How to Start and Grow a Business (Best Practices)

Context: Today I spoke with a number of AAPI military veteran founders as part of Bunker Labs programming. Kyle Aquino 🔱 asked me talk about the subject of "How to Start and Grow a Business (Best Practices)." Here's my advice to these founders:

1/ Be incredibly resourceful. Early on you'll need to do the job of 10 people maybe even 20 people.

2/ Execute. Get stuff/sh*t done. Roll up your sleeves. Make things happen.

3/ Sell, Sell, Sell. But do NOT sell your soul in the sense of being too salesy/cringey.

4/ After you sell, sell, & sell then fulfill/ops so that the customer returns/renews. Build a great service or product that ensures renewals and retention.

5/ Once you have product market fit and you don't have a leaky funnel, then try to scale your sales through marketing.

6/ Then go build a great team once the revenue and profits support team building.

7/ Startups and small businesses are sadomasochistic but try to also have fun! Entrepreneurship is a full contact sport and it takes incredible amounts of activation energy.

8/ Learn and Earn. Make sure you apply your learnings so that you are creating value. It's not enough to learn you need to execute. First create value, then capture some of the value.

9/ Get close to, talk to, and most importantly LISTEN to your customers!

10/ Get context on who you talk to, be prepared, and ask great questions. Don't waste people's time: customers, partners, investors, team members, etc...preparation ensures efficiency and enables you and others to then have more time to create value.

11/ Follow up with people. The initial meeting is not enough. You'll need to remind people 5-7 times of the follow-ups. People are really busy.

12/ Take care of your health and your family.

13/ Enjoy the process. The action is the juice. The results are so uncertain that if you don't like what you are doing, then the journey can be too painful.

14/ Give yourself enough time. I think two years and some change is the right amount of time to run a business project/experiment because customers need to see you several times to believe you are here to stay and you aren't going anywhere. It takes time for learnings, earnings, relationships, and reputation to compound.

15/ You'll need to work really hard. Create luck/opportunity through hard work and good luck!

I'm sure there are many other lessons but these are my notes/suggestions that I could squeeze into a short session.

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