I chatted with a founder who’s built an early product but hasn’t yet found product–market fit. He has some paying users but still hasn’t come up with that one thing that customers immediately see value in. His product does several things that people collectively like, but not one thing that people love.

As we chatted, he mentioned that he decided not to fundraise right now (he had an investor lined up already). His reasoning was straightforward. Because he doesn’t have product–market fit, he doesn’t know what he would spend the money on. Sure, he could grow the team, but he doesn’t feel that would solve the current challenge. He hasn’t yet identified the thing that customers really want him to build, so he doesn’t have a clear direction for the company or product. He has a small amount of recurring revenue and cash on hand, so meeting operating expenses isn’t a concern.

I like how honest and candid this founder was about the current state of things. He’s very aware of the stage his company is in and what it needs. Job number one is to figure out what customers want, and the team he has, though small, can do that.

I think this founder is headed in the right direction. He has some revenue coming in and is keeping burn low by keeping his team small. Once he finds product–market fit, I’m sure he’ll be off to the races!

A founder friend of mine recently hired a coach. The coach had him do an interesting exercise: go around to people in his life and ask for feedback. I and others were asked to grade him in certain areas and provide written feedback on strengths, weaknesses, etc.

One of the most important things founders can do is develop self-awareness. Easy to say, but hard to do. People don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they avoid giving pointed feedback. When you’re the leader, it’s even worse because most people are uncomfortable critiquing their boss. And frankly, some founders don’t want to listen to what can feel like criticism.

I think this founder and his coach soliciting feedback is a great exercise. He’ll receive the feedback digitally, so he’ll be able to revisit it in the future. Going through this process with the guidance of a coach will help him reflect on the feedback, make connections, and develop actionable steps going forward. The coach can hold him accountable to the process and the changes he commits to.

Self-awareness is an attribute of many successful entrepreneurs. I’m excited to see what my friend learns about himself and how he uses it to improve as a person and entrepreneur.  

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I’ve begun reading Who Is Michael Ovitz? It’s a memoir about Michael Ovitz and his journey, including how he founded and built Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the powerhouse talent agency. He’s known for having an outsize influence in Hollywood and being a shrewd negotiator. CAA’s four commandments stood out to me:

1. Never lie to your clients or colleagues
2. Return every call by end of day
3. Follow up and don’t leave people guessing
4. Never bad-mouth the competition

I noticed that numbers 2 and 3 are related—they both deal with how to communicate. The fact that communication makes this short list twice speaks to its importance in Ovitz’s industry. And it’s true of every industry: how we communicate (especially with customers and partners) can have a material impact on outcomes. I like that Michael makes effective communication a priority, and I’m sure it was a big contributor to CAA’s success given the centrality of relationships in the industry.

I listened to a founder speak today. He said something that stuck with me:

“Mind share precedes market share.”

It’s simple but powerful.

Lots of people build great solutions that don’t get used. It’s the if you build it, they will come mentality. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. People must know your solution exists before they can use it.

So how do you get mind share? Many approaches involve marketing skills. I have zero marketing skills, so I won’t speak to any of them. One approach that doesn’t require marketing know-how is doing customer discovery before you build your solution.

Take time to understand the problem by finding and listening to people who are experiencing the problem. People love to talk about their problems. If you listen, you’ll hopefully build rapport with them, and they’ll remember you in connection with this problem. Once you solve the problem, you can go back to these same people. You’ll likely be considered a trusted person, and they’ll give your solution a shot. If it works well and they’re happy, you can ask them to introduce you to other people experiencing the same problem. It’s a slower way to build mind share, but it’s effective.

If you’re a founder, consider periodically thinking about how you’ll build mind share before you can build market share.

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I had the chance to meet with and listen to a few seasoned Atlanta founders recently. They’ve built businesses worth billions, and some have exited their companies. When these guys and gals talk about business, they know what they’re talking about, so you want to listen. As they answered questions and gave their thoughts on what to do in difficult situations, I noticed that they didn’t hesitate. They knew exactly what to do and how to do it. It was as if it was automatic.

They also shared specific experiences. They described hesitating in making certain decisions early in their journey, only to regret not making them sooner. They learned painful lessons that stuck with them. When they face similar challenging situations now, they act quickly and confidently.

My big takeaway is that experience makes what you do in difficult situations automatic. Living through something difficult (or watching others live it) is the ultimate learning. It helps you recognize what you’re dealing with and act decisively. It’s automatic—meaning you don’t have to ponder and wonder and worry; you know what to do and act quickly.

Experience is immensely valuable to entrepreneurs. If you want to be able to act automatically in difficult situations, make it a priority to get that experience or become connected with people who have it.

This past week, I had the chance to listen to one of the founders of an Atlanta unicorn share his experience of choosing his co-founder. A few takeaways:

• Finding a partner who has skills complementary to yours is important. You can’t be good at everything, so you need a partner who’s strong where you’re weak.
• You must trust your cofounder to own functional areas. That doesn’t mean you should expect them to not make mistakes. But you should be able to trust them to own their mistakes and discuss them with others. Their mistakes are learning moments.
• One of the key things that attracted him to his cofounder was their mutual demonstrated habit of learning and improving themselves. Both had coaches, read tons of books, and committed to a path of self-improvement through their actions (not their talk). They’d also both had start-ups fail, and they’d spent time reflecting on their failures.
• Great people want to be held accountable, and good cofounders hold each other accountable (I agree).

All of these are great points, and I’m thankful he shared them. The point about learning and self-improvement really stuck with me. A few weeks back, I shared my thoughts on learning being a throttle on your success. I never thought about it in the context of finding a cofounder before, but it makes a lot of sense. A players want to work with other A players. It’s no different for cofounders. Learning and improving yourself consistently will definitely attract other like-minded A players (and likely lead to outsize success too).

I listened to a founder share his thoughts on initiatives he chose to pursue. He considered both the probability of success and the size of the potential payoff. The ones he green-lighted weren’t the ones most likely to succeed—they were the ones with the biggest potential payoff. He knew some were long shots with only a 50% chance of succeeding, but if they did succeed, the payoff would be enormous. He was comfortable with a 50% chance because the payoff would be game-changing for his company.

I love this founder’s thought process. Most people look for a sure thing, or close to it. This founder understands that most things in life aren’t certain. There’s always a chance that things won’t go as planned. He’s thinking about the probabilities in conjunction with the upside. Said another way, he wants initiatives with a potential reward that’s orders of magnitude larger than the risk.  

Thinking about more than the probability of success is hard to do when something is risky, but it can lead to outsize outcomes!

Today I talked with a founder who recently relocated from Miami to Atlanta. Since I visited Miami last week, that city was top of mind. Given what I observed, I was curious about why he left. He shared his reasons for moving to Atlanta (diversity, various industries, talent pool, etc.) and told me that he purchased a home and plans to be here for the long-haul.

One of the things that sets Atlanta apart is that many founders who relocate see themselves putting down roots and calling Atlanta home for a long time. People can see themselves building a great company and a great life here—they don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. In some major metros, it feels like people are just passing through.

Atlanta is a great city. I’m excited to see what the future holds for it, but I already believe that being a place that people want to call home will be a big part of its legacy.

I was listening to a successful entertainment entrepreneur detail his journey to outsize success. One thing he overemphasized was that he’s in a relationship business. He built the right relationships with people and used the relationships to open doors at opportune times. Eventually, he developed relationships with executives who had immense power, which made an unprecedented run of successes possible.

The key to his success was partnering with someone different from himself. He came from a nontraditional background. He quickly realized he had a hard time connecting with people in the industry, who didn’t know him and weren’t sure what to make of him. So he sought out someone in the industry who had the traditional background that people tended to trust. The two of them were different and had different perspectives on life, but they shared a goal. They saw a massive opportunity that no one was paying attention to. They wanted to be at the forefront of introducing this new market to the masses. They formed a partnership, with the traditional partner being the conduit. He understood both worlds. He was able to lend credibility to two sides who had a distrust of each other. Because of him, the two sides embraced each other and had a crazy run that to this day is hard to believe.

I love this story. It exemplifies how two people from different backgrounds can work together to achieve massive success. And it shows how valuable conduits can be . . . especially in emerging markets!

I had a great chat with a founder friend recently. We talked about what helps people be successful. Many things on the list were what you’d expect. But my buddy elaborated on emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient, or EQ. I don’t hear that attribute mentioned too often, so I was curious.

He believes success is usually the by-product of working with others. To maximize your working relationships, you must be self-aware—aware of your emotions and how your reactions to them will affect others. And you must be aware of others’ emotions and how they could affect the task at hand. He went much deeper, but that’s the gist of his position.

I partly agree with my buddy. EQ is important, but you can have success without it. But if you have it, it will help you get the best out of yourself and others.