The Startup Handbook

I get a lot of questions about what it’s like building companies. This month marks five years since we started tvScientific, and while I could probably write a book on the topic, I wanted to share a few lessons from this experience as well as my previous ones founding or leading startups.

1. Start your company in the path of an unmistakable wave of disruptive change.

You don’t want to start in a slow or no-growth category. Given a choice between investing in a newspaper startup or an AI startup, which do you think is going to be better received by investors? 

2. Have a very clear purpose and vision.

The purpose/mission is vital. Strategy and tactics evolve when they meet reality, but clarity and repetition keep everyone aligned. One of the most effective things I’ve done is making sure everyone is crystal clear on what we’re doing and why — reinforced by starting every company meeting (and board meeting) with a review of our mission and strategy.

3. Innovate. Innovate. Innovate.

Be relentless about bringing innovative, differentiated products to market. Technology companies are only as good as what they build and what their customers buy. Period.  And this is a dynamic process of always-on change, which means innovation must be a core muscle of the company, not a one-and-done moment.  

4. Build a world-class team.

This isn’t a “good enough” category. You need top talent, and that means hiring different people for different phases:

• Startup: Rule breakers, creative innovators, wildcatters. Grit, urgency, and relentless curiosity. Hire them and let them run.

• Scale-up: Once product-market fit is clear, bring in operators who’ve done it before. Startup folks usually can’t scale a business past a certain point.

But we must be aware that when you bring in operators, they tend to hire more people in their own likeness, creating a culture shift. Startup folks may not fit neatly into a structured environment that evolves from this process. But if you build a collaborative culture early, one that values diverse talent profiles, you can balance the wild-eyed builders with the spreadsheet wizards. That’s an important dimension of workplace diversity too.

5. No assholes, no egos.

Assholes kill the communication/collaboration process that is foundational to innovation and culture building. And big egos are just a slightly disguised version of assholes. In either case, the essence of these people is self-centered, which is the antithesis of the most important objective — getting to the right answer, regardless of where it comes from.

Yes, some successful people were known for being difficult (Steve Jobs early in his career), but most evolve past it. Trusted collaboration, respect and meritocracies build better companies. And in any case, life is too short to deal with assholes.

6. Never, ever give up.

Businesses are hard to build. Things will absolutely go wrong. A lot. What matters is showing up every day, staying positive, solving problems and putting one foot in front of the other until something breaks open. And it’s usually just degrees away…

7. Listen to your customers. Hire people who listen to your customers.

The best BD and salespeople listen more than they talk. Our programmatic platform at OpenX (and the Programmatic advertising category) was born from a customer conversation. Listening unlocks ideas, builds trust, and strengthens your culture. Sales should be consultative. There’s a simple 50% rule — if you or your team talk more than 50% in a given convo, you are losing. 

The essence of this skill is empathy. Empathy for what your customers need and the pain they feel. Empathy for your team members. Taking the time to deeply understand the point of view of others, so you can effectively build bridges with people, and build products that meet the well-understood needs of customers.

8. Embrace failure.

Building startups is mostly an exercise in failure management. Product failures, demos gone wrong, churn, technical issues — it’s all part of it. Accept that failure will happen and lean into the process of evolving based on failures instead of dwelling on them. Speed matters here (thus the “fail fast” term). This process is the essence of the scientific method. 

Respond to failures by understanding what happened. Break it down and then iterate — quickly. That’s how products, companies and people evolve.

Sports is full of great analogies for this. Hall of Fame baseball players fail at the plate 70% of the time. And there’s Gretzky’s famous quote: you don’t score on 100% of the shots you don’t take. 

9. Be humble. Have fun.

“Ego kills.” I’ve seen it too many times. True leaders serve employees, customers, shareholders, and the industry — not themselves.

And you’ve got to have fun. At OpenX, we brought in an old ping-pong table. We held tournaments, laughed a lot, trash-talked to epic levels and never lost that spirit. From retreats with customers and internal social hours to interest-based Slack channels, fun has always had to be a part of the culture.

Those are just a few lessons I've learned from 25+ years of startups. Live in the oath of unmistakable disruption/evolution; be clear on your mission; hire world-class diversified team team members; build great products. Persevere. Don’t tolerate assholes. Stay humble. Listen. Have fun.

That’s my take on how you build the foundation of a company that will win the respect of customers, colleagues, and investors — and endure.