Startups: 10 Things MBA Schools Won't Teach You →
1. No amount of strategic planning will ever substitute for managing your cash flow. Financial statements are great. The most important one is your bank account statement.
2. There are always more things to do than there is time to do them. Startups are a continuous exercise in deciding what not to do. You can sometimes win by just not doing things faster than your competition.
3. Sleep is that time you’re working on startup problems with your eyes closed.
4. It helps not to call people “human resources”. They’re people. And, as it turns out, people like to be treated like people. Go figure.
5. No amount of academic theories on efficient pricing will prepare you completely for what people will actually do. Finding the “optimal” price is really hard. In the meantime, remember that a sub-optimal price is a lot better than no price at all.
6. Price discrimination (in an economic sense) is a wonderful thing. Except that it often ignores the real costs in terms of organizational complexity. Every time you add a new product or product option a small part of your company dies.
7. There are an infinite number of ways to spend money on marketing. You have no idea what’s actually going to work. The idea is to experiment broadly and learn lessons cheaply. On a related note, no amount of MBA marketing classes will prepare you for the day that you have to produce leads in order to close sales. As it turns out, marketing is about more than product feature matrices and the right shade of blue for your logo.
8. To recruit the best people, fair compensation and equity are 
only a start. Company culture and a demonstrated passion for your vision is hugely important. (Oh, and your vision should be on the larger path to truth, justice and overall goodness). Your vision should not involve harming kittens. They’re adorable. [insert gratuitious kitten photo here]
9. There’s a lot of value to being likable. Good things happen when people like you. When people like you, bad things have less of a chance of being fatal. I advise being likable. That’s why I advise against being an investment banker after getting an MBA. (I also advise against being an investment banker before getting an MBA).
10. Advanced game theory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational “players”. It’s like trying to design a real car that’s going to be driven on a theoretically frictionless surface, with no air resistance and no idiots on the road.
What are your top startup lessons learned that even the top MBA schools don’t teach?
Update:37 Pithy Insights From Street-Smart Entrepreneurs
1. Infect employees with pride of ownership. If the employees feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, then they’ll work that way.
2. Every company has “idiotsyncracies.” Some crazy thing they do that works for them but would never work anywhere else. Trying to “correct” that ends up destroying what makes the company special.
3. You pour your heart and soul into a startup. Someone who hasn’t done it won’t understand the effort until they go through it.
4. Most start ups should start selling the product before they think they should.
5. Ritualize the work atmosphere — everytime a contract comes in, ring a bell or gong and let everyone celebrate. There’s a reason Survivor has rituals.
6. Competitors & customers can, do, and will do irrational things. Neither care about your title, your education, your pedigree, your investors, or your SAT scores.
7. Customers are defined as people or organizations who pay more for something than it costs you to make it. The relationship should be arms-length (which is why your dad is not a real customer).
8. A lack of competitors is almost always a bad thing because it means the market you entered doesn’t interest anybody else.
9. Your core founding team needs to be smart, energetic and committed. It helps if they can fill multiple roles at the same time (sell, write software, deliver services and invoice).
10. Leave your ego at the door and hire people without big egos that can understand how to look at a problem and be open to solutions no matter where they come from. Keep those people.
11. Get exposure to potential customers as cheaply as possible and then make sure that all the information is there for them to make a decision.
12. If prospects won’t open their wallets for the beta or prototype, then no amount spent on marketing or sales will matter.
13. No matter how great your service or product, there will always be very smart people who’s advice you trust telling you that your service or product is crazy and will never sell.
14. S**t happens, but it’s usually not as bad as it first seems.
15. It’s tragic when good products never make it to market because they were never properly sold. If no one in your company knows how to find qualified leads for your product, you are in big trouble.
16. Take care of the people with integrity
17. Startup entrepreneurs need a handful of trusted, objective advisors who will share their perceptions of what’s so - no matter what.
18. How are you continuing to invest in your customers and their experience after they have purchased your product? Value relates to the entire customer experience.
19. No one deal or opportunity should be worth damaging a long term relationship (business or otherwise).
20. The most successful businesses are ones where a group of friends help each other succeed.
21. Ultimately, the CEO’s position is to simultaneously lead and serve others.
22. You never know when you will be working with people from your past, so always be respectful, and professional. Paths cross when and where we least expect them.
23. It is important that you like your customers. If you do not like your customers you will by design not do the best you can for them because they annoy you.
24. As any entrepreneur knows, you are pretty much selling all the time to everyone, whether VCs, prospective clients, employees or significant others.
25. Life will happen. Your best employee will quit to do something else..that doesn’t mean that they don’t care, just that it’s their time to move on.
26. Keep doing good without being able to sight an immediate reward. The reward often comes unexpectedly.
27. A startup mentor is really like a therapist, if you think about it…
28. Tough times never last, tough people do.
29. The “iasm” in enthusiasm stands for I Am Sold Myself.
30. A bad decision is often better than no decision at all.
31. There’s no better way to research a market than just launching a product.
32. Often you can start selling something simpler, to more customers, sooner than you think.
33. There are three primary ways to get cash in: 1) Customers 2) Financing 3) Sale/Disposal of Assets. Great businesses figure out #1 so they don’t have to worry about the others.
34. Just because you’re an Internet company doesn’t mean you are or should be a global company.
35. Distribution and channel partners don’t want to sell your product. They want to take orders and make money.
36. Startups have many diseconomies of scale: The more people, features, markets, products, business models, investors, etc. — the harder it is.
37. Be objective. Learn to listen to what the world is telling you (and often beating you over the head with).
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the conversation so far. It’s great to see such energy, enthusiasm and experience from the entrepreneurial community.
via OnStartups.com
