“primum non nocere” = first, to not harm

This Latin tidbit actually comes from the Hippocratic Oath (the one doctors swear to).  But there is a lesson in there for all of us.  A business’s first goal every day should be to not cause our customers to feel harmed.   It doesn’t matter what your job or role, your real job is to make customers feel loved.  This manifests itself in many ways, but it should always be the centerpiece of your efforts.

Some people have a great deal of direct customer interaction, and some people have jobs where we rarely directly interact with a customer.  But as a rule, customer interaction should be a few things:

1. Clear and concise (i.e. don’t waste their time or confuse them)
2. Prompt (i.e. if a customer or prospect has to wait more than 24 hours for an initial contact, we failed)
3. Follow-up and Follow-through (i.e. if we don’t have answers yet, at least once per day, tell them we are working on it. And if we say we are going to do something, do it and let them know we did it)

Following these simple steps usually means you have very happy customers.  No matter what your role or job is.  Support is not a department, it is a mentality.

Primum non nocere….

“Hannibal ante portas” = “Hannibal is before the gates” – from Cicero’s commentary.

The Latin quote above is used often when talking about not wasting time.

At a start-up, the second most valuable commodity behind cash is time.  Technology start-ups have to move fast, and there are only 24 hours in any day.  So every minute wasted is an opportunity lost. And in one of the biggest places time is wasted is in meetings not starting on time.  That usually has a multiplier effect of wasting multiple people’s time all at once.

So I have strict meeting rules:

• If you are going to be more than 5 minutes late, send a note.  I have SMS, IM, email, carrier pigeon available 24 x 7.
• After 5 minutes, the meeting will be closed.  If it is a 1-on-1 meeting, don’t bother coming, I will reschedule.  If it is for a group meeting, don’t bother coming, I will send an update later or you can read it on the company intranet.

The enemy is always at the gates as a start-up.  Save the fiddle playing for when you have won the war. (Sorry for the mixed Latin metaphor.)

Yesterday, I was reading a little bit of a commentary by Augustus about his rule during Pax Romana, and I was struck by a phrase that described PBwiki sales over the last few days. The phrase was : “velocius quam asparagi coquantur”, which means: “faster than cooking asparagus”. Although Augustus was describing the manner in which he restored order and harmony after his uncle’s assassination, he could have been describing the way that start-ups need to grow.

So, the next time you bite into some steamed asparagus, think about how fast you are making strides in your business and ask yourself, “What more could I do today to grow my start-up?”

As I was watching Michael Phelps last night in the 100M butterfly, I was struck by the life lessons that can be taken away from his performance.

For those that have not seen the race in question, Michael Phelps was unbelievably far behind and appeared to be in a hopeless situation with 10 meters to go. But somehow, he miraculously reached the wall first by .01 of a second. Every single person at the Water Cube and watching TV thought he had lost, but in the slow motion replays, he had won. It also showed that he had done something that most butterfly swimmers are told not to do, he shortened his last stroke in order to extend a little faster to the wall. He said, after the race, that he took the calculated risk because he knew he was behind and had to take a chance. Well, like most great ones, his risk paid off and he is now the greatest swimmer of all time.

The lesson learned from all of this actually play out at start-ups as well. Many are struggling behind large competitors, who have distinct leads in customer base, team size, funding, etc. But great start-ups have to think like a “great one” and find ways to win. In accomplishing this greatness, start-ups have to take risks. They have to use areas of advantage (e.g. large, happy user base or a nimble culture) to steal victory. There will be times when people think the chances that they have to take are daunting or even make their jobs less comfortable.

In taking these chances you will have your turn on the podium, and someone will be putting gold medal being around your neck.

There is a rule as an entrepreneur, “Don’t run out of money.” As long as you still have cash in the bank, you can adjust and change your plans enough so that you still can be in the game. Part of not running out of cash at your business is to be a personally frugal person. If you are wise with your personal money, you probably will be wise with company expenditures.

A great story about frugality comes from Josh Childress. Josh is a professional basketball player that shocked the world by signing a $10MM per year deal to play in Greece and by-passed the NBA. Besides understanding the fundamentals of a pick-and-roll, Mr. Childress also understands the power of watching every dollar, as demonstrated by this quote:

The next time you have to spend money for your business, maybe you can remember the monetary efficency of Josh Childress.

“It isn’t the people you fire who make your life miserable, it’s the people you don’t.” Harvey Mackay

A couple weeks ago, we wrote about the importance of finding help when building your company. But sometimes when you find help, you find the wrong people. Cutting ties with a wrong-fit employee is one of the hardest things to do for any manager, but not doing it can destroy your start-up and make you miserable as Harvey Mackay mentions.

There are a few facts about hiring in a start-up:

• Some people are made for start-ups
• Some people aren’t made for start-ups
• And some people think they are made for start-ups, but they aren’t

Start-up life is hard work and has its own culture when compared to any other type of employment. A successful hire is often forced to work in strained environments without a lot of support. Some people strive in this environment, and others crash-and-burn.

As the manager/owner, your job is to determine if they are keepers or deadweight. At a start-up, you can’t be in the business of grooming talent. There are too many things to do and too many roles to fill. Cut your deadweight quickly and save yourself the headaches.

This past week I sent an email to one of our portfolio companies, PBwiki, that really demonstrated the daily grind that is life at a start-up. Every day you have to find a way to make progress and move the ball forward. Here is the meat of email:

Everyday you have to find a way to make progress. Improve your product. Improve your support. Attract that new client. Make a new line, and move the game forward.

One of the most important of Yeh’s Laws of Entrepreneurship is simple but universal:
Get someone else to do the work.

I’m not advocating laziness in entrepreneurs–entrepreneurship is hard work. But you have to realize that hard work is insufficient.

Even the most dedicated entrepreneur is hard-pressed to work more than 12 hours per day. That’s only 84 hours per week, assuming you never take a day off. And towards the end of those long days, I’ll bet our workaholic entrepreneur would be working at only 50% effectiveness–or less.

In contrast, if you simply get three reliable people to work for you 40 hours per week, that’s 120 hours of productive work, in addition to whatever you get done.

It often seems like young entrepreneurs think that working ridiculously long hours makes them morally superior. All it really makes them is tired.

Professionals work hard, but understand that the real key is figuring out how to get others to do the work.

John Wooden is famous for saying, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.” Unfortunately, it’s hard to act on this Yoda-like utterance. That’s why I’ve rephrased it (glancing nervously at the sky, hoping to avoid a lightning bolt) in my own words:

Be decisive, but don’t rush in.

Sports is one of the most popular metaphors for business, along with war. Famous players and coaches can make a mint off of books and speaking engagements. The same holds true for successful generals.

But here’s the funny thing–a lot of ex-athletes and ex-coaches (as well as ex-soldiers) have failed in the business world. Not all of them–just look at the success of guys like Roger Staubach and Magic Johnson, as well as military men like AG Lafley of Proctor & Gamble–but more than the general population of folks with similar advantages (rich, famous, well-connected).

It’s not because athletes or soldiers are unintelligent; many are smart and capable. The problem is that their instincts are ill-suited to business success.

The business world operates on a different time scale than sports or combat. How often do we talk about how fractions of a second separating victory and defeat or life and death? For athletes and soldiers, reflexes and instant aggressive reaction are the keys to winning.

I’ve been in the business world a long time, and even during the era of “Internet time” I cannot recall a single instance where a fraction of a second meant the difference between success or failure.

Be decisive, but don’t rush in. It’s rare that time frames less than a day matter, and unheard of for time frames of less than an hour.

When something happens, take the time to make the right decision.

This is not an excuse for dithering…being decisive and aggressive is incredibly important to business success. But recognize that whether you respond to that proposal in 1 second or 1 hour generally doesn’t impact your options and that you can come up with a much better decision in an hour than you can in a second.

Rather than thinking of business as sport or war, think of it as chess. Every move must have its purpose. Make the right decision.

I often hear people advising young entrepreneurs to “work harder” or “work smarter.”  While this is good advice, neither is the ultimate secret of business success.

Working harder is a good starting point.  There’s no question that all other things being equal, I’ll put my money on the harder worker.  The problem is that many people think that hard work is good in and of itself.  Not true.

I’ve known plenty of “grinds” who beavered away, expending vast quantities of effort, but without getting commensurate results.  At the end of the day, while the gritty, hard-working underdog makes for a nice story, he usually doesn’t win Superbowl MVP.

When folks realize that hard work is insufficient, they usually graduate to the next step: Working smarter.  “Work smarter, not harder” is a time-honored maxim, and yes, it is often effective.

The entrepreneur who builds a better mousetrap is more likely to catch a mouse than the entrepreneur who works hard running from mousehole to mousehole trying to catch rodents with his bare hands.

But people who truly understand success know that working smarter is still a tactic, rather than a strategy.

Those who press on past working harder and working smarter discover the ultimate secret of business success: Working on the right things.

Trying to catch mice is fine, but wouldn’t you rather devote your time to starting a company that changes the world and makes you mind-bogglingly rich than to catching mice?

I’d rather be Steve Jobs than the world’s greatest mousecatcher.  Heck, I’d rather be even a moderately successful entrepreneur like Evan Williams (the founder of Blogger and Twitter) than the world’s greatest mousecatcher.

Focusing on working harder and working smarter begs the question of judgment and prioritization.  It’s the worker-bee mentality: How can I better carry out the wishes of my boss.

When you start asking yourself, “What is the most important thing I can work on,” you’re finally taking on the responsibility of being your own boss.

Don’t go into entrepreneurship, then chain yourself to an invisible boss by focusing on working harder and smarter.

Be your own boss.  Work on the right things.