You finally found that amazing hire!! Yay!

Or maybe — your hiring pace is picking up.

You have several folks starting soon (on the same day, I hope??) 🙌 🙌

We’ve already discussed some of the keys to scale your hiring:

• Same day start
• Discuss Core Values
• Onboarding buddies
• Training sessions with real humans**

(**although I’m very intrigued by eWebinar - has anyone tried it for employee onboarding?)

What are some specific, tactical strategies to have a great employee onboarding experience for your 1st hire or 100th hire?

Here are 3 must-have onboarding components to make life easier and ramp new team members as quickly as possible! 

3 Simple Strategies For Employee Onboarding

1. Onboarding Checklist via Google Spreadsheets

Before you get super fancy with a software (although I do like Rippling when you’re ready), start with a good ole fashioned spreadsheet.

I love an onboarding spreadsheet checklist because new hires are empowered on Day 1!

✅ Onboarding Checklist Template HERE.
📒 Full list of templates and resources HERE.

Onboarding Checklist Benefits:

• New team members know what to work on and who to talk to if they need help.
• A central source-of-truth you can both reference to understand progress, roadblocks, and expectations.
• You or the new hire can add items ad hoc, adjust, or improve for the future.

Best of all — you can start this with your VERY FIRST HIRE!

How To Build Your Onboarding Checklist:

1. Create a spreadsheet (or copy this one) with:
2. Items to complete
3. Who does the item (manager, employee, HR, someone else)
4. Who to talk to if you need help
5. Estimated time
6. Timeline (before they start, first day, first week, first month)
7. Type (general, department-specific, role-specific)
8. Status (complete, in progress, not started, need help)
9. For your next hire…copy this spreadsheet!
10. Tweak as needed for role or process updates.
11. Now, you have two templates — BEHOLD — your library of onboarding materials!!!

Examples of Items To Include - Prior To Start Date:

• Acquire a computer (buy, borrow, find in a drawer and hope it works…)
• Desk location (like, do you even have room in the office? If no, check out ATV. 😉)
• Let HR know you hired someone (but wait until the last minute. They really love that.)
• Figure out if you have any branded swag left from your last trade show to put on their desk for the first day. When you get larger, you may even have an official employee swag pack!

Typical First Day/Week Items:

• Set up computer, email, calendar
• HR paperwork stuff
• Logins to general software tools (Slack) and role specific ones (CRM or GitHub)
• Invites to team meetings, upcoming events
• Read training materials, industry blogs, thought leadership
• Team welcome lunch or other tradition
• 20,914,830 other things

2. Encourage Questions via Group Chat

Using Slack or (gasp) Microsoft Teams, direct questions into a group chat.

Whatever group makes sense depending on company size.

• #department-name if you have teams/roles
• #new-hire-questions if it’s still pretty flat

Group chat is ESPECIALLY valuable if you have multiple people starting in the same role, e.g. SDRs or support reps, since they’ll have a lot of the same questions.

Why Group Chat Is Great For Training:

• Avoids side conversations. You want people to get consistent, high quality info (from you).
• Sometimes people get embarrassed so they ask other new hires. I’ve seen bad advice inadvertently shared this way. Encourage people to ask in the group (redirect if they don’t) and answer questions kindly to reinforce that it’s a safe space.
• Group chats can become a great repository! Pin a common question, train GPT on the answer, turn it into a customer-facing help article, search the history.
• Group questions mean that others can jump in and answer — a great opportunity for someone who wants to grow into a manager — and it helps share the onboarding work load.
• A team manager or company leader can see trends on what’s confusing, how people are progressing, and where additional training is needed.

Exceptions:

• HR, payroll, equity questions
• Onboarding buddies can be a good complementary resource

3. Sessions With Each Department Head

One of my favorite onboarding things we did at Rigor was live sessions with each department head.

The leader creates a slide deck **one time** to explain:

• What their department does
• Department metrics and deliverables
• People and roles on their team
• How to engage with them
• Tools they use
• Current or upcoming projects

Presentations are 20-30 minutes max, then live Q&A for a total time of 45-60 minutes.

The department head will do this presentation 1-2x/mo max (assuming you’re doing same day start) even if you’re hiring like crazy!

The benefits are huge:

• Understanding how the business works across all departments
• Breaking down department silos
• Relationship-building with company leaders
• Company leaders staying connected to new hires

Too early to have departments?

Have a new hire set up 1:1 meetings with everyone in the company (as part of their Onboarding Checklist!) or small group meetings if there’s multiple hires or mini departments.

During this session, they can ask questions about the person’s role, vision, how they like to work, learnings from customers, what is success in their role, etc.

The touchpoint, business info, and relationship-building early on is key to the long term impact and success of a new hire!

No Onboarding Is Perfect

It’s not you, it’s me…the nature of learning a new thing!

No human can never learn everything at once, no matter how amazing the training.

This is why it’s good to remind a new hire about the 4 stages to expect after joining at startup.

Plus, if you’re growing quickly, your onboarding will be out of date as soon as it’s done. 😂

The good news is — when you hire great people, they’ll have lots of ideas on how to improve the onboarding.

Let ‘em at it!

Recent hires will have the best insights and, in no time at all, they’ll be the ones leading the onboarding!

What have you seen work well for onboarding? Any other tips or tricks for onboarding new startup hires?

I’m into healthy habits.

As you might have guessed from these previous posts 😂

• 6 Tiny Healthy Habits No Matter How Busy You Are
• 5 Ways To Eat Healthy When You’re Building a Company
• 5 Fast, Healthy Lunches For Busy Startup Days
• A Simple 3-Step Guide To Building Lifelong (Healthy) Habits

Healthy habits are especially important when you’re doing something hard like building a company!

You need your wits about you and your broccoli in hand.

But what do you do when you’re super busy?

Or — gasp — on the road?

Never fear, O’Daily friends.

I’ve spent decades researching (and field testing) the healthiest out-and-about meal options.

I’ve further stress-tested my healthy food picks in recent years with small children. These healthy, fast restaurants are FAMILY APPROVED!

Here are 5 BEST healthy fast food options for founders—and families—on the go!

What Makes It “Healthy” and “Best”

Here’s our criteria for the 2023 O’Daily Healthy Fast Food rankings.

1. Healthy food - duh.

Defined as: fresh vegetables, lean proteins including a non-meat option, whole grains, minimally processed.

2. Tastes good.

Even a veggie lover like myself can’t just eat a head of raw broccoli and call it a meal. Must be reasonably acceptable to the palate of healthy adults and whiny children.

3. Readily available.

Yes, a hole-in-the-wall health food restaurant is ideal but you’ll never find one:

• off a highway exit
• in a smallish town
• outside of California 😂

We went for “reasonably mainstream” options.

4. No fries.

If there’s fries anywhere in the vicinity, it can’t be a healthy family meal.

Why not, ask the readers without children. (The same question I would have had just a few years ago…)

Fun Fact: if you bring your kid within 100 yards of a French fry, their fry-dar immediately activates. They turn into raving, groveling, pleading fry babies. Even the strongest parents cannot withstand the onslaught of a monstronous Fry-kenstein!

Thus Farm Burger (see below) is a strong honorable mention for their amazing salads and high quality food, but the “Fry Factor” knocked it out of the top 5.

5 Healthiest Fast Food Choices For Busy Founders!

1. Sweetgreen

If you suggest Sweetgreen for lunch, we are friends forever.

Even if I’m not hungry, I will probably say yes because I love Sweetgreen.

Sweetgreen also has bowls and enough “fun foods” (aka cheese and dressings) that kids will eat it too.

The amount of *ACTUAL* fresh veggies and whole grains at Sweetgreens is incredible.

I’ve done a deep dive on Sweetgreen as a public company (coming soon to an O’Daily near you!) — because if I’m going to read an S-1, I want it to be about vegetables — and it’s impressive how they’ve been able to deliver such a healthy option at scale.

What I Order: LONG LIVE the Shroomami!

2. Cava

Incredibly strong contender. Not as unconditionally healthy as Sweetgreen but the kid-friendly factor is higher (thanks to that soft, white pita bread…).

You can get a salad base, protein, lots of veggies on top, and some hummus for extra healthy fat, protein, and flavor. BOOM. Brain-power-to-go!

Even with kids, they can get a lot of fun (read: pickled or with-dressing) veggies on top of a whole grain.

My kids love falafel (which they confusingly and adorably call “waffle”) because they are fried patties that you dip into sauces. YUM.

I love the make-your-own-bowl style of both Sweetgreen and Cava. Makes it possible for health nerds, vegans, paleos, ketos, gluten-freers, and general-no-label-required eaters on your team to all grab a meal together!

What I Order:

• Supergreens
• Hummus
• Roasted vegetables
• Alllll the toppings

3. Whole Foods Salad Bar

At $300 per lb, the Whole Foods Salad Bar is a bit pricey but if you go heavy on the lettuce and light on the sweet potatoes, you can control the costs!

Okay, that’s not really the price but my kids make sure to get all the heaviest foods and we end up at about $15-20 per person.

Lots of great fresh fruits and salad fixin’s, well-labeled options for every dietary preference, high quality ingredients, and you control the “healthy” factor.

Parent Protip:

• Grab some brown rice veggie sushi from the prepared food section for a good kid snack!

What I Order:

• It’s fun to try a bunch of different things. I usually go for a few bean/grain salads, a cooked veggie or two (kale and sweet potatoes!), and a seasoned tofu or cup of soup.

Ironman Fun Fact:

• Whole Foods was our go-to spot when we’d travel for Ironman races. Healthy snacks for the hotel room and a healthy pre-race meal.
• If there was no Whole Foods, we’d find an Asian restaurant to order steamed (brown if possible) rice, steamed tofu or chicken, steamed vegetables with soy sauce.
• If we had our own kitchen, we’d prepare roasted sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, baked chicken, and brown rice! Creatures of habit (and — hopefully — speed)!

4. Starbucks

A surprising one but hear me out.

There’s over 15,000 Starbucks in the US. If you can’t find a Cava, Wholefoods, or Sweetgreen, the odds of finding a Starbucks are likely to quite-likely.

It’s a relatively predictable menu with good portion sizes and better quality ingredients than typical fast food.

They often have fresh apples, bananas, or fun local items.

If you’re on the West Coast, they may even have salads or a grain/bean/veggie bowl!

No fries. 😂

BEWARE of cupcakes and milkshakes though. Er, I mean, blueberry muffins and flavored coffee drinks. 🙃

The downside of Starbucks is allllll that suggggaaaarrrrrrr.

What I Order:

• Spinach feta egg-white wrap (or 2 if it’s a conference 💪)
• A “protein box” if I can’t order breakfast anymore
• Something even healthier on the West Coast!

5. Publix Deli “Pub-Subs”

As we move down the list, we’re going from “most-healthy” to “most-likely-to-be-available-and-pretty-healthy-if-you-choose-correctly.”

A Publix deli sub on whole wheat bread with hummus, avocado, lettuce, tomato, peppers, onions, and spinach is a pretty decent pick.

If hummus isn’t your thing, cheese is a good next option.

Avoid the deli meats (sorry, I know they are delicious but the World Health Organization classified them as cancer-causing in 2015) or at least get a low salt/organic/higher quality option like Boar’s Head.

Grilled or baked chicken, in theory, is better than deli meats. I haven’t specifically researched Publix’s Baked Chicken Tender sandwich though. Pub-Sub Baked Chicken Tender Nutrition Experts, please weigh in!

You can always get extra weird healthy by ordering a veggie sandwich, buying a whole roast chicken (also found in the deli), and adding roast chicken to your sandwich.

After it takes 45 minutes to make 4 sandwiches (just at our Publix?), feel free to shop around for healthy snacks to round out your meal.

Grab a bag of grapes, a container of berries, clementines, raw almonds, cherry tomatoes, or a jumbo sized bag of Cheetos baby carrots, and you’ve got a healthy family meal on the go!

What I Order:

• Whole wheat bread or spinach base
• Hummus
• Avocado
• Tomato, green peppers, onions, olives, lettuce, banana peppers
• Oil and vinegar, pepper, oregano

But what about…???

Analyzing some go-to options and why they didn’t make the “healthy” list.

Farm Burger

Their salads are incredible! They source from local farms! They have a vegan veggie burger with quinoa! They have sliced apples and carrots with sunflower butter in the kids meal!

It’s my go-to lunch spot (hi kale salad!!!) and a pretty solid healthy family place.

The only reason it’s not on the list? Those dang (delicious) fries.

But my kids eat apples and carrots with their begged-for fries so…

Farm Burger gets a strong honorable mention!

Chipotle

Love the tofu and beans!

They have guac, salsa, and pico de gallo — all good options.

But other than soggy romaine lettuce, where are all the veggies??

They did recently add “Supergreens” which looks promising but they could do much more! Shredded cabbage, fresh (not overcooked) peppers, cauliflower, radish, spinach, cilantro, corn, broccoli, or green onions would be amazing.

Add brown rice and a whole wheat tortilla option and it’s in the top 5.

Their market cap is $50B so I appear to be in the minority on this feedback. 😂

Chick-fil-A

Atlanta is home to this fast-food powerhouse and people LOVE IT.

I haven’t been in long time so I looked up the menu to see if it should be in the running.

First 3 Menu Items:

• Honey Pepper Pimento Sandwich: fried chicken, white bread, pimento cheese
• Caramel Crumble Milkshake: ice cream, whipped cream, caramel flavor, blondie crumbles
• Mac n Cheese

I feel okay leaving them off. 😂

They do have a good looking kale salad and fruit cup. But also french fries, fried chicken, desserts, and no non-meat protein options (though they did try a fried cauliflower sandwich recently).

To the Chick-fi-natics who hate me right now: I’M NOT SAYING IT’S NOT DELICIOUS. I’m just saying it’s not a top 5 healthiest fast food pick. You can still eat there for goodness sakes. (Just not on Sunday!)

What are your best healthy fast food tips?? Any great spots that I left off? Where do you like to eat when you’re on the road or in a hurry? What healthy meals do your kids like?

Thinking about making a move or looking for your next role?

Do friends want your advice on how to find startup jobs?

(Save yourself an email and share this post instead 😂)

I often get asked about “good companies” or “open positions” in the Atlanta tech scene or beyond.

There’s so many considerations:

• Stage or size of company (Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C)
• Distribution model (B2B, B2C, Marketplace)
• Industries (Healthcare, MarTech, DeveloperTech, Supply Chain)
• Product type (Hardware, Software, Consumer Products)

And that doesn’t even get into things like company culture, tech stack, and the current skill set of the team or department!

It can be overwhelming. (Or underwhelming if your scope is too narrow - ha!)

There are TONS of great companies looking for great folks — yes, even in “this market.”

Here are my best resources and insider advice for tech job hunters, especially in Atlanta.

Find that dream job. The next unicorn needs you!

1. Look For Companies That Recently Raised

Shoutout to the brilliant Erin Wilson for this one!

It’s going to sound painfully obvious but was not on my radar until Erin suggested it…

Search for companies that have recently raised money.

Crunchbase and Pitchbook are two popular tools. (Crunchbase has a free trial.)

If a company has raised recently (e.g. within the last year), they are more likely to:

• Be hiring
• Be hiring for senior roles
• Be open to an opportunistic hire (“we weren’t planning to hire for this role right now but you seem awesome so let’s do it.”)
• Be successful, have good momentum, be doing something right (especially in “this market” where it’s harder to raise money)

You can search by industry, geography, or stage.

Company size and stage is key.

To some people, a “startup” is 200-500 employees. To others, it’s <20. That’s a wide range and requires very different searches.

If you’re looking for a CFO role, it’s not going to be at a pre-rev, 10 person startup.

But a Series A, B, or C company? They might be a great fit depending on your experience and their needs.

2. Check Out Niche Job Boards

The days of startup roles being posted on Craig’s List are long gone. 😂

Some startups will have recruiters, especially later stage ones or those with lots of capital.

If you want to get in early or you’re laser-focused on Atlanta startups, here are some great job boards to check out:

• Atlanta Tech Village Job Board
• Hypepotamus Job Board
• Local Venture Firm Job Boards (like this one, this one, this one)

3. Flex Your Networking Muscle

We can’t not say it. Gotta get out there and meet some folks.

Humans, after all, are the driving force behind startups.

But it doesn’t have to suck!

• 5 Ways to "Network" When You Don't Like Networking
• 4 Strategies + 13 Resources To Find Your Atlanta Tech Tribe (newsletters, virtual events, in-person options)
• 6 Simple Ways To Build a Relationship With a VC (or anyone really)

Need something even easier?

Try following some influential tech ATLiens to see who and what they’re talking about:

• Aly Merritt
• Dave Payne
• Jon Birdsong
• Joey Womack

And, OF COURSE, subscribe to the O’Daily and come hang with me on LinkedIn if you haven’t already 😉😉😉

4. Work Backwards From Awards Lists

There’s two important types of awards:

• Culture
• AJC’s Best Places to Work in Atlanta
• Atlanta Business Chronicles Best Places To Work Rankings
• Growth & Peer Regard
• Inc 5000 (filter by industry, geography)
• TAG Technology Awards
• Startup Atlanta Awards

Start with the award winners, nominees, previous winners, and work backwards to see if:

• You’d want to work for them
• They have open roles
• You know someone (or someone who knows someone) who works there

Wondering why that last one is so important?? 👇👇

5. Get A Warm Intro

Official definition (that I just made up) of a warm intro:

Find someone who works at the company that can pass your resume to HR.

Even better if you can ask a few questions or do an informational interview with them.

Why Warm Intros Matter So Much:

• Employee Referrals: Employee referrals are often a great source of candidates since they’ve been pre-vetted as “nice and normal and smart enough to not embarrass me if I attach my name to their application.”
• Skip The Line: Some companies will do a phone interview for any referral from an employee.
• Get Eyeballs On Your Resume: At the very least, a recruiter will read your resume with the “benefit-of-the-doubt” lens.
• Intelligence & Positivity: Startups often value smarts and attitude over experience (since everyone is figuring it out and it’s usually a new technology). Those are harder to vet on a resume but if you get to a phone interview, you can showcase those!
• Referral Bonus: Employees often get a referral bonus if you get hired so the extra 5-30 minutes to talk to you or send over a resume is worth it to them.

Do you have to get a warm intro? No. Startups hire lots of great folks without a warm intro. But those candidates almost always have near-perfect experience.

For example, if you’re a liberal arts Spanish major who previously worked at a boarding school, it might be best to get a warm intro so you can explain how your fundraising experience applies to software…

Hypothetically speaking, of course…

That definitely wasn’t my true Pardot story. 😉

Need more info on how to get a warm intro if you’re new to the startup world? Reply to let me know if you’d like a follow up post on this or any other topic!

6. No Open Roles? Reach Out Anyway

The absolute BIGGEST MISTAKE people make with startups is assuming that the roles posted on the website are the only roles.

Here’s the thing:

Startups are busy and often behind!

• Sometimes there’s internal discussions about hiring Role X but it’s not finalized or posted.
• If your awesome self reaches out, with great experience in Role X, it sure does make it easy for that startup to say yes. At the very least, you’re top of the list when the role officially opens up!

Also, startups make opportunistic hires all the time.

• Opportunistic hire = when you add role or even a department ahead of schedule because you met someone so amazing you couldn’t not hire them.
• Great people are hard to find! Good companies will scoop up talent when they can. They may even create a new role or “find a spot” for you.

Now, I’m not saying this will happen all the time or even often.

But it will happen ZERO TIMES if you don’t reach out because there’s no “open role for you on the website.”

You can simply send an email/apply, introduce yourself, acknowledge that there’s no current roles that seem to be a fit, see if there’s anything coming open soon and/or that you’d love to stay in touch for future possibilities.

7. Stay Close To Your Favorites

Startups move fast.

Sometimes roles not on the radar last month are the #1 priority this month.

**FUN EXAMPLE**
Someone on my team said she wanted to work overseas. This seemed very far off at the time for our 100 person, Atlanta-based company. Fast forward a year, we had been acquired by a F500 and she was heading to Europe to launch a team there!

Ways To Stay Close (After Your Warm Intro, Of Course):

• Follow and support the company on social media
• Sign up for the newsletter
• Recommend them to potential customers (HUGE!)
• Do some complimentary advising or mentoring (aka be helpful)
• Say hi at events
• Get to know a variety of people at the company

Basically all the same common sense things as getting to know a VC or how to network without being weird!

Your Dream Job Awaits

Finding an awesome tech job takes time.

With the right strategies and tools, you can shorten the search and focus on the best companies and roles for you!

How did you find your dream tech job?

What other resources or tips do you recommend?

Any other ATL tech influencers or job boards to include??

Have a job-hunting friend? Share this post!

Share

Want to get more connected to the Atlanta tech ecosystem?

Maybe you moved here recently or are moving here soon.

Maybe you’ve been so heads down building that you forgot to hang out with other humans!

Whatever the reason, I got you covered.

Here are my top 4 recommendations — with 13+ specific events or resources — to get involved in the Atlanta tech and startup scene!

1. Subscribe to Hypepotamus and Atlanta Inno.

These are great Atlanta-focused tech newsletters!

Delivered to your inbox 1-2x per week, they will help you:

• Learn about events, jobs, companies, and founders
• Recognize names, key players, themes, places
• Get an overall feel for the ATL tech and business scene

2. Review (Memorize? 😂) the Ecosystem Guide.

Startup Atlanta, an amazing non-profit focused on helping Atlanta startups thrive, put together an excellent and thorough guide that includes:

• Local VC firms and other capital options
• Local incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces
• Events, training courses, job boards, and more

It’s a great way to learn about what’s available in Atlanta, where to focus, and how to find your tribe (or next role)!

3. Attend Atlanta Startup Village, Pitch Practice, and More!

In-person events are a great way to meet people and build community.

How to find fun and interesting events?

Check out the Startup Atlanta master calendar, Atlanta Tech Village events calendar, Hypepotamus calendar, and Atlanta Inno calendar.

Some of my favorites (all free/low cost and open to the public):

• Atlanta Startup Village
• Startup Chowdown
• Pitch Practice
• Women + Tech

These are all out of Atlanta Tech Village which is where I work - 4th largest tech hub in the nation, baby!

Lots of other good events around the city, I just don’t know those as well. Please chime in with your favorites.

4. Attend a Virtual Event Like Atlanta Startup Convos.

Too far away to attend in-person? Have another full-time job or tricky schedule?

Atlanta Ventures hosts monthly virtual events for entrepreneurs with refreshingly-not-awkward networking, presentations or fireside chats with entrepreneurs, and lots of energy (shoutout Jacey Cadet!).

Learn more, see past events, and register here:

• Atlanta Startup Convos Meetup
• Atlanta Healthcare Entrepreneur Meetup

If anyone has other Atlanta-focused virtual events, let me know and I’ll add them!

What helped you get more connected to a new tech ecosystem? What have you seen in other cities that works well? Any other events, communities, or tips for getting to know Atlanta tech and startups??

tl;dr - Customer gifts take longer than you think. Here’s a timeline and questions, specific ideas, and lessons learned. Get employee gifts too!

The most important blog of the year.

Your annual reminder — and ultimate guide — to start on Customer (and Employee) Holiday Gifts!

But, Kathryn, you say. It’s barely October. Surely I have several more months.

No, my friend, you don’t. In fact, you may already be behind.

Luckily, as an experienced Customer Gift Procrastinator, I mean, Planner, I have you covered with:

• expected timeline
• strategy considerations
• lessons learned
• specific ideas

You can thank me later…with a not-crappy gift because you got such a head start on things!

1. Customer Gifts Timeline & Planning

Remember when I said you might be behind schedule?

It’s ONLY 9 WEEKS UNTIL BUSINESSES CLOSE FOR THE HOLIDAYS (not including Thanksgiving break).

Mrs. Claus is freaking out right now. But you don’t have to.

Check out the Customer Gifts Timeline Guide to see each step and how long to plan for each.

You’re going to start with strategic questions and some key considerations like:

• Why — customer gifts serve many purposes, what’s the top objective
• Who — which customers to send gifts to
• How Much — your budget (including shipping)
• What — what’s the right gift for your specific gift recipient

Then, you’ll rack your brain for good gift ideas.

But that’s where #2 comes in…

2. Customer Gift Guide: 7 Easy & Specific Ideas

Swag packs, cupcakes, branded fun stuff — lots of good ideas from specific companies here. (Or snag some ideas from our Employee Gift Guide.)

AND — since you’re ahead of schedule — you can even explore things like a collab with a favorite local brand or swanky custom items, like this program via West Elm.

What are your favorite items, businesses you want to support, or the best gifts you’ve ever gotten?

BUT WAIT — before you finalize and spend $100 per customer, you may want to review #3…

3. Lessons Learned From Real Customer Gifts

Turns out the thought really does count. Even with customers!

Here are my 3 most memorable customer gifting experiences — including mistakes made and the top gift of all time!

Here’s a teaser:

• $30 branded cookies vs $100 Amazon gift card
• Engineers like swear words
• Goat farm caramels

Spending more $$ does not necessarily mean a better gift.

GREAT NEWS for a startup budget! 🙌 🙌

4. Don’t Forget Your Employees!

Since you’re thinking about gifts and finding a high res version of your logo anyway…might as well take care of those employee holiday gifts too!

Here are 10 Employee Gift Ideas including free and remote-friendly options.

The holidays are a great time to create memories or fun traditions with your team or gift an item they’ll use frequently.

If you’ve seen my Rigor Yeti mug or Atlanta Ventures hoodie, you know that:

1. I’m a tech cliche.
2. I get lots of use out of great employee gifts!

If you’re thinking about “making memories” through a company holiday party ➡️

PSA #2 - Make reservations for company holiday parties YESTERDAY!!!! Slots fill up fast. Weekday pricing is more startup friendly than Fri or Sat 😉

Company holiday parties are a great time to include significant others or families as a thank you to them as well!

What’s your best advice for customer gifts? Any recs on specific vendors or items? Any lessons learned? Are you ahead of schedule this year?????

In honor of Venture Atlanta and the kick off of InnovATL, we’re talking conferences!

Looking for conference strategies on how to get new customers and meet investors?

That is not this post.

(Go here and here for great content on those topics.)

Want not to feel like total crap and avoid conference idiocy with real life tips from someone who has been there?

THIS IS THE POST FOR YOU!

I have conference street cred:

• 1,000,000 hours (or thereabouts) talking to strangers, working the booth, and, let’s be real: partying 🤙
• 7x Dreamforce attendee, SugarCon, Saastr, ExactTarget Connections, Pardot User Conference, a bunch of others I can’t remember
• Wore a navy blue polo and nurse shoes for at least 3 Dreamforces
• Conference and booth duty all week, raced a half Ironman on the weekend
• Fake partied with my team when I was 1st trimester pregnant (see tip #6!)
• Mistaken for a booth babe (embarrassing & flattering)
• Threw up on public transportation

Now, I’m no Derek Grant or Ali Gooch.

(If you’ve seen them conference, you KNOW.)

They are black ops level conference masters.

But I’m a student of the game, with many years of experience, and here to pass on hard-earned conference wisdom.

Read on for the top mistakes I’ve made, I mean, advice on bringing your conference A game!

10 Conference Tips You *ACTUALLY* Need

1. Drink Alllllll The Water.

See a bottle of water? Drink it.
Water for sale? Buy it.
Free conference water? Take 4.
Branded water bottles from a booth? Yes please.

If you haven’t had a sip of water in the last 30 seconds, you are massively dehydrated and will die by the end of the week.

Binge drinking water is the #1 rule of conference success.

Normally, I’m a bring-my-own-bottle kinda gal. Save the world, avoid plastic.

At a conference? Sorry, Earth. Hellooooo BPAs.

THIS IS ABOUT SURVIVAL.

Speaking of survival…

2. Locate The Closest Starbucks.

If you don’t know where the Starbucks is, it’s too late.

Here’s why you need Starbucks:

1. Coffee.
2. Very strong coffee.
3. Large cups of coffee.
4. Relatively healthy snacks (especially in California). LOAD UP.
5. Spinach, feta, egg white wrap for breakfast. I suggest 2.

If you can find an amazing local coffee shop, go for it.

When I’m in conference beast mode, I like to sell out to corporate chains for the consistency, known menu, and to avoid decision fatigue.

Also, sometimes finding the SECOND CLOSEST Starbucks is the real win. All the caffeine, half the line.

3. Never Party With Sales.

Think you can hang with the sales team?
Wrong.

Want to go out with your friends in sales?
Terrible idea.

Sales people are conference immortals.

They can drink a gallon of vodka, go to bed at 4a, wake up smelling fresh and looking sharp, and then close 10 deals in a single day.

THIS WON’T WORK FOR YOU. (Unless you are a sales immortal…)

Ditto for anyone from Australia or the UK.

They are cooler than you, their livers are stronger, and their accents provide unlimited charisma.

Partying with Australian or British sales people will be the most fun night of your life.

But you will oversleep your alarm, smell like vomit, and turn into a worthless Con-Zom (Conference Zombie) for at least 2 days.

It is never rarely worth it.

And speaking of oversleeping alarms…

4. Set Your Phone Alarm Now.

Recurring alarm, set for the whole week, on the earliest time you’ll need to wake up.

And for godsake bring a battery pack!!!!!!

Do not leave your hotel room without a phone charger, battery pack, and phone at 80% battery.

Because you know what causes an alarm malfunction? A phone that is totally dead because you forgot to plug it in.

Not that I missed my 8am coffee meeting at Marketing Cloud Conference in 2013 because of a dead phone battery….😬

5. Hide For At Least 5 Minutes Every Hour.

The bathroom makes a great hiding spot. (Especially if you’re following #1 Drink Allllll The Water.)

Guys - please weigh in. I’m not familiar with the men’s bathroom.

You can also find a tiny corner and fake charge your phone.

If sunlight is within a 1 mile radius, head outside for a breath of fresh air and glimpse of nature before returning to the dungeon vortex, I mean, conference.

Tiny moments of peace and recharge are the key to conference stamina.

Heroes are made on Days 3 and 4.

6. Learn How To Fake Drink.

A skill I perfected while secretly pregnant at a conference but something I’ve really leaned into as I’ve gotten older and weaker.

Of course, it’s totally fine to just drink old fashioned water (see #1 Drink Alllll The Water) but certain social situations will be very conducive to booze (e.g. entertaining customers who want to rage, team bonding, etc.).

A few strategies depending on how covert you need to be:

1. Order a beer in a bottle. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Ask the server to dump the beer and fill with water.
2. Order vodka and soda. Follow server, update your order to be soda and lime. But keep them in on the secret so they “announce” it as vodka soda.
3. Go for a non-alcoholic beer or other NA liquor. Unless someone else knows their NA brands, no one will notice. Athletic Brewing Company makes delicious “near beer.”

7. Meet Someone For A Workout.

Shout out to Blake Koriath, my conference running buddy.

Many better decisions were made because I had to meet Blake for a 6am run.

Plus it’s a great way to catch up without sitting and eating a meal or drinking coffee!

Is this a shameless plug for Pitch and Run ATL at Venture Atlanta this week?

Nope.

But this is!!!! →→→

You should come to Pitch and Run on Wed, Sept 27, 2023 at 6:45a. Register here!

(You don’t need to attend Venture Atlanta to join for the run.)

8. Invest In A Good Mint.

Coffee breath? No thanks.

Tequila fumes leaching from your body. Also, no thank you.

I love chewing gum. But as my first booth boss informed me, it’s tacky and distracting.

Find a great mint, stock up, and let your breath confidence flourish.

9. Expect To Get Sick.

90% chance you get sick.

At the very least, you’ll lose your voice.

Lack of sleep, constant junk food, too much talking, germs from far away lands, sticky handshakes, close talking with hundreds of strangers.

You’re basically licking a petri dish while punching your body in the face!

How can you get ahead of this?

Make sure to pack cough drops, Emergen-C, chapstick, and hand sanitizer.

It won’t make a difference but you’ll feel proactive!

10. Schedule a 1 Day Return Buffer.**

**DOES NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL!!!

Block your calendar for at least one day after you get back for follow up and digging out of your inbox.

If you don’t do follow up now, it will never get done.

If you think you can do it on the plane, you’re wrong.

If you think you’ll do it the night you get home, also wrong.

Block your cal, work from home, and recover, I mean, get shit done to make the conference worth it!

Prepare To Dominate

Absolutely no tips on networking, selling, prospecting, or how to work the booth.

(You know how to do that.)

But EVERYTHING you need to have your best conference yet.

Avoid zombie status.

Achieve conference immortality!!

What’s your best conference advice? Are you a conference immortal? What’s your best conference story??

Onboarding your first customer is exciting…and terrifying!

You want it to go perfectly but, if you’re like most founders, you don’t have decades of customer success experience.

I already shared 4 important (and quick!) ways to prep for the onboarding.

Once you’ve prepped, you still have to execute!

Here are my top tips for a smooth onboarding — when you’re a busy founder and need to maximize time — from years of working with customers.

8 Tips For A Smooth First Onboarding

1. Create a simple checklist and timeline.

• Mentioned this as part of your prep — but it’s so important I’m saying it again!!
• A checklist/timeline (even if it ends up being inaccurate!) will pay dividends in terms of how a customer perceives you, their expectations, preventing miscommunications, and both of you staying organized.

2. The first call should be a “Kickoff Call.”

• Don’t call it an “Onboarding Call” because customers will think the onboarding is done on one call. (Learned the hard way 😂)
• Usually all the stakeholders join for the first call.
• If that feels too risky, do a planning call with your power user/buyer to discuss the best roll-out strategy for their company. Let them guide you.

3. Set pre-scheduled (weekly) check-in calls.

• Find a regular time and put these on the calendar right away.
• Probably weekly but maybe daily or bi-weekly depending on the product.
• It will deflect a lot of one-off questions, provide accountability on both sides, and prevent customers from “going dark.”
• You can always cancel a meeting if you don’t need it (← explain to customers too!)

4. Go for a quick win.

• What’s the fastest, simplest way for a customer to start seeing value?
• Your product probably has several helpful benefits — which one should they prioritize based on their goals and timeline?
• Getting that first win will buy you time and goodwill for the bugs, complexity, and other snafus that are sure to come up.
• Plus, your customers are busy and this is one of many priories. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with a new product and put it off. A simple focus makes it manageable.
• Remember — just because you want to show off the bells and whistles of the thing you’ve been building for months doesn’t mean your customer is the right audience. Save it for your co-founder!
• A good analogy here is the gym. If a trainer shows you every piece of equipment on your first day, you will be overwhelmed and do nothing. If they show you how to do squats and push ups, you’ll come back and can add more over time!

5. Hold their hand!

• Do everything you possibly can for them. Make it as easy as possible.
• Be available, reply quickly, set up training calls whenever they want.
• Yes, this isn’t sustainable. But your product is probably pretty rough, you’re learning a lot, and you can always teach customers “how to fish” later.
• Right now, you just want happy customers getting value as quick as possible!

6. Set up a support@company.com email.

• The *one* small scalable thing that may be helpful is to set up a support email address monitored by multiple people.
• Especially if you travel, have an engineer or two, or there’s a number of end users.
• No need for a support tool yet. Just an email address. Maybe route it to Slack or have it forward to everyone’s email.
• Unless you’re literally the only employee, you don’t want to be a single point of failure, especially if there’s an urgent issue.

7. Have your sales deck ready.

• You may need to explain your company and value prop to new users.
• Don’t create a new deck for this!! Just use your sales deck and skip to the appropriate slides.

8. Don’t create any other materials.

• Yes, you want to be prepared. You want to wow your first customer.
• But writing how-to articles or putting together training decks is premature.
• Figure out what questions or problems your customer has, create the content on the fly, THEN save that for your future knowledge base or next onboarding.

It’s All About The Learning

You’re ready to onboard! It will be messy. You’ll make mistakes.

THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT!

Listen to your customers, help them succeed, and improve as you go.

It won’t be perfect but if you focus on getting better over time, you’ll be amazed at how much better Onboarding #10 and #100 and #1000 are!

What other tips or learnings do you have for someone’s FIRST customer onboarding??

For more customer tips, check out these posts too:

• Your Customer Success Starter Pack
• The 1 Metric That Will Transform Your Customer Success Program
• ICYMI: Customer Success Blueprint for 1, 10 & 100 Customers
• What Are Customer Win Slides & Why You Need Them
• Angry Customers Are A Good Sign - Here's Why!
• 1 Tweak To Massively Increase Customer Adoption
• Finding a Champion User and Leveling Up Your Customer Adoption
• 6 Tips To Supercharge Your Customer Success Hiring Plan
• 3 Customer Onboarding Stages to Prep For As You Grow
• 6 Tips For Startups When Selling To Big Companies

Yay!! You have your first customer! Congrats!!

You’re on cloud nine until you realize…what does onboarding look like? how do I make sure we do it correctly and professionally so that we keep them as a happy customer??

If you are just getting started with your first customers — or maybe you’re on customer #100 but have been winging it thus far (totally normal btw) — here are 3 simple steps to prep before you kickoff your first onboarding!

Next week, we’ll dig into specific best practices for the onboarding itself.

1. Review What You Know

What information have you already collected about the customer? Go over it holistically so that you’re prepared.

• Who are the buyers and users? (LinkedIn profiles, job titles, names, emails, personal details, etc. ZinniaAI can prep this for you!)
• What tools are they already using?
• What are the main goals or initiatives going on that made them purchase?
• What does the company do?
• What internal quirks or challenges do they have?

#PROTIP

Put all the information you gather in a single place — Google Doc, Slack channel for each customer, Notion. This is the very beginning of your official or unofficial CRM!

It can be messy right now. Don’t overthink it. You’ll hire a customer success person later who will chastise you and fix it up 😂

2. Identify Their Goals & Your Goals (hint: they’re different)

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. You must be able to answer:

What is the North Star metric of your customer?

It is *NOT* usage of your product.

What is the thing your power user is measured on and gets promoted for?

There are probably specific initiatives that your buyer is talking about — “we need to launch an AI feature set” — but underlying that specific project is the larger goal of generate revenue, improve customer retention, increase product stickiness.

THAT IS THE NORTH STAR!

Once you identify your customer’s North Star…

• What milestones will support their North Star?
• What are the goals they’ve mentioned?
• Can you show the impact to their North Star within the product? (probably not — something to work towards over time!)
• From your perspective, what will a successful implementation look like?
• What are you hoping to learn or optimize for with this first customer?
• What is the #1 metric or outcome that will indicate you’ve crushed it??

#PROTIP

Jot down the “end goal” of what it looks like when this customer is successful. What are the things that need to happen to get the customer there? Make a list. It’s probably a combination of training, product setup, and planning. Put it in “order of operations” and remove any non-essential items.

Focus 100% on the steps to get your customer to the first win as fast as possible.

This list becomes your first onboarding checklist!

3. Draft a Timeline & Checklist

Even the most simple outline will help a ton to set expectations, make you seem professional and prepared, and prevent miscommunications!

• Does it take 1 week or 1 month to get up and running?
• What items does a customer need to prepare? What can you do for them?
• Do any trainings need to be scheduled?
• What needs to be done first to unlock next steps?

Use your list of items from #2, add some loose dates or time ranges (e.g. 1 week before launch), put a logo on it (yours and the customer’s to really wow them 🤯) and you have an onboarding document!

#PROTIP

Use this as a “starting place” or a “framework.” Explain that it’s not set in stone and you can iterate based on the customer’s schedule and needs.

It’s helpful to have something on paper but you don’t want them to hyperfocus or nitpick.

And everything will be different than how you planned!

4. Have Benchmarks Ready

One of the most common customer questions:

What is everyone else doing? What is the norm? What does “good” look like?

I know what you’re thinking…it’s my first customer. How do I know any of that stuff??

Here’s the thing:

• You know more than you think. You’ve been researching and building and talking to other companies with their same problems!
• In their mind, you’re an expert. They are counting on you to guide them.
• You don’t need perfect data to provide a helpful answer. It’s really about a starting point and helping people feel “okay” about what and how they’re doing it.

#PROTIP

Here’s some phrases to use to help with benchmarking and establish credibility.

“Most companies like you do xyz.”
“A typical implementation is 6 weeks but every customer is different.”
“An industry benchmark is x% but it can be as high as y% and low as z%. Improvement over time is the most important metric.”
“The most recent report from <IndustryNews> has x as the average. What I’m seeing on the ground is that that may be underreported.”

Boom!

Take 60 minutes (or less) to do these 4 things before your first customer onboarding kickoff and you’ll be ahead of most onboarding experiences out there!

Want even more real world advice about customer onboarding???

• 3 Customer Onboarding Stages to Prep For As You Grow
• Your Customer Success Starter Pack
• ICYMI: Customer Success Blueprint for 1, 10 & 100 Customers
• What Are Customer Win Slides & Why You Need Them
• Angry Customers Are A Good Sign - Here's Why!
• 1 Tweak To Massively Increase Customer Adoption

PLUS — more tips for your first customer onboarding next week!

What was the most helpful tip for your first customer onboarding? What lessons did you learn?

You know what’s harder than finding a needle in a haystack?

Finding a dang co-founder!

You know you want one — whether for technical help, sales help, sanity checks, or simply moral support when you’re doing the really hard thing of starting a company.

The magical, ideal co-founder is someone:

• you’ve worked with before (bonus: started a previous company with them!)
• who balances your strengths and weaknesses (professionally & personality-wise)
• you want to see every day for the next 10 years
• who will help you weather the ups and downs

Easy peasy 😂

If you’ve already found this person, congratulations!!!! (And pass this article to someone still on the hunt.)

If you’re still looking for “The (Co-Founder) One,” my best advice is to date before you marry!!!!!!!

(Note: actual romantic dating of your co-founder is not recommended! 😂 It’s a metaphor, people!!!!)

It’s possible to unwind a mistake but it’s often expensive, stressful, and time intensive.

All things you don’t want on top of the already expensive, stressful, and time intensive experience of building a company!

Here are 4 ways to de-risk that whole co-founder thang and find your next startup partner!

1. Check References

Hopefully this goes without saying but — for the love of everything — ask around.

Check official references! Talk to unofficial references!

What do previous co-workers, employees, investors, or co-founders say about this person?

What are their quirks, when do they shine, and what stresses them out?

I’d expect to hear 95-99% rave reviews.

If there’s any red flags, get out now!

Those bridges they burned? They’ll light yours on fire too!

2. Contract Engagement

💕Engagement.💕 Ha! I’m hilarious.

But seriously. If you find someone with tons of potential, see if they’d be interested in a 1-3 month consulting gig.

It’s a great way for both parties to understand strengths, weaknesses, goals, working style, and overall compatibility.

Make sure you talk about any concerns or feedback along the way.

This is important because:

• EVERY RELATIONSHIP TAKES WORK. Even with the most perfect co-founder, you’ll disagree, get annoyed, and have conflict. You have to be willing and prepared to work through things. Begin as you mean to go on!
• You want to see how they communicate and respond — with language, action, and change (or not). Startups are hard. What does someone do in the face of conflict or hardship? Better to know now than later!
• See how your conflict and resolution styles work together. It’s not just about how someone reacts to conflict and feedback, it’s also about conflict compatibility. If you both like heated discussions, great! If one of you does but the other would prefer a calm debate, this could be a big sticking point down the road.

If you don’t know after 3 months, it’s probably a no.

If you’re really not sure after 3 months, pinpoint exactly what your open questions are and figure out a way to vet those items specifically and quickly.

3. Start With A Different Role

Not everyone has interest in or the life circumstances that allow a contract engagement.

If you think someone has potential as a co-founder or they express interest in being a co-founder but you want to de-risk it, start them in a specific leadership position.

For example, bring someone on as a CTO or Head of Sales to start.

You can always promote them to co-founder later. (It’s quite common to add a co-founder months or years after the company started.)

This works for any C-level position as well as co-founder.

If you think someone has potential but they’re a little green, give them a general or less senior title to start (e.g. “Head of” or <area of focus> “Lead”).

Explain that titles and responsibilities will grow and evolve as the company does. Then you can promote them or share feedback on what they need to improve.

When I joined Rigor, I was interested in being COO eventually, but I knew the immediate need was in Customer Success. So I started as Director of Customer Success and did a lot of general company organizing and managing along the way. A year later I was promoted to COO. It was a natural transition that the CEO and I both felt good about.

4. One Year Vesting Cliff

This is a fancy stock term.

Here’s what it means:

They get nothing if they leave or get fired before the 1 year mark.

Note: make sure you have a lawyer (or ChatGPT 😂) to get the wording and details right! The O’Daily is not legal advice.

It’s a very, very standard term for startup stock agreements.

It’s LITERALLY been in every startup stock agreement I’ve ever seen from a reputable startup.

If someone pushes back on it, it’s rather suspect.

If someone wants to vest right away or is not planning to be with the company for more than a year (when hired for full time role)…there’s a significant misalignment somewhere!

If someone is with your company for over a year and then things go south, presumably they’ve added enough value to deserve 25% (of a 4 year total vesting timeline, another common vesting term) of their allotted stock/options.

If they didn’t add enough value to earn that, it’s on you as the founder for not moving them along sooner. (But not on Day 364 — bad look. You’ll know way before then. Rip the bandaid off as soon as you know. There’s never a good time and waiting doesn’t make it easier.)

Patience, Grasshopper

Finding the right co-founder can be one of the most important things you do!

It doesn’t happen overnight.

Give yourself time and some safeguards to make sure it’s a great long term partnership.

What other strategies have you used to find, vet, or “date-before-you-marry” your co-founder?

Don’t have time to read? Check out @KathrynODay on Instagram for bite-sized O’Daily videos (and heckling/cameos from my husband 😂)!

I loooooove self improvement books. Health, business, minimalism, entrepreneurship, money, parenting. I read them all.

I get excited to try EVERYTHING that’s suggested.

Is this you also??

Openness to new ideas and a constant drive to improve are fairly common traits of entrepreneurs.

Getting overwhelmed by the unlimited improvement ideas is a common side effect!

Whomp whomp.

How do you make new habits manageable? How do you incorporate ideas or improvements into your life?

I LOVE Atomic Habits and the many strategies that James Clear discusses:

• Changing your core belief
• Bundling/stacking with other habits
• Doing it with a friend or group

Here’s my own 3 step process to figuring out which ideas and habits are worth keeping and which ones are not for me!

And here’s a fun story about habits, testing, feedback, and iteration over time at a startup!

3 Easy Ways To Build Lifelong Habits

1. Treat it like a test.

Think of your new habit as a test. Low pressure and low risk.

Tests work and don’t work. There’s no personal failing. It’s not about your identity. It’s a low risk, time-boxed experiment.

”Tests” work well in business too!

I often think of new initiatives as a test. Even if I hope (expect!) that it will be wildly successful, I position a project as a test to myself and others to keep the stakes low and feedback high.

Testing also makes you open to data, feedback, and analysis — from yourself and others!

• How is the test going?
• How do you feel?
• What results or early indicators (if any) are you seeing?
• What do those around you say?
• Are there any metrics you’re tracking?

Too often, we internalize a habit as something we must do. If we don’t stick with it, it feels personal. We beat ourselves up. We feel shame, guilt, incompetence, fear, and lose confidence.

Maybe it’s just not the right time, implementation, or strategy for this habit.

By moving on from this “test,” we are freed up for a new habit that may be more important, aligned, or impactful.

In business, we are free to test new ideas and use money and time in a higher value way.

It’s actually hugely positive when a test doesn’t work. Now you know!

I’ve been trying to say “like” less often, take cold showers, and regularly read S-1s for years. But it hasn’t stuck. I could self flagellate for these horrific failures. Or see it as a test I ran that didn’t work.

I may try it again later or there may be something better to focus on!

Special shout out to the amazing Margaret Weniger who pointed this “testing” mindset when I was a guest on Rising Tide podcast. I had no idea. Margaret is an incredible coach with life-changing insights!

2. Commit to a timeframe upfront.

Every test needs a timeframe. Give your habit test an end date.

You want enough time to get through the initial suckiness of starting something new. There’s a learning curve, extra work, mental adjustment, culture shift, schedule accommodation, and a multitude of other things that get easier with practice and routine.

Rolling out a new program at work or trying a new workout are both a heavy lift (pun intended 💪).

For a company, a few weeks or a few quarters may be the right timeframe.

For a personal habit, it may be days or weeks.

I like to give something at least 3 weeks unless it’s clearly a no-go!

You also don’t want to do something forever if it’s not the best use of time.

So — when thinking about your habit — what’s the shortest amount of time to test it while still giving it a fair shot?

Decide upfront so you can get started on your test and focus on the habit itself.

Don’t look up until you hit that “Habit Test Done” calendar reminder!

3. Evaluate the sustainability.

I am too dang old for fads and short term fixes.

When I am in the midst of a habit test, I literally ask myself, “Would I do this the rest of my life? If not, how can I adjust it so that I could do it indefinitely?”

This may sound extreme.

But you know what’s extreme?

Sticking to habits that are not sustainable.

Sometimes there’s a habit that’s part of a finite goal. Like, riding your bike 200 miles in a weekend to train for an Ironman. Or practicing your pitch 3x/day until demo day.

These are perfectly reasonable short term habits.

I’m also a believer in a learning focus. I spent a lot (like, A LOT) of time on blogging early on as I learned. Over time, I got faster and it got easier. But I still block time every week to blog.

I take slightly fewer meetings to accommodate my writing time. That’s what makes it possible to write the O’Daily (weekly!) for the long term. (See? Sustainability, baby!)

When you force it, make it an extra thing, or are too extreme, you won’t stick with it.

Or in a company setting, when you try to force an unsustainable habit, project, or culture, your team may not stick with you!

I’m a believer in the marathon. Startups are consistent execution over years, not a few all-nighters at the end of the quarter.

You can’t “cram” for a startup or a marathon. You can’t “cram” for a habit either.

Make it consistent and repeatable in a long term way!

It reminds me of this awesome tweet from Alex Friedman:

How do you know if a habit is working?

Yes, look at the data, ask for feedback, get all the objective info you need.

But I find the most important indicator is more subjective:

How do you feel?

Questions To Ask Yourself:

• How do you feel about the habit itself? Do you like it? Dread it? Find it annoying? Get excited about it?
• Does the work or time feel worth it?
• Is your company hitting its stride?
• Do you feel more clarity or energy?
• Does your team like it? Does your family like it?

Yes, you will probably have sales numbers, Whoop scores, or other “hard” info to evaluate.

And sometimes things can be beneficial without people “liking” it, e.g. children eating broccoli or your team being accountable to metrics.

But often, you’ll have a directional sense of “keep” or “go” before you see the data.

Test habits, listen to your gut, and improve in a sustainable way.

Your (startup) marathon will thank you!

What’s the most important habit you’ve cultivated? What helped you establish the habit? How did you stick with it over the long run?