was going down the drain. I told my brother about what was happening. And he replied, simply saying, Look, even if you have to put on a festival in your backyard and just do something, don't let that work go to waste. It doesn't matter if it's small, just that it happens. Now, when I work with people who are trying to build something big and 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 be huge. Not every decision will crash and burn your business, do a little bit of fear setting and just keep going. As Robert Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance won't set an experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis question when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another. Number seven, maybe it's the market, maybe it's the medium, maybe it's the message. I've made mistakes in all three of these areas market medium and message, I've neglected to find a market first, I fail to approach the right market in the right way. And most of all, a fail to use what my customers were telling me to communicate with them. That last one deserves the biggest facepalm of all. First we listen to understand, then we communicate that shared understanding. Number eight, there is no there there. projects will lead to more projects will lead to even more projects. And further to that collaborations lead to more collaborations which lead to even more collaborations. So despite the fact that each new project or collaboration feels like it could be the last one, it never really is. I played key playing. And that's been a really helpful way for me to frame my entrepreneurial journey. Number nine steal like an artist David Bowie once said, The only art I'll ever study is the stuff that I could steal from. When I work with new business builders, I often discover an unnoticed desire to create something brand new, something the world has never seen before. And something that world will go down because it's so different. But speaking as a member of the world, a lot of the time, I just want something to work better, to work faster, or to be cheaper. I don't necessarily need new and shiny things, I usually just need something of substance. My advice in these situations is usually to see what's working and artfully steal that everything could be an inspiration. And often we can get 90% of what we need by noticing and learning from what has gone before. Number 10. It's simpler than it looks. So this is related to steal like an artist. Because I find that I often stick with the products and services I pay for it because they're simple in some ways. They're easy to use, they're easy to understand, they're easy to share. Keeping a simple feels like an easily ignored cliche, but it's pretty powerful if you give it a minute to sink in. So that's it for the 10 more lessons that I have to share here. The lessons learned here were learned through careful reflection. I had to chase them a little bit to get the true essence of what they meant to be. Many of them could have been easily missed. But I really did sit down at spend time figuring out what didn't work or how I could do things better. I reflected on my failures and mistakes and it does pay off. Of course as I mentioned before I also stole aplenty. Thanks for listening and do get in touch at Conor mccarthy.me If you're out there looking for your first 10 customers or seeking to grow your business