We knew when we started the Daily Muse, we wanted a recruiting-focused business model rather than an advertising-focused one. We felt like publishers were being forced to go to more and more extreme lengths to monetize through advertising.
— Kathryn Minshew
Get your product in front of actual, living, breathing strangers. Your college roommate's approval does not mean there's market demand.
So many of my rookie mistakes could have been avoided by first-hand exposure to other, more experienced technology entrepreneurs.
For almost the first year of The Muse's life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don't necessarily think that's the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn't come into startups with any network.
Thinking big is only one part of being a successful entrepreneur.
Much-derided chick lit, chick flicks, and chick magazines have left ambitious women in a bind. Why is it that I, a young woman, can read 'GQ,' enjoy 'Fight Club,' and subscribe to 'Thrillist,' while the idea of a guy doing the same with 'Glamour,' '27 Dresses' and 'Daily Candy' is nearly unheard of?
If you're able to arrange a trial period with a new hire, do it. It will give both of you a chance to make sure the position is a good fit - and can help you avoid being in the awkward situation of wanting to fire someone three or four weeks in.
It's fantastic to be known as a company that responds quickly to users, shares great resources and friendly banter with them over Twitter, and forges relationships on Pinterest, Facebook, and every other social media site out there.
When you start a new company, you have to do it all. Yes, all of it.
Done right, a performance review is one of the best opportunities to encourage and support high performers and constructively improve your middle- and lower-tier workers.
Work-life balance for founders doesn't look like work-life balance for everyone else. Starting a company isn't a nine-to-six job - or a nine-to-nine job, or a nine-to-midnight job.
There were so many lessons I learned the hard way: missing out on a raise because I didn't know to ask, having colleagues consistently get credit for my ideas because of how I spoke up in meetings. When I looked for a resource that addressed the challenges I was facing, I couldn't find it. There was nothing.
When talking to first-time entrepreneurs, I often ask them: 'How do you know that people want your product or service?' As you can expect, the answer is often that they don't yet, but will know once they launch. And they're right. That's why it's critical to launch as quickly as possible so you can get that feedback.
The most important thing in startups is getting a product to market, as imperfect as it may be, and then iterating on it and continually making it better. A first rev of a site that has a few typos may not be perfect, but it was the start of something that I deeply believed in.
My first company failed completely. And it failed at about ten months old. I had about 12 months of savings, so when it failed I was thinking: 'Do I go back to work?' And at that point I believed so deeply in what I was doing that I couldn't imagine anything else other than trying to make this business work.
For those working menial jobs or putting in 100-hour weeks for corporations, the lure of starting your own business can seem like a great way to get more flexibility, upside, and ownership.
As we've grown 'The Daily Muse' and met contacts who want to collaborate with us, knowing who does what has helped us be clear on who we want our partners to connect with - and makes us look buttoned up, too. SEO firm? Talk to our COO. An editor from the 'Huffington Post?' Meet our Editor-in-Chief.
Sure, it's fun to chat with people with interesting backgrounds who seem to have a passion for your company. But a job interview is not a friendly chat. You need to determine whether candidates, can they really do the job. So ask them to prove it.
Keeping a 'CEO blog' or 'founder's blog' can be a great platform for engaging your users in a nontraditional way, reaching people outside of your product pitch and building rapport without selling them anything except a belief in your ideas.
Understanding your employee's perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness.
I am a big advocate for having an open discussion about team norms and preferences. At The Muse, some of us like to start working at 7:30 A.M. Others focus best from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. Create a culture where it's acceptable not to be working when someone else is working.
One of the top causes of startup death - right after cofounder problems - is building something no one wants.
When The Daily Muse initially wanted to launch a job board, our first ideas were insanely (and needlessly) complex. We wanted to integrate with social networks, gather rich personal data to build predictive algorithms, and put together numerous cool visualization tools before launching out to the world. We were just sure users would love it!
The first time you meet someone, they're a new acquaintance, the second time you have a bit of an understanding, and the third time you meet them, you're old hats.
When I started my first company, I still had a 40-hour a week job. I was working on my company on nights and weekends before I took the plunge and gave up a salary.
Call it nature or nurture, there are differences in how men and women approach professional conduct, and facing these issues head-on will make us all more equipped to succeed.
Launching a start-up, you need to get a lot done quickly. Every day is different. Everyone pitches in with everything. It's easy for the founding team to say, 'We're flexible. We all help out with everything!' But when it comes to making decisions - that flexibility can spell inefficiency and disaster.
You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good as its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company's culture and propel you forward.
Sure, you're an intelligent and highly capable individual, and you are learning a lot on the fly as you build your company. But you also need to come to terms with the fact that there are things you have chosen not to be an expert in.
Even your most talented employees have room for growth in some area, and you're doing your employee a disservice if the sum of your review is: 'You're great!' No matter how talented the employee, think of ways he could grow towards the position he might want to hold two, five, or 10 years down the line.
Most weeks, I work 100-plus hours on TheMuse.com. There are definitions of 'work-life balance' that would say I have none.
