Monday, December 8, 2008

Startup advice from John Major.

John Major is the Founder and President of MTSG, an investment and strategic consulting partnership. Previously, he was the CEO of Novatel Wireless, Inc., a San Diego based provider of wireless broadband access solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market, where he led the company's successful IPO.

- Remember, a great idea often sounds dumb initially to smart people.

- Get the goals explicit and clear. When you don’t know where you’re going, all roads lead there and this slows you down.

- Keep the message simple. Remember the line from the movie Jerry McGuire; “You had me from hello!”

- Have operations review meetings once a week. Ask, “How can we all work together to make the success we want happen?”

- Get people used to asking themselves, “How do I have to change my behavior to make others more successful?”

- When people aren’t successful, they know it. So, help these people out the door and make sure to thank them for their contributions. In a small industry, you’ll probably end up working with them again, so don’t burn your bridges.

- People can be categorized along the following continuum:

Some are dumb - Some are smart

Some are high energy - Some are low energy

Make sure the dumb, high energy people are working for someone else, preferably for your competitors.

- Impose limits on your growth. Too many opportunities can kill you as easily as too few.

- Don’t look to maximize sales; look to maximize profits.

- Many growing companies fail because they don’t really understand their economic model. When they don’t stay aligned with their market, they don’t have enough money.

1 comment:

Jay Sea said...

"Make sure the dumb, high energy people are working for someone else, preferably for your competitors"

Hahahah. Love this.