All in 15 minutes a day, you might think I was peddling snake oil.
There’s actually an easy way to do it.
Show gratitude
Here's a simple practice that I've seen work:
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Your best people *are* being recruited.
They're being offered better titles, better pay, and the rush of being courted.
If you’re not making them feel recognized and valued at your company, they will take one of these offers.
Don’t lose them to a lack of attention.
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I understand why founders let this slip.
They have urgent fires to put out.
They feel put upon by VCs, customers, and even their own teams.
These are all good reasons to make appreciation a process.
Start by booking 15 min a day to thank people for the work they’re doing.
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I mean this literally.
Block 15 minutes on your calendar *every day* and use it to find ways to thank your team. Even a specific email thank you can make a huge difference and make someone's day.
/4
Just a few words can make an outsized impact:
“The new slide deck looks great!”
“Your analysis of the competitive landscape was insightful.”
“I’m glad you pushed back – you raised important points!”
“This new ad copy is hilarious, and it’s converting; keep going!”
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You don’t need to compliment everyone. However, assuming you are decent at recruiting, 80% of folks at your company are probably doing good work – some even excellent work.
How many regrettable losses are you willing to bear over the failure to make those people feel valued?
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This practice will come naturally to some, but I find it doesn’t for most. If you’re the type who is reflexively uncomfortable with this idea, it is all the more important to set up a system to make up for this costly shortcoming.
/7
You may balk at the idea of scheduling something that should be heartfelt. Most founders will find that it soon becomes an organic habit after they make time to do this programmatically. If you focus on making the comments heartfelt, that will come through.
/8
“Programmatic appreciation” can work wonders. It becomes contagious. When senior managers see the CEO express appreciation, they do the same. At some point, the inevitable outcome is a company with a positive culture where employees feel valued.
/9
For those founders reading this and rolling their eyes, here's a different frame: your employees are all working hard trying to make you a billionaire. It shouldn’t be hard to appreciate that hard work and find daily reasons to offer gratitude.
/10
These small gestures take minutes and cost quite a bit less than a retained search to find a replacement for a single regrettable loss or the raise that you give someone to keep them at the company when they got a 50% higher offer elsewhere after feeling undervalued.
/11
Raises, bonuses, and stock options signal appreciation in a material way, but don’t underestimate the ROI on a small act of kindness!
/End
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.@zachklein is one of the best design thinkers in the startup world, and he recently shared his wisdom via FC office hours with our portfolio. Three takeaways:
🪞 Being pretty is too expensive
📏 Define design success in *your* terms
🚫 Great companies say no to good ideas
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🪞 Being pretty is too expensive
Polishing a design too early in the process can lead teams to fall in love with work that doesn’t ultimately serve your startup. After you’ve devoted resources to pretty-up a design it’s hard to throw it away in favor of something better.
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It’s better to treat designs as disposable by default until they’ve proven their worth, rather than investing in a “Potemkin Village” that looks impressive but has weak results.
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Return to the classroom has huge advantages – it’s an inarguable point. It’s important to keep equity issues top of mind. There are also some very positive indicators that safe return to school is possible.
However, these advantages have to be balanced against the risks. When considering grandpa’s (potential) premature death and mom’s (not unlikely) eight-weeks of incapacitation due to COVID. Remote school doesn’t seem so bad in that context.
/3
When pitching your startup, instead of a linear flow, think of your startup’s story like a pyramid with many layers.
Each layer of the pyramid is the entire story of the company at different levels of resolution.
/1
At the top, you see the entire shape of the startup in miniature form. The tip is a word or tagline that tells the whole story. Followed by an elevator pitch etc.
In the middle tier, countless layers go into deeper detail.
And the base is made of millions of data points.
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This means you should be able to tell the entire story of your company in the first 30 seconds & also 5 minutes.
Think of 5 min as an extended version of your elevator pitch with visual accompaniment.
It's what want the VC to repeat to their partners at the Monday meeting
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Founders need to be ambitious and there’s nothing wrong with “going big,” but this mindset can lead to bad decisions and negative consequences at the early stage.
Every billion-dollar business first needs to become a million-dollar business.
Often, the $1B+ opportunity isn’t even clear until you’ve gotten to $10M, or even $100M in revenue.
You can’t skip over these phases & those who try usually fail rather than going big.
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Many founders have missed out on life-changing exits because they were prematurely funded to the point where the only viable win condition is a billion-dollar exit.
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