Welcome to Startupland. Things are different here.
I want a designation for someone’s first year in the startup world. Freshman? Newbee? Tenderfoot? I want a common nomenclature for this stage in a person’s entrepreneurial development because it would help folks understand that there are normal phases of personal growth in entrepreneurship and that everyone has to go through them to get comfortable and functional in the startup world. I think if we could all recognize the new people, get them up to speed, maybe we could get more people more productive faster. As a community, we could have a quicker on-boarding process. The fewer befuddled souls, the better.
Where is the startup handbook?
I don’t know. Is there one? There should be.
“Welcome to the startup world, here’s your calendar of startup events. Here’s your reading list: Lean Startup, Startup Communities, Founder’s Dilemma, Business Model Generation. Know whoSteve Blank, Brad Feld, Naval Ravikant, Clayton Christensen, and Paul Graham are and why they are significant. Here’s a script for the conversation you will have repeatedly with your parents and spouse as you go deeper into debt while you chase your dreams. This is normal. Go, have a look around and enjoy!”
Fundamentally, the values system is different between the startup world and any other part of the business or professional world. A person who just came from industry, government, or academia will have to step away from some pretty basic rules and values to be happy here. I’m not talking about political values. I mean the kinds of values that people generally use to measure success.
Professional Titles
We each have a lot of them. Once you...