The Daily Founder

The Daily Founder Day 031: Limitless Mind

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” – Mary Kay Ash Let’s see where our minds can take us today with this little exercise: Step 1: Where do you think is your limit? Step 2: What do you think is needed to break through it? Step 3: Let’s assume for a second that this would be easily solved. What would be next? What would open up to you? What would be the next limit? Let’s keep going through the steps 1,2,3 for two more rounds. Where are you now? Can you imagine it? Can you believe it? Allow yourself to, nobody is stopping you. There's also no limit on comments in the community group on austrianstartups.com. Let’s do this.

The Daily Founder Day 030: Lean & Mean

Just build it and they will come. Sounds very risky and overly confident, don’t you think? Here’s a better way: The Lean Startup - the methodology created and championed by Eric Ries helps us build products better and faster. The core principle is to keep going in the iterative and continuous cycle of Build - Measure - Learn. The idea is to only build small iterations of your product to then measure the impact and learn as fast as possible if your assumptions are actually true. This helps you fail fast and save time and money as you’re not building something nobody actually wants. The approach reduces risk, increases efficiency and is more customer-centric. Are you using the lean startup method? Define a small iteration of your product or idea and think how you can measure and learn if one assumption you have about it is actually true. Thanks for tuning into The Daily Founder on Day 30. Join us in the community group on austrianstartups.com and comment, like and subscribe. Much appreciated. Let’s do this!

The Daily Founder Day 029: Against The Wind

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” - Henry Ford Feeling strong resistance? Make it your friend and let it lift you up as today’s challenge! What is it that is going against you? Can you think of a way you can use it to your advantage somehow?Let me know in the comments wherever you’re getting this and consider joining and sharing in the community group on austrianstartups.com. Let’s do this.

The Daily Founder Day 028: Fast & Slow Thinking

We’re all biased. Whether we like it or not, but it helps to know and how our mind works. This is where Daniel Kahnemann’s groundbreaking book “Thinking, fast and slow” offers great insights into the two systems guiding our thinking.
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System 1: Our intuitive, automatic thinking that relies on heuristics and biases to make quick judgments. It's fast, efficient, but prone to errors.
System 2: Our slow, deliberate, and logical thinking that requires effort and focus. It's slower but less susceptible to biases.
Today, try to get a feel for it. For the next decision you’re facing, big or small, take a step back and challenge yourself where your first instinct came from and how it might be biased.
Enjoy figuring out how your mind works and how to overcome your biases on Day 28 of The Daily Founder. I might be biased, but I think it’s a great idea to comment, like and subscribe and join the community group on austrianstartups.com. Let’s do this!
 

The Daily Founder Day 027: Advice, or not?

As a founder you get a lot of advice from many different people, wanted or unwanted. Investors, coaches, customers, employees, friends, partners, the neighbor’s uncle…everyone has an opinion. Some of it is very valuable. Most of it is not. And that’s the challenge with advice: high variability of value and high volume. Today, let’s take a first step figuring out which pieces of advice you may want to take up. List the people in your network you trust to give you advice on specific topics as a first filter to manage it all. In further steps you may want think about the psychology of advice, yours and that of the advice givers. You may also want to look at which type of decisions lend themselves for which kind of advice from whom. As you become more strategic about receiving advice you’ll become better judging whether it’s good or bad advice. My advice on Day 027 of The Daily Founder, join this community of entrepreneurial minds on austrianstartups.com. Let’s do this!

The Daily Founder Day 026: Unit Economics

As a founder, questions like:
How do I acquire customers?
How much should I spend on marketing?
Am I actually making money?
are central to the journey and you gotta be confident in anwering them.
Enter Unit Economics.
Think of unit economics as the profitability of a single customer acquisition, product sale, or any core unit within your business model. It's about understanding the revenue generated by this unit and the costs associated with acquiring and serving it. Breaking it all down to these units will give you key metrics like ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit), CAC (Customer Acquisitions Cost), and CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
By understanding and optimizing your unit economics you can make informed decisions, ensure your business is financially sound, and ultimately, achieve sustainable growth.
So for today, figure out or check in with your unit economics and calculate your ARPU, CAC & CLTV.
Happy number crunching. Let’s do this!
 

The Daily Founder Day 025: Comfort Zone = Wasteland

The Comfort Zone - a cozy, familiar and safe place, sure, but it’s not fertile land to grow anything, it’s where you rest. Innovation, growth and resilience are built outside of it and in discomfort. So challenge yourself, regularly, deliberately, as calculated exploration and with a growth mindset. This doesn’t mean you should spend all your time outside your comfort zone and one can overdo it of course. The goal is not to run in constant panic mode and into a burnout. As with everything, it’s about finding a good balance overall that you can sustain. Let’s take a small step outside of your current comfort zone today. Whatever that means for you. Maybe it’s a cold sales call for you, or attending an industry event you haven’t been to before, maybe a new marketing tactic, participating in a professional development workshop or seeking advice from a coach. Whatever it may be, take a small step into something uncomfortable today and celebrate it! Do share your steps outside your comfort zone in the comments and join us as a subscriber or in the community group on austrianstartups.com. Let’s do this!

The Daily Founder Day 024: Cash Rules

Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king. Whether you like it or not, this saying, well, kinda says it all. Sir Richard Branson puts it this way: “Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it’s the lifeblood of business.”Peter Drucker: “Entrepreneurs believe that profit is what matters most in a new enterprise. But profit is secondary. Cash flow matters most.” Jack Welch: “If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow.” In simple terms, cash flow is all the money coming in and going out. Cash is what allows you to do things and it can provide freedom and flexibility to act. In PT Barnum’s words: “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” So for today’s challenge, take a close look at your cash flow and try to figure out what your current situation means so you can take good next steps.Find our great community of entrepreneurial minds on https://austrianstartups.com and please comment, engage and like what we do here. Let’s do this.

The Daily Founder Day 023: The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle. Let’s circle back to Day 002, when we were talking about purpose - your WHY. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle is a simple yet powerful framework that helps leaders and organizations communicate their purpose and inspire action. It’s made up of three concentric circles: The outermost circle is WHAT, representing the products and services you offer. The middle circle is HOW, representing the unique processes and values that differentiate you. Finally, the innermost circle, and the most crucial one, is WHY, representing your core purpose, cause, and belief.The idea is to think, act and communicate from the inside out. So let’s try this today! Pick any situation you will encounter today and approach it with the Golden Circle in mind and communicate in that order. Hope the Golden Circle helps you to inspire many people and communicate effectively! Let’s do this!

The Daily Founder Day 022: On Parkinson's Time

Being a founder is like juggling flaming chainsaws while sprinting uphill. Time becomes your most precious resource, constantly slipping through your fingers. Yet, even with limited hours in the day, tasks seem to expand to fill every available second. This, my friends, is the insidious reality of Parkinson's Law.
Work seems to expand so as to fill the time available for its completion." In simpler terms, if you give yourself a week to write a business plan, it'll take a week. But, if you only have 2 days, guess what? You'll likely crank it out in that timeframe.
So what can we do? We make it our challenge for today:
Embrace deadlines seems to work. So set yourself a tight deadline for task you’re facing.
Timeboxing is your friend: The next task you start or meeting you’re going into. Give it a clear time frame and don’t go over.
Track your time. Really take a look at what you’re spending your time on today.
Say no! Just once today. Learn to politely decline requests that don't align with your core priorities. Your time is precious, don't let others squander it.
Share how you’re overcoming Parkinson’s Law in the community group on austrianstartups.com, where you’ll also find more strategies on how to overcome Parkinson’s Law. Let’s do this!