Abstract Living

Meeting Strangers: How to Prepare for an Effective Cold Meeting

Vinay Patankar
26 May, 2016
Business

Ever been nervous meeting a stranger? Nerve no more! Impressing a stranger on first encounter can literally change your life. Interviews are a good example. Others include sales pitches, freelance consultations, partnerships, supplier agreements and even dates. They’re a necessity in life. So why not get good? Here are some tips to get you started. **Research:** If you know who you’re meeting, take 10-20 min to **Google, Facebook**, **LinkedIn** & **Twitter** them. Ideally you’re looking for information related to the topic of your meeting. But you’re also looking for personal information such as achievements and common interests. Look for media interviews & charity support. Do you both rock climb? Have they recently been promoted? Have they achieved one of your goals? Also do company searches on the web, Google News, Twitter and in your CRM if you have one. **Agenda** To Agenda or not to agenda? An agenda is contextual. You wouldn’t do it in an interview, but you’ll never have a consultant from McKinsey or KPMG book a meeting without sending you one. My general method is for every meeting ask these questions: - If I set an agenda, what would be in it? - Will I remember to do all of the above without writing it down? - Will it benefit my prospect if I send them a copy? – If it will, send one. Consider adding a photo so they know who you are. Basically the agenda should add value to your stranger. Usually, more complex meetings have agendas. This gives your stranger time to prepare. **On Arrival** Once you arrive at the meeting location - 10 minutes early - wait around the corner for 5 min then head to reception or the cafe to be seated. Arriving more than 5 minutes early can look disrespectful as opposed to eager. But most importantly DON'T BE LATE! If you think there is a 50%+ chance you’ll be late by even a few minutes, call and notify someone. It looks way better to call and say you may be 5 min late, and arrive on time, then if you arrive 5 min late without calling. **The Lobby** After reception calls my stranger, I will stay standing until they arrive. Warning – if you take this road, be prepared for some long stands. But I feel it looks better than kicking your feet up on lobby couches. Sweaty palms? I hold my folder with my left hand and keep my right hand in my pocket –dodges the slimy handshake. Remember eye contact and a smile on greeting. Stand tall, chest out, firm handshake. If you’re in a busy lobby and you don’t know your strangers face, finding them can be awkward at times. Try and make the first approach, (it may take you a couple of times to get it right). Your stranger will be thankful for the awkwardness removal. Look for people looking for people. Exchange some short pleasantries then ask where they would like to go (unless there is already a plan). **The walk** During the walk from the point of meeting to room or cafe, aim to walk side by side, and ask a few standard open ended questions like: “Thanks for taking the time to see me. How has your day been?” Don’t worry what they say - you’re just trying to keep them engaged until you arrive at the sitting location. Try to find an anecdote (maybe something that happened on the way in or earlier that day) or common topic (the offices, building, location, current event or last resort – the weather) to keep them chatting until the sitting location. Just try and avoid a long walk of silence. Also, avoid discussing any important topics during the walk, interruptions are common and will kill your flow. **Personal Note:** I like to treat all my strangers like a first date. I open doors, hold elevators and offer them the first seat. Don’t take this to the extreme but if the opportunity is there, unleash the chivalry (that goes for you too ladies!). This shows you’re attentive and will put in the extra effort if they partner with you. **Sitting Down** Once you arrive at the meeting table, wait for the person you’re meeting to sit down first (unless they offer you a seat – then just take it). If you’re already in a cafe waiting for them, stand and shake their hand when they arrive. Again, watch the sweaty palms, smile, eye contact etc. I usually like to sit at a 90 degree angle avoiding the formal face to face arrangement. This is not always possible but it makes it easier to look over documents together or to describe while writing on paper or using your laptop. Once seated, give a business card to each person so they know who you are, how to spell your name (useful if you have a weird name like mine) and how to contact you after. Then you’re off. Do you do things differently? You can compare this approach with How to Integrate @Intercom Support Messages with Close.io #CRM for more on business.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant for Startup Success

In recent years, the idea of small business owners using a virtual assistant to outsource daily business tasks has gained popularity. But many people don't know how to hire or benefit from one. As someone who has successfully hired a personal assistant for my business as well as several virtual employees, here's an overview of the issues involved in setting up and managing such relationships: Related: 10 Things to Outsource to a Virtual Assistant 1\. Determine if a virtual assistant will suit your business needs. First, figure out which tasks you would like to assign to an assistant and if it's cost-effective. Do an analysis of your business activities over the course of a day if not an entire week, writing down the minor tasks that are taking up time. Don't rule out anything as a task a virtual assistant could not do. While a United States-based virtual assistant can earn a salary that can start at about $15 an hour (and those with a specialty might command higher rates). Solid administrative-task virtual assistants from abroad, though, can be secured for as little as $3 to $6 an hour. Related: 6 Creative Ways to Use Overseas Virtual Assistants 2\. Understand the pros and cons of hiring a freelancer from an agency. It might be costlier pound for pound to hire a virtual assistant who's working for an agency, due to overhead costs, says Rich Pearson, senior vice president of categories and geographies at Elance-oDesk. (His company provides an online marketplace for hiring freelancers through the Elance.com and oDesk.com websites.) But an agency might arrange for an entrepreneur to use multiple assistants to smooth over gaps in availability or in skill sets. Listings of available freelancers on the Elance and oDesk platforms include those who are paid by agencies and those who work independently. The entrepreneur can also post a job listing. Pearson says using a freelancer who's not on contract with an agency can result in more personalized attention, given that it's just that one person on the gig. An agency might rotate in multiple virtual assistants for one assignment or pull one away at a whim. The most dedicated personal assistants almost always are independent freelancers with whom the entrepreneur builds a relationship with (as opposed to those freelancers hired through an agency), Pearson says. When deciding between choosing a virtual assistant who's located in the United States versus someone abroad, Pearson says, consider how important is it for the person to be awake while you work and how aware of American culture you need the person to be. Related: 4 Ways to Manage Remote Employees 3\. Do prep work to create a great job listing. When writing your well-edited, detailed job listing, always put in a call to action that merits a response to see if the applicant has read the description. For example, ask the applicant to provide examples of his or her work. There will be indications when a candidate seems motivated. I found it particularly telling one Saturday to receive a phone call from Nairobi from Joan, who's now my personal assistant, asking if she could be interviewed right away (even though I had not yet had a chance to look over all the messages from those who responded to my ad). Related: How a Manager Can Promote the 'Future of Work' 4\. Hiring the assistant. Go through the bids that come in and create a list of the applicants whose responses you like, read their reviews and then line up interviews. A platform like oDesk's can show an entrepreneur how a candidate scored on an English proficiency exam and how many jobs he or she has previously done. I like oDesk for its ability to generate a contract, monitor work and set up a payment system. A video conference interview with an applicant is a must and will serve a few purposes: It can reveal the person's grasp of English and the setting that he or she will likely be working from -- and if it's an orderly place from which to make a phone call on your behalf and the applicant's overall demeanor (enthusiasm and ability to think on his or her feet). Related: Siri's Founders Are Building Viv -- the Personal Assistant Siri Should Have Been 5\. Managing the assistant. While the hiring of a virtual personal assistant can free up your day, the burden is on you to allocate tasks smartly and effectively so that happens. Generally speaking, the more specific you are in explaining tasks, the better. You can use an onboarding software to centralize any information or materials they would need during the onboarding and training phase. Ideally, as a result of good management, a virtual assistant will in time learn your work style and you will be able to give that person more responsibility and encourage more initiative taking. Don't hesitate to share with the assistant Google Drive documents outlining the who, what, where and when of daily tasks, including relevant rules, permissions and passwords. You can use a Standard Operating Procedure software to familiarize your new virtual assistant with your standardized way of doing things. A Google search for “virtual assistant tools” reveals an abundance of gadgets that can be used by entrepreneurs who are open to managing assistants on their own. Online social-media entrepreneur Audrey Melnik of ZootRock in San Francisco explained to me how she hires and manages her virtual assistant. “We use two tools," she writes in an email. "The first is called Process Street that allows you to set up a repeatable process," for the virtual assistant to run through each time. The person checks off the steps and add comments where appropriate. "The second is a screen shot tool that takes images of the \[assistants'\] screen regularly and tracks their productive time so you can be clear on what they are working on when and capture evidence of them working the hours they are charging you for.” Encourage your assistant to offer you feedback, lending more warmth to the remote-work arrangement. Assistants might not provide feedback unless you ask, yet their ideas are often spot-on given their proximity to the work. It will be up to you to decide whether to trust your assistant with information like passwords and other sensitive materials. Start out with small things, such as granting access to social-media accounts. You may want to consider having an assistant sign a nondisclosure agreement. “Big things like the virtual assistant's booking your vacation can come later," Pearson says. "Training starts with trust, and that means small things at first.” When possible meet your virtual assistant at least once in person and try to have a video conference at least quarterly. Ultimately, a virtual assistant is not just another cog in your business machine, but an employee and certainly a human. So remember to treat this person as such. Related: 3 Qualities Every Remote Manager Needs (Infographic) Editor's Note: This piece has been updated to clarify that a virtual assistant in the United States can earn a salary that starts at $15 an hour. You can compare this approach with Customer Development Questions for Startup Founders for more on startup.

Forty-four Social Media Apps Used only by the Top Influencers

If you're seeking for the most complete list in the ideal social media tools, you are in the correct location. Learn the tools used only by the authorities inside the know so it is possible to drastically improve your social media promoting efforts. This will likely drive site visitors, enhance conversions and brand engagement. Get sensible with this list of tools, as well as your organization will thank you. The days of relying on oneself are more than, for the reason that now you are able to rely on flawless technologies like these social media productivity apps created and made use of by only essentially the most qualified specialists. A useful follow-up on business is How to Integrate @Intercom Support Messages with Close.io #CRM.

Resources for Documenting Business Processes

One of the most effective (and unfortunately underused) facets to executing any task at a high level is the practice of documenting business processes. Perhaps you have been in the situation of needing to carry out an intricate task for the 1st time, or been dissatisfied with a new staff member who takes considerably longer than they ought to? Well, then this is your answer. By documenting business processes, you'll be able to effortlessly make sure that both new and experienced personnel who later run that same process meet with an almost identical level of success. Not only do you crack down on the variance in workforce effectiveness, but using the right tools you can slash the amount of time it takes to carry out the task, because the employee does not have to figure out the next step; it is all there in front of them! Read on if you want to both speed up the common procedures carried out within your organization (be they team-based or individual) and ensure a continuously high level of performance. A useful follow-up on business is Business Process Outsourcing Software.

How to Integrate @Intercom Support Messages with Close.io #CRM

I have been wanting to sync my support system Intercom with the CRM we use at Process Street - Close.io (which I have written about before). The reason for this is when we are looking at a customer in the CRM we want to be able to see not only the sales emails but all the support conversations they were having too. This can be done quite easily with other Help Desk Tools or via the API but I wanted to build something quickly that didn't require developer time. I first setup a Zap using Intercom's "New Message" Zap that triggered an email to my inbox which then Synced using Close's 2 way email sync, which worked fine but only worked for the first message that was sent, it didn't track the whole conversation which can last for days and contain lots of valuable information for sales. This basically meant sales still had to open both Intercom and Close.io to get a full picture of the customer. ## Integrating All Intercom Support Tickets with Close ### Step 1: Create a Webhook Zap in Zapier and get Custom Webhook URL Create a new Zap in Zapier and add the Webhook integration, click next until you see the custom URL ### Step 2: Create a Webhook in Intercom Go to Settings -> Integrations and click "Add Webhook Integration" Here are the topics I am passing in the Webhook: New Message from a User Reply from a User Reply from a Teammate Note added to Conversation Conversation assigned to Teammate User Unsubscribed From Email User tagged User untagged New events ### Step 3: Configure rest of Zap in Zapier Here is a screenshot of my Zap click for full image. Here is the text export _(I assume you need to swap out my ID numbers)_: Subject: \[Intercom {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_type}}\] {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_assignee\_\_name}} <> {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_name}} Body: Email Subject: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_subject}} Conversation Message {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_parts\_\_conversation\_parts}} Conversation Link: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_links\_\_conversation\_web}} Other Action Data: Data Item Assignee Name: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_assignee\_\_name}} Data Item User Name: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_user\_\_name}} Conversation Message Author Manaul Tag IDs: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_manual\_tag\_ids}} Conversation Message Attachments: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_attachments}} Conversation Message Author Created At: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_created\_at}} Conversation Message Author IP: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_ip}} Data Item conversation Message Author Ua: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_ua}} Author Email Domain: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_email\_domain}} Data Item conversation Message Author IP: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_author\_\_ip}} Original Message Body: {{6451100\_\_data\_\_item\_\_conversation\_message\_\_body}} And that's it! This was just my first attempt, it will probably get cleaned up a little but at least the core data is being passed. If you have any tweaks' I'd love to hear them. For another perspective on support, read Abstract Income: How to Support an Abstract Lifestyle.

100 Valuable Methods To Increase Your Company

Can you name 100 resources that will support the development of your company? In the event you can not, verify out this fantastic podcast and study in the specialists. From promoting, to sales, to copywriting, every single talent or division has anything to get from these sources, and inside the podcast it is possible to find out why together with the aid of Heather Porter and Andrew McCauley of autopilotyourbusiness.com. Get up to speed with each serious influencer and tool inside your line of interest, and find out who's getting the ideal benefits, plus how they're performing it. Click here to find out how to . A useful follow-up on business is Resources for Documenting Business Processes.

Actual Proof that Checklists Work

To learn how checklists operate, Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto will be the place to begin. With this in depth paperback, the author explains how effective checklists could possibly be employed to avoid human error and receive the top benefits from a team. This Checklist Manifesto conclusion outlines the essential suggestions of the book and demonstrates the worth of really clear, beneficial writing. This writer interviews the guy well-known for making checklists for aircraft pilots flying Boeing aircrafts, among one of the most challenging worldwide. Determine the way to write clean documents that any individual can very easily comprehend and respond right after and study a success narrative out of your physician accountable for the wide-spread Surgical Security Listing - a checklist that's stored a fantastic number of lives considering that it was developed. Checklists make it easier to quit a substantial difficulty: human error. Humans are effortlessly mistaken but do not believe themselves to be at fault - as a result of this, straightforward errors can cause complex situations and huge troubles within the extended run. Checklists can be a straightforward signifies to fix an extremely significant situation. If checklists is relevant to what you're working on, this is worth reading next: Embedded Checklists.

How can you save time using the snooze button?

If you've ever wondered how you may save time by leaving tasks till you are much more productive, this post about saving time has the answer for you personally. When pressing the snooze button inside the morning is likely not the productive issue you might do, throughout the functioning day you'll want to decide which tasks have to have your attention and in what order. This decreases an issue faced by each and every single human being: decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is what happens when you're tired of making informed choices and either prevent making selections at all or just take the quickest, simplest path. The most unproductive time on the day is just following lunch, so understand how you can cope with this period of inactivity by reading this post on time management. A useful follow-up on button is How the snooze button can make you more productive.

Start-up idea: Marketplace for mechanics to help buyers purchase used cars

I am thinking about a marketplace that would help buyers who know nothing about cars evaluate if a second hand car is a good buy or not. You could create a profile and post the 3-4 cars you are considering. Post details of their make, model, price and pictures or a video of the car and the engine. You could then post a bounty for a mechanic to help you out, with a reward of say $50 (or whatever you choose). Then similar to 99 designs, mechanics from all around the world could submit their reviews and advice on the cars. Giving you questions to ask, feedback on your pictures and prices, links to other cars or whatever you may need to help you make a decision. At the end of the process, you reward the most helpful mechanic the $50 prize. I imagine this would be a great way for mechanics from all around the world to earn some extra cash and an easy way for buyers to protect themselves from getting ripped off on a shitty car that could potentially cost them thousands. If you know of anything like this or are interested in building it let me know in the comments :) Check out my real startup here. You can see a few of my other startup ideas here, here and here, learn about why my first startup failed here. A useful follow-up on start is Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores.

How the snooze button can make you more productive

Making decisions is one of the most important traits of any leader and is something I have to deal with on a day to day basis as CEO of Process Street. The science behind why decisions are important is explained in _Science says you should do your most important work first thing in the morning_ by Drake Baer. While we don't always realize it, as we breeze (or slog) through our working days, we make countless decisions. Which email should I reply to first? Should I take care of this now or after lunch? The reason that we get tired at around 3pm isn't just because our body is diverting energy from the brain to the stomach as it tries to digest your lunch, but also because we have decision fatigue. We take the path of least resistance. Things we would usually have given thought to, we dismiss. Judges are well documented when it comes to decision fatigue, and since our decisions might not be as impactful or obvious as a choice to send someone to prison for life, it's still a real problem. The solution to overcoming decision fatigue comes in a strange form. A form that you might normally associate with laziness or days off work... The snooze button. Recently I was reading a post by Tomasz Tungz on how he discovered email snoozing boosts his productivity. This was interesting to me as I have recently adopted a couple of products that use the "snooze" function for managing tasks and emails. In the post, Tomasz mentions tools for snoozing emails including Dropbox's Mailbox, Google Inbox and Boomerang. I personally use Boxer which also has the snooze feature, _but this is not how I primarily use snooze_. Another tool worth checking out to improve your email productivity is Right Inbox. ## How I use snooze to manage tasks and emails I use snooze on two different apps and actually use it for BOTH task and email management, not just email. ### The first is Any.do Any.do is a task management app that I use to track my daily to-dos. This is my task dumping ground, I just have one main list and everything goes into it. The only separate list I keep is a shopping list that I share with my roommate and girlfriend. Besides that it's kind of like an 'everything' list that I just dump stuff into. I love this approach of managing tasks because when I have something I need to do I can just throw it into the main list, this removes a decision I need to make as I dont need to choose a specific list everytime I add a task. I use Evernote in a similar way for dumping notes, screenshots, receipts and business cards. I still have spreadsheets on wishlist. Any.do then has a focus mode called "Any.do Moments" that lets me me go through all my tasks one by one. Any task that is past due or that has no date attached will pop up, and it will ask me to action the item either by completing it or snoozing it for a future date. This is a highly effective way of managing tasks as I can easily push back things that I think are lower priority. This way of managing tasks via "Snooze" is the most effective way of managing tasks I have found and is the sole reason I use Any.Do over other todo apps (that and they are an AngelPad company). ### The second is Close.io Close is the CRM I use for managing my business relationships and for Process Street. Here is where I track emails, calls and notes specifically about other people. This includes customers, investors, partners, suppliers and other bloggers that we do cross promotions . The Close inbox and snoozing features are actually brand new as of the writing of this post (Aug 2015) they have only been out for a couple of months but this re-enforces the direction of apps moving towards task snoozing. Close beautifully combines both tasks and emails into a single view allowing you to power through all your emails and tasks in one go. This is incredibly helpful for me as a CEO but I imagine it's even more powerful for full time sales guys. Snoozing has been the most effective way I have found to manage both tasks and emails. It helps me action things faster and reduces the overall number of decisions I need to make each day. If you haven't already, try adding a snooze button to your Workflow and see if it improves your productivity. If button is relevant to what you're working on, this is worth reading next: How can you save time using the snooze button?.

Handy Search engine optimisation Guidelines for Dentists

### If you are part of the dental profession, you must see this comprehensive guide on SEO success containing valuable ideas for dentists who're looking to rank higher on search engines like Google. Dentists run businesses just like everyone else, so optimizing page visitors is just as vital as it will be for any advertising and marketing agency or equivalent traditionally web-oriented enterprise. Systemize your Search engine marketing operations using the Nearby Search engine optimization for Dentists checklist and find why targeted neighborhood site visitors is becoming much more vital than word of mouth. This post compiles a massive list of resources which are all you'd need to get started and would also be wonderful for anybody wanting to push a ranked page higher up. One more post that complements this topic is Saas Business Process Management | BPM | Cloud Software, especially around business.

Vitoto Officially Shutting Down

2012 - San Francisco... Vitoto was a failure. It feels good to say that. There has been an air of uncertainty around the state of the company for the last few weeks, its nice to make a decision. Firstly, I am proud of myself for taking the shot. > "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." > \-- Wayne Gretzky I am also proud to have acquired my first startup failure. People in Silicon Valley respect failure, its almost like a badge of honor. Don't get me wrong, I would have much preferred a success, and I am really disappointed I was not able to generate a return for my investors, but I definitely left this experience with more than I started with so I'm not complaining. If you don't know, Vitoto was a startup I founded in July, 2012 that set out to create a collaborative video app for the iPhone. I came up with the idea while I was in Las Terrenes, Dominican Republic - I had been perpetually travelling for the previous 2.5 years while running my internet marketing company. I quickly raised some seed capital ($50k) and partnered with a Sydney team - Moroku - to build the MVP. After about 4 months of design and development (during which I traveled through the DR, USA, Thailand and Australia) we launched on the Apple App Store and I moved to San Francisco to start the funding gauntlet. 3 months, a plethora of emails, calls, meetups, pitches and half a startup accelerator later we are shutting down the doors. I want to keep this post as short as possible while both covering off why we are shutting the company down, and some of the key mistakes I believe we (I) made in this process. ## **Why Vitoto is Shutting Down** The short answer is: No money. Another short answer might be: Good idea, bad business. **Below is the long:** ## 0\. The Problem One of the key lessons I learned is that great startups have a blindingly obvious, ideally really large and painful problem that the company is trying to solve. Solving this problem should drive almost every decision in the startup. Vitoto did not have this. I mused on this in an earlier post. I tried to spin up problems that I could use in pitches and conversations like "its difficult for people to create collaborative videos" but I couldn't even convince myself, let alone anyone else. The problem just wasn't real enough. **Next time:** Next time I need a blindingly obvious, clear, defined, large, real problem that is being solved. No exceptions. > **I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street** ## 1\. The Team I have seen two types of successful startup teams here in Silicon Valley. 1\. Young teams who can survive on very minimal cash. These are teams of 2-5 people who have a blend of skills (technical, design, business) and can execute an entire startup between their core team. They are able to stretch $30k to 9 months as they all live in one house, work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week and survive on ramen noodles. 2\. Experienced, well funded teams. These are teams that are generally spear headed by an entrepreneur who has had a successful exit in the past. The entrepreneur goes around and recruits a bunch of his or her friends from their 6 figure jobs and convinces them to help create their next vision. Due to their strong track record and the experienced team formed, they are able to raise money before a single line of code is written. The money raised can be anywhere from $250k to $40 million. Both team styles have pros and cons, however, these two team structures seem to be the most successful. The Vitoto team fell somewhere in the middle. We had a great team, don't get me wrong, but there were some key elements in the structure that lead to the inevitable demise of Vitoto. The two key factors were: 1\. We had a team that was too experienced for the budget. 2\. We had no invested User Experience/Design specialist. Our team ran out of runway and could not develop new features into the product. The product was not getting the traction needed nor could we get the viral loop to work, this made the product unappealing to investors. We did not have enough money to support the team in executing the required UX tweaks and experiments, thus were unable to further develop the product to a point where it could get enough traction to attract investors. One key element here is that the Australian team was not able to deliver any code without money coming in. They have huge overheads and were unable to contribute time for pure equity. **Next time:** Next time I make sure I start or am part of a founding team that falls into one of the 2 above success categories. ## 2\. Lack of UX focus, planning and execution. The lack of UX focus was another key factor in the (lack of) success of Vitoto. The first element to this was that we had no dedicated UX specialist on the team. We did bring in outside expertise for the graphics design, and while the quality delivered was high, this put further constrain on the budget. The second element was that the team never properly sat down and brainstormed the UX. Quick decisions were made to get the MVP out the door and these had serious impacts on how the product was received by customers. **Next time:** Next time I will make sure that there is extensive planning, brainstorming, and user testing done on the UX of the product before any time or money is invested in actual coding. And I will make sure there is an invested UX specialist on the founding team. ## 3\. Resource Allocation When I budgeted my initial capital for the business, I budgeted to get an MVP out the door. While I understood there would need to be a marketing effort for the product, I didn't take into account the extent of tweaking that would need to be done to the product after the MVP to get it to a point of consistent user uptake. The UX is the most important marketing tool for an early stage startup. If people are not using your product, it doesn't matter how well you market it. I consistently had user feedback to add, remove or enhance features or experience. But continually found myself saying "it's on the road map but we don't have enough money to build it". A position I should have never been in. **Next time:** Next time I will make sure my initial funding can carry me to TRACTION not just the MVP. Traction (unless you're super lucky) is going to be a solid 6-12 months AFTER the MVP is released. So I will make sure I have enough to last that long before I dive in. ## 4\. Monetization strategy was loose. This is important, but not as important for consumer focused products. If you are building a consumer app without a clear monetization strategy, just make sure you have the runway as mentioned in point 3. You will either gain traction or you won't. If you gain traction you can figure out monetization, if you don't, well, you're dead in the water anyway. **Next time:** Next time I am not building a consumer product. B2B with a clear cut monetization strategy and a focus to start monetizing as early as possible. ## 5\. Product outside area of specialization Nobody in the team had built a successful consumer product before. We all had experience in the enterprise space, selling to businesses. We had no experience in consumer of video. We were not playing to our strengths. **Next time:** Next time I will play in a space I have lived in before. ## What's next? As I said at the beginning, this experience has definitely been a positive one. I can't even begin to describe how much I have learned. It felt like an accelerated university degree. I have gained a TONN of real world experience in the startup world, built a strong network in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and even have my next startup idea locked down. But for now, my visa to the US runs out in about a month so I will be leaving. My marketing company is still running strong and the focus is going to be on scaling that over the next 12 months. I am going to do a few stops in the US over the next few weeks, San Diego, Tempe, Pittsburg then I am going to head to Hong Kong to handle some banking and I want to visit my parents and little brother who are currently in Ningbo (a city in China near Shanghai). After that I am planning to move to Jaco in Costa Rica for at least 6 months. The words for the year are "Scale and Systems". Beyond building my business, I also want to focus on getting stronger in the gym, learning to surf properly and learning Spanish. I am also brewing the idea of doing another sneaky startup, working on team for this one so well see how that goes. What would you have done different? > **I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street** To go deeper on vitoto, check out Vitoto Editing Features Launched.

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