3-2-1 Traction: Strong teams, burnout, and who becomes an entrepreneur

Plus: you probably don't need a co-founder (yet), the folly of "make it easier" as a product strategy, and how to reduce friction in your life as a founder. Let's do this.

Hey friend 👋

So, yeah… it’s been a few weeks since I’ve sent an issue of 3-2-1 Traction your way. Hopefully, you noticed my absence in your inbox. 😅

But I’m back! Leave me a comment and let me know how you’ve been.

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3 ideas from me

Team is a lot more than just your cofounders.

It’s cliché to talk about the importance of a startup’s team.

(Not that it stopped Cameron and me from doing an entire episode of our podcast on it last week.)

And it’s no surprise that it’s cliché, because startups with strong teams are far more likely to succeed.

But what’s far less cliche is that your startup team includes a lot more than just you and your co-founders. Team is a series of concentric circles of influence, with the founders at the centre, followed by:

• The early employees you onboard (and your ability to hire quality people);

• The advisory board you put together (and actually using it);

• Your investors, funds, accelerators, and other supporters; and

• The mentors, coaches, and community support you collect along the way.

And even less cliché than that?

You’re not alone in the centre of team circle. You’ve got your early adopters there to keep you company.

Because winning founders co-create value with their customers.

And you probably don’t need a co-founder anyway (yet).

Speaking of co-founders… one of the most popular questions I’m asked is how to find one.

It goes something like this:

• JDM: What kind of cofounder?

• Founder: Technical.

• JDM: Why do you want one?

• Founder: Cuz I don’t know how to build an app.

• JDM: And building the app is the next step?

• Founder: Yeah.

• JDM: So you have proof that customers will buy it?

• Founder: Not yet.

• JDM: Then why build it?

• Founder: How else am I gonna find out?

And now we’re off to the races!

Because the question is right: how can I prove there’s a “there” there?

But the methodology is dead wrong.

And the way you know that is simple: they’re after someone to do the uninteresting work — sales, marketing, engineering, etc.

Valuable! But uninteresting.

And the uninteresting work only comes after you figure out how to create new value in the marketplace for a real customer with a big problem that they’ll pay you money to solve.

That’s the interesting work.

And you probably don’t need a cofounder in order to do it — yet.

Burnout isn’t a problem. It’s a symptom of one.

About 8% of startup failures can be attributed to founder burnout.

Anecdotally, it sure seems like it should be higher. How often do we hear stories about how there was an interesting there there — “a great idea!”, they say — but the founder beat her head against the wall until she just couldn’t do it anymore, lost interest, and moved on?

I hear it every week.

The burnout was why she stopped, but not why she failed.

Here are some sobering stats:

• 65% of startups fail due to founder conflicts

• 80% of startups experience equity disputes among founders

• 70% of startups scale too early

• 45% of startups fail due to a lack of market need for their product or service

And they all can cause burnout, along with about 483 other startup problems.

So how do we combat burnout?

It’s not vacations, bubble baths, scented candles, or “work-life balance” — whatever the hell that even means.

It’s by making progress.

When we don’t know where we’re going — as with any innovative effort, like a startup — the only “progress” we can make is the collection of data and the answering of questions.

Ask the market a question. Get data back. Learn from it.

Rinse and repeat. Ad infinitum.

It’s a constant stream of daily progress. And it can be energising!

You’ll eventually be onto something amazing. Or you’ll discover you’re not and you’ll move on. And that’s a pretty great outcome, too.

Don’t focus on fixing burnout. Focus on why you’re burning in the first place.

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2 ideas from others

Who becomes an entrepreneur?

The article is worth reading in its entirety, but here are some of my takeaways. Entrepreneurs are more likely to have:

• served many different professional roles — but within the same organisation;

• been previously undervalued or under-compensated by the market (such as due to lack of education, or to sociocultural factors like ethnicity);

• performed better on adolescent aptitude tests than their similarly-educated peers;

• experienced childhood adversity; and

• mental health conditions (or family with them).

Jeepers.

“Make it easier” is not a product strategy.

This is likely the most common value proposition I hear:

• Customer does X.

• It’s hard.

• We’ll make it easier.

It’s not a bad starting point, but it’s only a starting point. It tells us nothing about what to do or how to prioritise it. It doesn’t tell us what customers are willing to trade for that easiness.

It’s just not actionable.

Wanting to make something easier is how we begin the process of discovering our value creation mechanism, but it’s useless for validating a product that manifests one.

So get out of the building and find one.

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1 question for you

Where are you experiencing the greatest friction in your entrepreneurial life, and what’s one question the market could answer that would remove it?

Drop a comment and let me know.