Patrick McKenzie

What do you *want*? Why are you doing a business as opposed to getting a job somewhere? This is important because there are multiple trajectories you could plausibly want to get on and the advice for them bifurcates at some points so let’s get on same page on this.

What are you making? Explain it to me like you’d explain it to a domain expert; I’ll ask for help if I don’t know any words. Be as concrete as possible. You said “platform”; what does that mean in real life? You said “app”; web, mobile, etc? You said “marketplace”; what type?

Who are you making this for? I am less interested in demographic profile and more interested in (for B2B) industry, size of business, and job role of the buyer or end user and, for B2C, an identification of the community that will love this like they love oxygens

What will it take for at least some people to *love* this? Being in the 1% better 5% cheaper mousetrap business is a rough place to be. Your product decisions will be better, your UX will be sharper, and your marketing will be easier if you can pick one small segment and NAIL it.

What is your price? You are B2B? Your price is too low. You are B2C? Can I convince you on doing it as a hobby after a B2B product solves your money problem? No? Really, not to be pushy but it will be easier? No, OK, B2C then. Your price is too low.

Tell me every automated email your business sends right now. I’m going to add five to that list. They go into prod within next week.

What’s the task you spend the most amount of time on that you hate? How do we decrease the amount of time we spend there? Is there a process improvement or should we outsource it? Should we just not do it? Should we hire someone.

You are an early stage entrepreneur and have told me you hate “marketing” or “sales.” I’m going to ask some clarifying questions to verify that you’re functionally not doing them right now, then I’m going to emphasize the importance of them to your future happiness running biz.

You want to raise money. Clarifying question that you want to be on rocket ship growth trajectory for next several years of your life and don’t simply want money. Awesome: your next step is getting into YC. It’s absurdly better than any other fundraising path.

“Would you do YC in my circumstance, Patrick?” Contingent on you wanting to do a rocket ship trajectory company, which is something that many more people say they want than actually want, unambiguously yes. I have asked ~X00 entrepreneurs whether they’d do it again. One no. One.

You’ve told me that you’re building X. Who have you talked to about X? Have you had 50 conversations with potential buyers? Did they actually tell you they’d buy it? If they didn’t can I impose on you to keep talking until you find something people actually want?

(Talk to customers before building the thing is received startup wisdom but, like flossing your teeth, it is easy to observe in the breach, to let the joy of building convince you that 4 conversations is plenty, etc. Also:

While friends in Silicon Valley model the world like “Everyone knows a collection of startup facts”, there are many paths to entrepreneurship which don’t go through startup culture and therefore invent some of the same mistakes (goodness knows I did), and also education is hard.)

You’ve told me you are building a services business. Awesome: have you ever sold an engagement? If yes, great, you likely have everything you need on the delivery side of the business and let’s just talk packaging, price, pipeline management, and sales. Your price is too low.

You will henceforth ask, immediately at the point where the gig is on and then again after delivery, for: 1) Referrals, referrals, referrals, seriously this point is much more important than the other ones 2) Logo rights 3) References 4) “Can we write up a case study? You OK it”

Do you have an explicit cadence of repeat engagements? Do you have retainers? Let’s start getting both.

Do you have written contracts? With an acceptance period? Does your acceptance mechanism default to indecision or default to acceptance? Let’s change to latter; it’s huge.

“Client shall make a specific written objection to deliverables within N business days of delivery or they shall be deemed accepted.” Lawyer it up but that’s the business process you want.

(Decreases by 90% the amount of time you spend chasing Jim who is out on vacation who Taro said is the decision maker with regards to UX issues who Mary said gets a veto because you shipped customer-facing features.)

How do we position you as a boutique offering for discerning clients near the top of the market, and charge an appropriate premium for that?

Do you have a peer group of founders? Your life will get much better once you do, particularly if there are a small set you can talk to regularly about your challenges. Find people who want the same things; predict you’ll have the average experience of this peer group.