- Buy catered lunch -- employees would be waiting at long lineups or walking far just to get lunch -- Keep them at the office so they can socialize.
- Use Google Apps -- Simplifies email, calendars, and document sharing.
- Use data-driven development -- metrics on new features / AB Test
- Use hiring screeners
- Keep your job interviews short
- Don't hire a PR firm -- Marketing associate instead, leveraged his own connections..full time thinking about the product
- Put one guy on fund-raising -- This should be a focused initiative
- Work from home -- You don't need an office nowadays, keep costs down... need one room for a separate phonecall
- Use the cloud while you're small -- don't buy actual hardware unless you're a hardware company.
- Listen to your users the right way -- Users can tell you what's wrong..not what they want, observe the pain points
- Use a .com -- .tv was a marketing failure because people would go to justintv.com.
- Be transparent with employees: how much longer can the company survive with current funding?
- Don't outsource your core components
- Hire specialists when needed (if no one has domain knowledge, build or buy decision)
- Hire people smarter than yourself
- Have a plan for actually making money
Cheers,
Jaime
