When a startup experiences serious technical problems, things may seem pretty chaotic. Two of the most important things to keep in mind when dealing with such situations is information and pace. It’s important to keep your own team and your customers informed about what’s going on and it’s important to pace yourself as you fix problems – or you can become overwhelmed and paralyzed pretty quickly. I discuss why in this video.
Every business – at some point – must find the root cause of a problem. For technology companies – especially companies operating online businesses – root cause analysis is an every-day occurrence. Before crowdSPRING, very early in my career as a lawyer, I represented a nuclear energy company and among other things, performed as part of our investigation, root cause analysis of failures at nuclear and fossil stations.
I’m not an expert in root cause analysis – but am happy to share a few tips that help me when I look for the cause of problems. In this video, I share five tips about root cause analysis. If you have your own tips to add – please do so in the comments below.
If you’ve worked at a startup or have seen my earlier video – Startups Are Like Roller Coasters – you’ll know that ups and downs at startups are very common.
This is particularly true when startups are getting ready to launch a new product or service – whether for a private beta or a public launch. The closer you get to a launch event, the more pressure the team feels.
Pressure isn’t bad – it helps some people to perform at their peak – but it can cause others to come unglued and panic. It’s important to understand how to deal with pressure. In this video, I offer 5 suggestions about dealing with the pressure of an upcoming launch.
Hiring good employees is not easy. It’s an even greater challenge to fire employees. In this video, I offer five suggestions about firing employees.
As some of you saw in my video from last week (Startup Tip – Leadership is Not Management) leadership and management are not the same. But, successful companies – and especially successful technology startups, need to have both leaders and managers. The need for management becomes more important as the startup matures. In this 4 minute video, I talk about the stages of a startup, from birth of the idea to a startup’s second year, and the points when you need leadership, management, or both.
Ross co-founded crowdSPRING - the world's #1 marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, industrial design and copywriting services. crowdSPRING helps entrepreneurs, businesses and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, company naming and other writing services (100,000+ designers and writers). For 13 years before founding crowdSPRING, Ross was a successful trial attorney. Read more about Ross.
