First time founder mistakes. Here’s a list of a few common ones 🧵 1/
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Over optimizing time for media coverage and conference speaking gigs, getting addicted to the false feelings of success they bring /2
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Over hiring too early/soon out of discomfort doing things the founder doesn’t enjoy doing or isn’t good at /3
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Giving equity to consultants. Typically to do work that the right investors should do. If you must hire consultants pay them in cash paid by delivering highly defined and documented deliverables /4
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Advisors . . . same concept as consultants above. Caveat, giving equity to non participating advisors is weird because If an advisor likes you and your company so much, why don’t they just invest? There are exceptions to every rule, but always be extremely careful with equity /5
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Outsourcing software development. Of course there will be times you may need extra help in a sprint, but the core development of the companies IP should always be lead by in house talent, preferably one of the founders /6
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Firing too late. Unproductive employee who is liked by the team or highly productive employee who is disruptive and disliked. Both are poisonous for seed stage co. The former due to deflating errors, the latter destroys culture and work place vibe. /7
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Firing too late cont: bad assumption, unproductive employee can be retrained on the job, or disruptive employee can change with warnings. Big cos can afford that assumption but startup don’t have the time. Not moving fast is avoidance from an emotionally tough part of the job /8
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Overtly complex and unfocused go to market plan. No true north. Should be a set of simple well defined market tests meant to deliver feedback on market thesis. If this happens then we do that, if that happens then we do this . . /9
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Founder misalignment: by far the biggest reason startups fail. Failure to engage in tough convos early on, set clear expectations around swim lanes, responsibilities, final say, equity splits, etc - failure to refresh the convo periodically. Especially around financing events /10
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Out of scope hiring: 1. hiring too early for co stage. (Ex: Hiring a big name brand co exec too soon, they get bored and leave) 2. hiring into incompetence (ex: hiring a decent designer to head of product or lead UX, with no prior startup experience or management experience) /11
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Whiplash: Building the product based on the last interaction with an existing investor, or worse an investor you’re courting for the next round. Investors should learn about the market from the founders. Good investors help founder process information, not think for them /12
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Over valuing investor inbound. Most of the time inbound is investors doing their job to know everyone in the space and where they are. Never let inbound distract you, unless they are ready to send a favorable term sheet quickly. Raise money with a strategy, not reactively /13
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
The homework trap: if you are raising and an investor keeps giving you extra homework that starts to greatly exceed the diligence process originally outlined you are not getting the check. You are doing market research. Move on from that investor /14
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Trying to boil the ocean. Starting from the end vision of the fully functional product, vs just getting from zero to one. This will leave you and your team a quagmire. Over engineered features that weren’t important for an unfinished core product /15
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Trying to save and cut corners on legal and/or accounting and finance. Word to the wise, you eventually end up paying way more later on and it being much more painful. Just pay the premium for top notch legal, and top tier finance and accounting work /16
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
Failure to understand deals. Every deal you do early will have an outsized effect on the future of the company. Understand voting, controls, triggers, liquidation preferences, stock class rights, conversion economics (if raising debt) etc - (tweet vastly over simplifies) /16
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 5, 2022
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) August 6, 2022
Austin’s seasons
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) August 1, 2022
Rainy monsoon season: 3 weeks
Random deep freeze season: 1 week
Spring: 3 days
Blazing sun hell season: 11 months
The perfect product-market fit pic.twitter.com/3nCi1ZR4U5
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) July 31, 2022
Hendrix at Royal Albert Hall 1973 - a spiritual wildfire of sound pic.twitter.com/spU4bh2bYH
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 31, 2022
Everything in the universe is balance. Real growth starts when accountability begins. You can heal the hurt you’ve experienced faster when you’re honest about the hurts you’ve caused. They are interrelated energetically as part of a spiritual knot that needs to be untied
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 31, 2022
No one is born with courage, it is developed. A valuable life skill related to courage is communication. Many avoid difficult conversations. It takes courage to engage when things aren’t easy but all long lasting relationships (friends, colleagues, partners) are built on this
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 31, 2022
every day I wake up, I’m him
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 31, 2022
thank you god for another day 🙏🏾
Ownership, ownership, ownership
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 29, 2022
if you don’t own rights that give you voting control of usage and/or the ability to recoup income accrued, you are either a fan, a customer, or a volunteer
Take all that jewelry off ya neck and put that money in a brokerage account big dog, the club ain’t gonna take care of you at 50, trust me
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 29, 2022
It’s hard to get mad at people for their ignorance when they are victims of a broken public education system
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 29, 2022
Reminder: go to bed early, in darkness and silence, and sleep a full 7 hours, drink a lot of water throughout the day, make time to go outside for a 30 minute walk - do these things every single day
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 28, 2022
You can only go as far as your imagination and your risk tolerance allows. Imagination is the seed, and risk is the soil. If you have a big imagination and no risk tolerance it won’t work if you take outsized risk for small ideas it won’t work. Right size for both + work ethic
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 27, 2022
There’s a misconception that success happens on a slow and gradual slope, when in fact it’s slow then fast, one year of progress in ten years and ten years of success in one. The key is to survive the down spikes and not remove yourself from the game before the big up spike
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 27, 2022
ouch 😂 https://t.co/geElIqfytU
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 22, 2022
The sooner you realize you are the author of your challenges, and stop looking for others to blame, the sooner you can take accountability and heal what’s been broken. But if your ego can only handle being the hero or the victim of your narratives you’ll live a circular existence
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 21, 2022
Dull people gossip about other people, average people fight about politics, and interesting people talk about how to create and build new ideas
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 20, 2022
focusing on creation in what is an incredible moment in the present and manifesting for an abundant future ahead, I don’t talk about the past or give it energy anymore, because I don’t want to dilute what’s happening right now with unclean and dead energy
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 20, 2022
A platforms technological capabilities don’t mean a thing without users to define its value, and users won’t adopt unless the use cases are understood, and the use cases are translated via culture, and culture is transmitted by story tellers . . . It’s simple, but hard https://t.co/lhZtjmbg5H
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 20, 2022
Remembering John Coltrane, gone 55 years this week. Here he is performing "Alabama" in 1963 with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. pic.twitter.com/zemzaR8tgU
— Dust-to-Digital (@dusttodigital) July 20, 2022
I wish I didn’t love Oreo cookies dipped in milk the way I do. I mean the whole damn pack? Come on Naithan 😩 🍪🥛
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 20, 2022
The person you look at and wish you could be, is sitting there looking at someone else and wishing the same thing
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 19, 2022
get well soon
your subconscious is the software that runs your personality
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 19, 2022
scan consistently for malware
Authenticity is a commitment to live your principles even in the face of consequences, not a crafted public image designed to likable to the maximum amount of people possible
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 18, 2022
the three pillars of a sustainable romantic relationship are the attributes of kindness, mindfulness, and playfulness
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 16, 2022
once you find that place within yourself and its reflected in your person, it just works and isn’t a struggle
Many people who give great advice, only know their advice from an intellectual standpoint point, but find it hard to live their own advice to others. I commend Jay-Z for his honesty here. This new interview is one that men of all ages should watch https://t.co/hoYhix4zg5
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 16, 2022
TIME Magazine “Black NFT Artists Believe They're This Generation's Hip-Hop” - cc writer @andrewrchow and organizer / leader @singleserving https://t.co/oHizTsqFy8
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 14, 2022
Advising a young CEO, we deconstructed co communication. A mistake young leaders make is to talk more than they listen. In meetings the best leaders tend to spend more time hearing from staff, and tend to note staff input and withhold conclusions in favor of clarifying questions
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 13, 2022
2/ After all you hire staff to advise you in their specific area of expertise. If you’re a leader, a bad habit to fall into is to try and be the smartest person in the room, and to see each meeting as chance to prove your competence as the leader. But you don’t learn that way
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 13, 2022
3/ after all you already know what you think. It’s always best to hear from your functional leaders and wait until the next meeting (if the decision attached isn’t time sensitive) or at least an hour or two after the meeting, to make a decision. Contemplation is a leadership key
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 13, 2022
You have to be alive to even have things to complain about. Think about that
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 13, 2022
As I read your essay, I started to note some things that align with Afropolitan, including one vote to 1 NFT and not being coin token led.
— Chika (@ChikaUwazie) July 13, 2022
Then as I read the conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised to see @afropolitan name mentioned! Thank you, as this validates our vision. https://t.co/vV6ilhWr7D
Paraphrasing “planning assassinations and rigging foreign elections, is no cake walk”
— Nait Jones (@NaithanJones) July 13, 2022
Holy shit 😳 https://t.co/ngfupSGLwD
