How to f*ck up your startup

Okay Alex. I’ll put it on the list 🙄

Alex is our CTO at Sup. When he’s not leading our awesome engineers to build awesome stuff, he likes to bug Rich and I. However, this time, he actually had a pretty good point.

Rather than defining a list of rules that would help us grow, we spat out a list of how we could fuck this whole thing up. This is a lot easier and can be used as a ‘not-to-do’ list.

So, here it is:

1. Over complicate things

Make quick decisions — don’t over complicate things and waste time. No one cares if the copy on your flyers isn’t perfect. Get on with it.

And do things that don’t scale. You never know… they just might.

We gave these out outside Facebook’s office. Hehe.

2. Be greedy

When it comes to working with partners, don’t be greedy for a deal. Brevity of negotiations is very important. Of course you want to get a good deal, but there comes a point where you will reach diminishing returns, waste time and hinder relationships.

Accept it and/or move on.

3. Ignore results

You need to obsess over results. How did they compare to your projections? Experiment. Evaluate. Cut/Repeat.

4. Get emotional

Don’t get attached to ideas. You had a great idea for a growth stream. Turns out it was a shit idea. Oh well. Get over it. Don’t do it again.

5. Give up

Whilst it’s important to cut streams that don’t work, you also need to exercise tireless persistence. I think they call it ‘grit’…

6. Forget target CPA

Spending money is fun. Don’t get carried away with growth streams that have no potential to deliver an effective return on investment. For Sup, ‘cost per acquisition’ (CPA) needs to stay low.

7. Get complacent

A few weeks ago, we had a sweet day on Product Hunt, followed by a feature on the App Store.

Mama, I made it!

Our numbers went crazy and I felt like the fucking man. Our 📈eventually turned in to a 🔔 and it was time to get back to work.

Don’t let this happen. Don’t get complacent.

Growth is lagged. No work today = no results tomorrow.

Which leads me nicely on to…

8. Be dormant

Do something every day. If there’s one activity we have found to work, it is activity itself. Doing something every day just works.

9. Neglect to plan

Doing something every day isn’t possible without planning ahead. Write a growth calendar, so you can plan daily activity for the month ahead.

10. Make inconsistent decisions

Establish a framework from which to make decisions. For example, ‘Will this activity get us more users?’. When it comes to deciding on new product features at Sup, we go back to ‘Will this help our users see their friends more?’.

Hope this helps. Always happy to chat. Tweet me.