These are actual phrases that have been thrown my way (or overheard – OH) over the past few years working in the startup world. I’m sure the entrepreneur out there that is not considering themselves a startup will also relate. If you have other phrases or thoughts that have been sent your way because you are in a startup or you are an entrepreneur, be sure to contribute them by leaving a comment.
1. Can I pick your brain?
- Image by Yorkton Film Festival via Flickr
This has to be the #1 item stated once people know who you are and what you do. Even strangers will all of sudden go into this pick your brain mode. A variation of this question is of course, “Let me ask you something… ” or “What is your opinion of… ”
Now sometimes there is a right time to ask this question, or inquire within, but when the whole phrase is stated by someone just looking for freebie tips, that is the point where the person becomes a big turn off. That is where you get their jist of just wanting that free information and walking away from you.
This phrase if used correctly can be a great way to exchange ideas, but more often than not, it’s just an excuse for someone to get a free insider view to the track you are on. I think a better phrase would be something to the effect of “I want your thoughts on this, but in exchange, I’ll contribute my true ideas on this so we can have a meaningful discussion of this.”
2. You mean it’s not FREE?
- Image via Wikipedia
Freemium is a model or term for the startup business that has come to the surface in the past few years. It’s a great model to use to drive customers to your product. Eventually, if you are a funded startup, you must somehow turn a profit.
Freemium if used correctly can drive a huge userbase, but the next trick is rather a wall to hurdle for some companies, is how to make a profit in order to pay back the investors, or just be sustainable. Without reaching over that hurdle, startups and entrepreneurs just end up another kill shot at the end of the day.
Having FREE products or trials is a great way to reach your end goal. The end user must understand that there will be either one or two ways the company will start to make money. They will either charge you for an enhanced service of the free product you are use to using, or if it’s a traffic based company, they will monetize with advertising – which as stated yesterday in my data post, is going to still drive oodles of money to a traffic based company.
Either way, the internet is not a free-way for startups. Free-way as in, everything can remain free forever. It’s just not something that works in the long scope of company. For a company to survive, they must eventually turn a profit. It’s really common sense, but there are end users that gripe and leave in droves sometime when a company turns on the “We need to make money to keep the lights on” switch.
3. This is important, and this is important, and we need this!
- Image via Wikipedia
Confused a bit? If you are a startup person you know exactly what that is. That is what is commonly known as user feature creep. Without a good product manager in charge of your service offering, you can end up with serious feature creep. That means your user base loves your product, and offers so many good ideas that only a few can be implemented in order for your product to stay on track.
While those outside of the startup world are always smarter, or they think they are, inside the entrepreneur and startup world you know that only a certain number of ideas are really great. And of those great ideas, only the grand ones make the product road map. To have it any other way means that all the interesting startups that have survived since ’06 would have never gotten out of the gate to mainstream acceptance.
I personally would love to see the ideas floating Facebook, Twitter, YouTube way in the earlier days. Same goes for some of the hot startups of today such as Quora, Foursquare, and bit.ly.
Technically Speaking, nevermind on that last company – I see those ideas float in daily. I’m glad I’m not the product road map person there.
Related articles
- Why is no one talking about the difficulty of hiring for startups in India? (swaroopch.com)
- The Best Startups Are Founded By Entrepreneurs Who Built The Product Themselves (businessinsider.com)
- Why I Moved Backupify To Boston (xconomy.com)
- Top 5 Qualities to Look for in Startup Job Candidates (mashable.com)
- Who will be The World’s Smartest Start-up? (ragtag.wordpress.com)
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