Lessons Learned From a Decade of Building

This is a guest post written by Alex Reed, Chief Commercial Officer of Vsimple, a B2B SaaS business headquartered in New Albany, Indiana, and a trusted advisor to numerous startups and growth companies. Prior roles include founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Truman’s and head of marketing for Big Ass Fans. He is also an Endeavor mentor.

After spending the last 13 years working in, starting, exiting from, and reflecting on early-stage businesses, I gained clarity that only comes with the hands-on experience of an operator. That doesn’t mean I have all the answers, in fact, the more I’ve learned, the less inclined I am to offer prescriptive advice. But I will share observations from my own circumstances. There are few universal truths when it comes to starting and growing a company. With that caveat out of the way, let’s get into some of my biggest takeaways.

Originality Isn’t Everything

True invention is a rarity. Humans continually build on and improve existing ideas. Aspiring entrepreneurs can get stuck looking for the idea that will revolutionize the world, when what the world often needs is incremental improvement, which compounds. The founder of Big Ass Fans, which held hundreds of patents, strongly proclaimed the brand was worth more than the intellectual property. You don’t build brand simply by boxing out every potential competitor with IP; brand is built through a combination of offering useful products and pairing them with amazing customer experiences. Sometimes it’s that simple.

Different Skills at Different Stages

After working with startups employing anywhere from 2 to 1,000-plus employees, I realized that being really smart or accomplished doesn’t guarantee a fit in a position. This is bi-directional: entrepreneurs may find it challenging to lead large teams, and conversely, executives at late-stage startups or large companies may struggle with something brand new. The best entrepreneurs are able to grow as the company does, but this is the exception, not the rule. That doesn’t necessarily mean firing yourself as the company grows, instead, recognize what your strengths are and continually surround yourself with complementary talent.

0-to-1 Is Thankless

I started my career with a business producing $25 million in annual revenue. I’ve also started and advised pre-revenue businesses. While there’s more upside to starting, or joining very early, know that the job is thankless. You won’t have an IT department, a finance team, HR, or any kind of support staff. You’ll probably make less money than you could elsewhere. And there’s no “time off,” because there aren’t others covering for you when you’re away. If you’re considering founding a company, consider getting some experience with a small but growing company to prepare yourself, financially and career-wise, for the lonely journey from 0 to 1. The average age of a successful entrepreneur is over 40, so don’t discount the value of learning from others who’ve been there.

Timing Matters, and Be Flexible

Great ideas and great people can still flop. External circumstances can change, and new variables may impact the way you approach your company. A close friend and partner in several ventures started a company right out of college in the early 2000s. The idea: audio transmissions of popular media articles delivered directly to iPods. He basically had the idea for podcasts. Solid as it was, the idea came too early, download speeds were horrendous, and cellular networks weren’t equipped for that type of data yet. Or take the origin story of Big Ass Fans: the company started as an evaporative cooling business installing sprinkler systems on the roofs of manufacturing buildings in the south. Technically genius, commercially challenging, but out of that struggle appeared the opportunity to address the cooling needs of those facilities in a different, more desirable manner: with big fans.

Knowing When to Press the Gas

One of the more challenging aspects of entrepreneurship is managing the different stages of a business. “Product-market fit” can have various definitions, but it’s important to identify. Two really positive indicators are organic growth and referral rates, which suggest a strong path to market and an affinity for the product. When there’s an obvious connection between what your business offers and a target consumer, it’s time to capitalize. There’s no “aha moment” that indicates it’s time to move; instead, look for small points of validation that give you confidence in what you’re building.

People Are Everything

Great ideas can still flop or change. Ten times out of ten, I’ll bet on people over an idea. Good people don’t bat 1.000, and that’s okay. Concern yourself more with their processes, their reputations, their work ethics, and their hearts. If nothing else, life and business are much more enjoyable when you surround yourself with determined and kind people.

Calibrate the Advice You Receive

There’s a reason the greatest economists fail to predict recessions and futurists often mispredict the future: variables are too bountiful, and humans have an amazing ability to identify patterns and create narratives out of random, uncorrelated things. Recognize the difference between specific, actionable advice and sweeping generalizations. Go deeper and ask follow-on questions to understand whether the advice is applicable to your situation. Don’t accept advice at face value, even if you have great respect for the advisor. The entrepreneur’s journey is inherently unique. Open-mindedness, flexibility, curiosity, perseverance, and a great team around you will go further than any growth hacks or playbooks.

Carve Your Own Path

Every founder’s journey will be unique. While we sometimes romanticize the entrepreneurs with “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas, having an open mind, a willingness to adapt, and the strength to persist through difficult times will get you much further than a one-time stroke of genius.