Here are the lessons Mitchell Harper learned building a company to 500 people and $7B in transactions while raising $125M along the way. He originally shared this on Medium. Follow him on Twitter @mitchellharper.
1/ Invest in design (team or agency) from day one
2/ Be tied to your vision and problem statement but not your approach
3/ Solve a problem you’ve personally experienced and that you could work on for the next 7–10 years
4/ Define customer personas up front and segment by pain/needs
5/ Hire top down after the first 10 people
6/ Focus on a single pain point and a single persona first
7/ Constantly ask yourself “who is the BEST person in the world to help me solve X?” and reach out to ask for help — know you can’t fix everything on your own
8/ Do less, but do it better, especially in product and marketing
9/ Start competing in a red ocean but try to redefine the market so it becomes a blue ocean
10/ Don’t rely on a single lead source driven by high demand and limited supply
11/ Communicate your vision until you’re blue in the face, then keep talking about it
12/ See your platform as multiple products not multiple features
13/ Hire product managers with strong domain experience
14/ Be confident hiring people who are twice your age and realize the only place age is a barrier is in your head
15/ Run a 6 month (minimum) closed beta and nail your USP (Unique Selling Point) before going live
16/ Negotiate hard on valuation to keep as much equity as possible, all the time — give way on terms before equity
17/ Go for fewer customers at a much higher ACV
18/ Tie a good amount of everyone’s bonus to a customer success metric
19/ Build an open platform from day one (RESTful API, also consumed internally)
20/ Be patient and work on a 5/7/10 year timeline — ignore competitors and focus on the market opportunity not feature wars
21/ Listen to your gut more, especially when it comes to people — assume all resumes are B.S. and back channel at least 5 people who worked with, for and above each candidate
22/ Listen to the entire organization (especially those in daily contact with clients) in a way that scales as you grow
23/ Hire the best people, regardless of where they are and incentivize them heavily with equity
24/ Build a customer advisory board who are incentivized to provide valuable feedback often
25/ Amplify the brand by building and remunerating a team of influencers
26/ Recognize people for their achievements in front of the whole company on a regular basis
27/ Understand the 4 styles of leadership and use each effectively depending on the person you’re leading
28/ Know which stage your company is in (product market fit, getting ready to scale or scaling) and only read books/blogs related to that stage
29/ Make sure all senior leaders have their own executive coaches
30/ Listen to and respect opinions, but realize they’re just opinions
31/ Don’t be emotional about the business — balance an intense focus on work with family, friends and fitness
32/ Realize no one cares as much as you do, and that’s OK
33/ Fire fast and be less forgiving of mistakes, especially in departments that are measured with raw numbers, like sales and marketing
34/ Do what you’re good at and delegate everything else to people who are much, much, much smarter and more experienced than you are
35/ Don’t speak at conferences — they’re a massive waste of time
36/ Don’t assume everyone has honest intentions just because you do
37/ Personally answer as many support inquiries as you can for the first year
38/ Early on, raise money from investors who have “been there, done that” — don’t take money from “spreadsheet VCs” because they only understand numbers
39/ Don’t beat yourself up because you make mistakes
40/ Be a genuinely caring person and try to change the world from a place of humity, humbleness and honesty
