When we launched the ‘Been There, Done That’ series, I promised you regular insights into our business — and then I pulled the plug. It was a tough decision. Blog traffic was up 416% and the feedback on our content was extremely positive… but as you read on, I think you’ll understand why I did it. (Hint: focus is your friend!) 

We were at a critical point in our business.

After growing the business a certain way for more than two years, we had hit a plateau. The strategies we were using weren’t scaling at the rate we needed in order to be confident in our growth curve.

We had launched in 29 markets and were very successful in generating a community of advocates across the U.S. and strong brand awareness. Our reputation was excelling, we were helping businesses find flexible space but customer growth was unpredictable and we weren’t accelerating as quickly as forecasted. As a team of 15 running on a tight budget, split across all 29 markets, our efforts to change that were strained and diluted to say the least.

After digging deep on the problem, we identified our ratio of people and budget, to the ground we were trying to cover, was off.  So we adjusted our strategy, but probably not in the way you’d assume.

Giving up on growth wasn’t an option so we held our targets steady. But rather than hiring and fundraising to tackle the broader ground, we chose to do a lot more of less… and I’ll walk you through exactly what I mean by that.

Our first step was to address our missed opportunities.

A big chunk of the interest we were working so hard to dredge up was falling through the cracks. We were missing the opportunity to help businesses with a genuine need for flexible space. Many were companies who had already started their journey with PivotDesk. They knew who we were, liked us, trusted us, and some had communicated a need for office space that we were fully equipped to solve. (This flow sound familiar? See Duct Tape Marketing’s post on The Marketing Hourglass.) But our product was not mature enough to handle them and since our resources were diluted, they weren’t getting the attention they deserved. It was clear this was an area that needed our attention, so we set out to serve those who needed us most.

In order to do that effectively, we had to rally the team on our new focus, which, of course, meant giving up some of the other things we had been working on (like our Been There, Done That series), even if only temporarily.

Next, we narrowed down our markets in order to magnify our impact. We did this by looking at where our opportunities were most prevalent and most valuable. And here’s what we saw:

1. 31% of our organic inbound leads were located in NYC
2. Our deal size was 7.5% higher in NYC than our national average

It became very clear that there was enough volume and value in NYC that we could focus on that market (supported with light activity in SF) and still hit our revenue targets. We’d have to risk sales slowing in the rest of our markets but we took that risk in order to prove the following hypothesis:

15 people serving 1 market would produce more revenue than 15 people spread across 29 markets.

So we bet our business and scaled back to a single market. We refocused product development, marketing budget, biz dev, PR and sales to NYC, and I won’t lie… my stomach sank and I was flooded with anxiety as a result! I knew this meant leaving opportunity on the table but the only way to help more businesses longterm was to devote our attention to only a portion of them for right now.   

My team remained confident in our market data and our ability to tackle the challenge so we charged forward.

From there, we looked at optimizing our ability to close business.

There were holes in our system — both in our offline conversions and those that were processing organically within our product. We knew that optimizing the product would take time we didn’t have, so while we revamped the roadmap, we inserted people to handle existing opportunities. (Do things that don’t scale!)

We needed to study our customers, their buying cycle and our market of focus, and we needed do that on a human level to start.

To ensure the effectiveness of those people, we added process. We combined marketing (previously focused on PR/Brand) and our in-market sales team to create one Business Team that rallied around a central goal: revenue. Each group within that team was responsible for a stage of our conversion funnel.

Funnel stages:
Prospects / Leads → Qualified Opportunities → Closed business

Supporting teams:
Outbound / Marketing → Inbound → Account Executives

(Check out Aaron Ross’ Predictable Revenue – and look out for specifics on how we leveraged his sales approach in upcoming posts.)

This structure meant we would do two things:

1. “Handhold” our audience through the buying process
2. Segment our conversion strategy into stages and focus individuals on a single stage

It was this decision that had the greatest impact.

First, we saw revenue accelerate. We lost less people through the cracks in our system and closed more business at a faster rate.  Here’s a look at our immediate results:

In Q1 2015, we sold 57.8% of our total sales in 2014.

Q1 2015 as compared to Q1 2014:

– 300% growth in # of bookings from Q115 compared to Q114

– 367% sales growth in $ value of bookings from Q115 compared to Q114

Q1 2015 sequentially over Q4 2014:

– 114% growth in # of bookings

– 306% sales growth in $ value of bookings

Was the approach we had in place completely scalable? No. But we knew that going in. At the time, it was more important that we had the bones for a solid conversion flow… flexible enough to optimize for scalability. This way, the more we learned about the market, the more our approach could adapt – and it did. (More on how we evolved this approach into a scalable strategy in future posts.)

Second, our revenue became much more predictable. ← This was by far our biggest win!

For the first time, we could effectively forecast revenue – which meant we were in control.

As a result, we developed a newfound sense of stability for the business. Did we have to work our butts off to see revenue continue to increase? Of course. But there was security in the fact that we knew if we drove X number of prospects from X source, we would convert X% into revenue over a 30-60 day period. And that security was resounding. Our team felt more secure, our board was better equipped to evaluate our efforts and that annoying little voice in my head was quieted (a little bit).

We had graduated from a stage where scrambling to close business of any kind was a win, to a more structured approach that multiplied our efforts without increasing our resource investment. As a result, we escaped the plateau.

Key takeaway?

Plateaus are normal and to be expected. Contrary to popular belief, they signify progress. Smooth growth curves don’t exist at this stage. It’s the decisions you make and  what you choose to focus on (no matter how extreme) to get from one plateau to the next that are make or break.

For us, it took saying NO to hundreds of things we could be doing. It took saying YES to a few things that would make the most impact…. and on my end… it took the ability to stomach one huge calculated risk.

If you subscribe to the ‘Do More Faster’ mantra so ingrained in many startups by startup accelerators like Techstars, remember that there’s some subtlety to that phrase that is easily missed.

Doing more faster, or getting everything done, is usually more about depth than it is about width.

Focus is your friend.

Today, I want to discuss one of the topics that I’m ALWAYS asked about when I talk to new founders or people thinking about starting a business — the magic (or lack thereof) behind setting valuations for early stage companies. Since I have #BeenThere a few times, I figured it’s a good place to start.

Be careful what you hope for.

Pre-money valuation. This is the “magic” number that everyone hypes. It’s the number we are led to believe validates the existence of early stage ventures but how it’s calculated remains a mystery to most.

Unfortunately, there’s no single formula. I can’t give you a process and say go for it. What I can do is arm you with the most important insight I’ve absorbed along the way…

Valuation does not equate to value (or validation for that matter!) 

Like most of you, I had been conditioned to believe the higher the valuation, the better.

As a founder trying to raise capital, your default thought is to drive as high a valuation as possible, thereby minimizing dilution. It seems obvious — on the financial front, the more money you can bring in at the lowest possible dilution leaves you in the best possible position with both burn rate (money in the bank) and high percentage ownership in your enterprise. On the emotional front, the more “headline-worthy” the valuation, the more secure we feel about our place in the market and our ability to succeed.

The media validates this way of thinking every time they put a spotlight on an inflated valuation. We’re surrounded by headlines about how so and so mobile-social-local app raised $zillions at a staggering $bazillion valuation. As a result, we assume that at such a major valuation, the business is destined for market domination.

Competitive buyout valuations don’t help the situation either. We consistently see companies like Google and Facebook buying companies for what seem like stratospheric — even asinine — values and our perception continues to be distorted as a result.

While it took me a while to recognize it, what you MUST know is this:

The buyouts you read about are inflated. In reality, they are completely unrelated to the valuation of the product and/or service itself.

When it comes to competitive buyout valuations, the sale price is very rarely influenced by the actual value of the business. Generally, these acquisitions are executed to prevent disruption in multi billion dollar revenue streams. Not exactly the type of math that applies to more common ventures — making the numbers behind these buyouts irrelevant. Separate them from your own expectations.

Let’s take a look at what it means when an early stage company has raised a venture round at a very high valuation:

From the investor’s perspective

A few VCs/Angels were willing to bet long on the business and were comfortable taking a small percentage of the business in exchange for the right to invest in the future IF the company starts exploding with growth. In most cases, the investment makes up only a very small portion of their overall portfolio. And they do this many, many times over. The idea is that they get in early and secure the right to play later should the company become one of the very, very few that blow up.

From the early-stage founder’s perspective

The founder was able to retain a big percentage of his/her business and get a bunch of money with which to operate the business.

Seems like a good trade off, right?

It’s not — and here’s why:

Let’s assume this isn’t the last round of funding the company is going to need — which is almost always the case. What the valuation REALLY means is that the founder just set a crazy high bar for the business to reach before being able to raise more funds.

As a result, the race is now on to make that business worth a bunch more than the post valuation of the previous round. Talk about pressure! If the company isn’t ‘blowing up,’ when the founder goes out to raise more money and the original VCs/Angels who invested don’t lead or participate in the new round, that sends an incredibly bad signal to other potential new investors.

I’ve said this before, but one of the best days in a founder’s life is the day they raise their first venture round. One of the scariest days of a founder’s life is the day AFTER they raise their first venture round. It’s like “Tick Tock the Crocodile” is following you around everywhere you go. The countdown to success or failure has begun.

Building a business is hard. Period. Now add the pressure of having to live up to a very high valuation and having to produce results powerful enough to prove you deserve an even higher valuation for your next round.

That’s like scaling Everest alone… in a bikini.

And in the very real and highly probable case that you don’t grow your business at a crazy high rate — and you’re not able to summit Everest prior to running out of money — you’ve set your business up for what’s called a ‘down round.’ In a down round, when you raise money you’ll receive an investment at a valuation lower than the post valuation of your previous round.

Ask any founder that’s gone through a down round (myself included) and they will tell you, without exception, that very bad things happen.

Down rounds are sometimes necessary to keep a business going, but the only person who’s happy is the new investor who has just received inexpensive ownership while crushing down the equity of everyone already involved; including the founders and key executives.

All of this assumes you can even get a VC to fund a down round and I can tell you, more often than not, you won’t.

So how do I think about valuations now?  

I look into the future… at the implications of a valuation. Instead of how big, I think about what’s right.

I think about the following things:

• What is the right valuation so that over the course of the time I can operate my business on the funds being raised?

• What value do I think I can build with the business?

• What do I think the business could be worth – realistically – over the course of the next 18-24 months of operation?

If you don’t think you can build value greater than the valuation you’re locked into after negotiating your current round, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Here’s how it played out for me.

When we raised our last round at PivotDesk, we made good progress from the first round. I (and most investors) certainly would not call it world-domination type progress — you know, like you read about — but it was realistic. My lead investor and I had a very real conversation about what the company “should” look like in 18 months. The conversation consisted of the following:

• What is industry data?

• What is our expected growth rate?

• What is the cut off point between early stage and growth investors for valuations?

These are all important issues to consider. They answer the question, “What is the right valuation for my business?”

Here are two examples of what it might look like if you follow this approach

[Download the real file here]

And here’s the logic behind each

Example #1:

• Entrepreneur raises a Seed round and gives up 20% of the company to capitalize his/her business with $500k of outside funding.
• The seed syndicate and CEO agree on a $2M pre-money valuation which implied $2.5M post-money.
• The seed money gave the company the opportunity to work on their product and start to build momentum but they sought venture capital to extend the runway.
• The venture firm recognized the progress from the Seed round and agreed to a $3.5M pre-money valuation all the while investing $2M.
• Assuming a simple $1 per share price for the Seed round, there is a jump in value from Seed to Series A of 40%.
• The Common Stock gets diluted down to ~51% but that’s still $2.8M of a $5.5M pie (not taking into account liquidation preference for simplicity).  

Example #2:

• Entrepreneur fights tooth and nail for a high valuation of $3.5M pre-money for the Seed Round while raising the same amount of money ($500k).  (and potentially passes up the right investment partner in favor of a partner offering the higher valuation)
• Momentum is ok when they seek more funding but VC firms tell them no to anything higher than $4M.
• Ouch – post money from the Seed round is now exactly the same as pre-money for the Series A.  (A ‘flat’ round)
• The seed syndicate could invest more money to avoid dilution (exercise right to participate pro-rata) but now they will have to commit to more money with no real value creation.  (read: unhappy people)
• The entrepreneur owns more of the company than in Example 1 but likely has to deal with unhappy seed investors and reputation issues that might come with that.
• Is fighting for $700k (difference in value between Examples 2 and 1) worth it in the early stages of a company when ultimately the goal is to own a decent piece of a very large pie?

And remember, if the pre-money valuation was even higher and the founder had trouble getting investors to stretch for a $4m pre, then the Series A might not even happen. Business dead.

(No, I’m not the expert here — I’m just sharing what I’ve learned through experience. For more information on the definition and math behind valuations, please read “Venture Deals” by Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld).

“A slice of a watermelon is a lot better than an entire grape.” [tweet this]

If you are raising venture funding, you will take dilution as a founder. But its your #1 job to make sure your company is capitalized sufficiently to succeed. You need the resources to hire the best people, reach the right markets, have leeway for mistakes or pivots, and all the other unplanned things you deal with six times a day.

That means that after the several rounds of funding that most companies go through, upon exit, most founders retain somewhere between 5 and 15 percent ownership in the business. Yes, you read that correctly.

Other people will almost always get the majority of the money in the event of a sale after several funding rounds. Very few people will tell you this, but that’s the reality. That’s why VCs back companies that have the potential to become $B companies. Owning 5 percent of a $B company is worth a lot more than owning 100 percent of nothing.

Are your eyes bigger than your stomach?

Think about an early stage valuation like an Ice Cream Sundae: The bigger they are, the more enticing they look to everyone at the table. But at some point, you’re the one who ends up vomiting in the bathroom instead of sitting back, patting your belly with satisfaction.

Remember, no one succeeds on a hype-based framework. Employing a reality-based framework when it comes to valuation is vital.

Now go build a great company.

And if you have extra space in your office, please consider posting it on PivotDesk to help out other great companies that need a place for now. You never know how much value you might get in return.

Why? So that we can all STOP solving the same problems separately and leverage each other’s experiences instead.

When we promised that, we had not planned for this.

It’s still fresh and to be honest, I hesitated on whether or not it made sense for this — but to not share it would be disingenuous. So, I’ve moved the topic we planned to cover for our first #BeenThere post aside in an effort to support our promise of complete and total transparency.

And here you have it…

There’s been a shift in our business at the core of our team.

Kelly Taylor, Co-Founder and VP, Product for PivotDesk is transitioning from the team.

He wrote a painfully honest note about it. You can read his note here.

What happened with Kelly was interesting – unique from my prior experience. Here’s a snippet from his letter that tells you in his words what happened:

“Over the past six months I’ve lost the confidence of my teammates. After talking with mentors and friends that have seen this over and over in companies and not hearing a single story of a situation like this turning around and being wildly successful, we knew a hard decision needed to be made.”

Kelly then goes on to recap feedback from some of our execs that (in short) sounded a bit like this:

“No one really knows what you do anymore.”

I won’t let Kelly take the blame for this. Between he and I, there was clearly a gap in communication to the team.

Kelly had taken on too many roles and splitting his time between them wasn’t translating well within the team. While we needed his undivided attention on product, there were a number of co-founder responsibilities that took him away from this and ultimately left the team wondering why product wasn’t moving at the pace it needed to be.

We let this go on for too long and eventually we hit a point of no return.

As the CEO, I want to make clear how much of an unbelievable struggle this decision was. Kelly and I have fought side by side since the start to build this company into what it is today. Below, I’ll share with you some of the factors that came up and how we dealt with them.

On making hard decisions.

I often say that passive aggressiveness kills companies. I have seen it first hand, and been guilty of it in the past.

At PivotDesk, we make a ton of hard decisions every day. We evaluate our opportunities, derive solutions and implement decisions with purpose.

But then there are outliers like this one…

The decisions we’re often guilty of shying away from.

These are the ones that have the most intense impact on the business and the people in it. They are complicated and our usual process of evaluation NEVER works in these cases.

I’ll tell you why…

Because these decisions come from your gut.

As I’m sure you can relate, there are pluses and minuses with any outcome but in the case of these types of decisions, you generally know what you need to do. Unfortunately, what you need to do often sucks and as a result, you try to avoid it. You try to rationalize your way out of it.

You can’t. And if you’re surrounded by the right people like I was, they’ll remind you of that.

You must stop running from it and implement. Even if the reality is harsh.

Do it for your team.

When you have data and/or the feedback that indicates a trend the way I did here, ignoring that trend, or choosing not to deal with it, will come back to haunt you many times over. I knew that no matter how difficult the decision would be, I had to make it and move forward — it’s the ONLY way to keep everyone focused and driving towards the end goal.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the whole team sees or senses any passive aggressive bias from leadership. That’s not a good thing. Ever.

At PivotDesk, team dynamics are just as important as product, marketing and development. I try my best to deal with them just as quickly and decisively as I do the others. That’s what Kelly and I did here.

The logistics.

In Kelly’s note, he gives you a look at some of the things that drove us to this point. For those of you playing multiple roles in the company or letting tunnel vision cloud your interactions with your team, take a minute and consider how this affects your ability to perform ­and collaborate.

If you’re on the other end… if you’re the one who needs to make the hard decision, here’s a look at how we handled ours.

1) An open dialog

Kelly and I are lucky to have the type of relationship where we can be incredibly honest with each other. But it takes effort to maintain that type of relationship. We put a lot of energy into remaining honest during this. It’s harder than it sounds. Looking a friend in the eye to discuss the hard stuff sucks but I’m glad we did it. Approaching the issue this way meant we were both aware of things as they were shifting within the team and ultimately that we would decide on the solution together.

2) “Research”

Kelly and I both put in a period of what I’ll call “research” before making any real decisions. We spoke with our board and our most valued mentors. We did NOT however, go to them asking for a solution. We went to hear about their experience. We wanted to get insight into similar situations they’d experienced in the past so we could then walk away and apply them to a solution that made sense for our situation. (Similarly to what I hope you’ll do with this post should you ever find yourself in this situation).

3) Involving the team

We actually chose not to pull the team into this decision. Kelly and I have and will continue to be a united front. So while we were receptive to the team’s opinions and experiences, we made sure to support each other publicly while we worked to figure out the best solution privately. To be totally honest, this was both good and bad. The negative was that I don’t think the team (including my execs) believed they were being heard. Because I wasn’t discussing the work I was doing on the backend to find a solution, it may have looked like I wasn’t processing or acting on their feedback. That was a struggle – but because of the magnitude of this decision, I needed to step away with their feedback and decide on the right plan of action separately… with the help of the mentors I mentioned above who are somewhat more emotionally removed from the situation.

4) Filling in the holes

Kelly’s departure meant we would be without a Product lead and considering the pace at which we’re moving, that’s a problem. A big one. But I couldn’t let that stop us from making a change. I didn’t want to apply a temporary Band-Aid or rush the process and risk ending up with a square peg that didn’t fit. So instead of hiring someone to take over Kelly’s role, I took a step back and evaluated the need. Now we’re looking at a role… a resource… that’s less focused on visionary insight and more focused on implementation. We have a LOT of experience with our market and the problems we’re solving. At this stage, the focus is execution. And we’re bringing someone in to make sure we do exactly that. (More on this later…)

But that’s enough of the rational dissection – now for the human part.

This really fucking hurts.

Soon after starting PivotDesk, I would imagine Kelly and me years from now, sitting in our rocking chairs (Balvenie PortWood in hand) reminiscing about how awesome the journey was — how many incredible companies and people we had the chance to work with.

I have faith we will get there, but I will miss having someone standing across from me in the office who knows instinctively when I’m frustrated or worried about something. I will miss having someone I can talk to about how freaking hard this is and having them intimately understand the reality.

To be totally transparent, I’m most upset about the fact that I’ll have one less person around who wants this as much as I do. One less person that knew what it was like when PivotDesk was just a PowerPoint presentation.

But like many decisions we make in life, our selfish desires aren’t always the right way to move forward. And after pounding your head against the wall enough times hoping the pain will go away, you realize that it might just be the pounding that’s causing the hurt.

Kelly and I learned the hard way. My hope is that in sharing our experience, you won’t have to.

Remember, everything you say or do matters.

Now go build great shit.

And if you have extra space in your office, please consider posting it on PivotDeskto help out other great companies that need a place for now. You never know how much value you might get in return.

650?!  We were 500 over capacity for a Denver Startup Week panel we hadn’t even actively promoted. 500 people we had to turn away at the door.

Now, I’m always surprised to see even a few people line up to get a glimpse of my mug, but this level of interest was something new and startling.

The panel was called “Sifting Through The BS: The Advice You Actually Need When Building a Businesses,” something I have always looked for when seeking advice regarding PivotDesk, and also something I try my damnedest to bring to the table in my work as a Techstars mentor.

We weren’t sure how much interest the topic would generate, but we knew we had stories to tell.

Between Yoav Lurie, CEO of SimpleEnergy, Erika Trautman, CEO of Rapt Media and myself, we took down our guard and discussed the hard, painful truths about what it’s like building a business. A rundown of our less-than-glamorous experiences.

But I left with the realization that the outstanding interest in this topic meant that with all the advice out there (ours included)…

There remains a very strong need among those of us who are in the trenches of building a business to connect on a more REAL, less filtered level.

I left thinking we should have done more — that we should have worked harder to rid ourselves of ego and share the real, actionable side of the things we learned from our failures and successes — and I plan to make up for that.

I’ll tell you how I plan to make up for it in a little bit… But first, I need you to understand one key thing:

Most advice out there is BS.

Most of the advice you hear ‘on the street,’ is full of inflated stories, usually filtered and glittered up by the media, about people who’ve already achieved a perceived  level of success. (And I mean ‘perceived’ in a very real way.  Success is very rarely defined in terms other than raising a big round at an obscene valuation.)

Or, it’s from people who have watched others do it, either from the Board or advisor level, but who never experienced what it’s like to be in the trenches of building a business.

Or, it’s from people who have done it, but are so hesitant to tell you the truth due to fear that it might damage their desired reputation as a ‘wunderkind.’ So what you end up getting is not much different than what you get in the media.

The fact is, we all go through a lot of the same shit. We’re just not sharing it.

When you’re growing a business, there are a series of fundamentals that have to be put in place for anyone to succeed. And right now, too many people, including me,  waste a LOT of time and money on trial and error because we don’t have the exposure to how everyone else has done it.

So let’s stop presenting only the best versions of ourselves and instead, expose the dirt.

We’re in the era of the shared economy: we share cars, homes, wardrobes, bikes, offices, even kitchenware and musical instruments. We’re willing to share our most private spaces and belongings, so why can’t we also share real wisdom and experience?

Nothing costs less; nothing is worth more.

Here’s how we at PivotDesk plan to contribute:

We’re launching a new initiative called ‘Been There, Done That’ that features an ongoing series in which we’ll be stripping ourselves of ego and giving you a raw look into the fundamentals of what it takes to grow a business.

We’ll do so in two ways:

First, we’ll share the inner workings of PivotDesk — how we fought to get here and all of the struggles and successes we run into, as we run into them.

Second, we’ll connect with YOU and the rest of our community to help tell your stories so we can all learn from your most valuable experiences (good or bad!).

For many of us who are in the trenches, there is this feeling that we’re in it alone.

But that’s due to the overwhelming amount of hype out there —and potentially a bit of our own ego.

Today, I’m asking you NOT to fall victim to it.

I’ll be blunt: you’re putting your success at risk if you’re attempting to grow your business in a vacuum. I’ve seen it a million times in my work as a mentor. By isolating yourself, you waste vital resources on reinventing the wheel.

I’ve been there and done that a few times over…

And I want to help by telling my stories. I want to break down the hype and kick the “we’re killing it” version of the story right out of the conversation. We’ll be hosting REAL conversations, the ‘behind the scenes’ stories: our strategies, implementations, the obstacles and unexpected dead-ends.

What can you expect to see in this series?

I’ll start by sharing my own experiences, as well as PivotDesk’s ongoing struggles and successes. We’ll also share stories from our community of guests, hosts, and mentors. We’re dealing with a lot of the same challenges you are and even though I’ve been here before, something new always arises.

I crave this shared knowledge, too!

Here’s quick look at a few of the topics I intend to cover:

• How we built the best teams I’ve ever worked with (on a tight budget!) and what I do to retain them and manage a great culture
• How we set up and manage a remote team across 5 major markets
• How we try and function as a metrics-focused business without crushing creativity
• How we managed our technical Salesforce integration: how we did it, why we did what we did, and how we rally our sales team around it
• Why we avoid traditional project manager roles and instead align the team with one analyst across sales, marketing, and product
• How we try and avoid spending marketing dollars on businesses not presently in need of our service
• The communication and planning tools we use to provide transparency between our departments and decrease the number of email chains in our inbox
• How we try and manage HR without hiring for the role internally
• How we are trying to overcome a perception issue in our marketplace—and why, if we don’t, we risk getting stuck
• How to interact with mentors and peers in a manner that feels authentic and not as an ask

There’s no shortage of content here, but it’s real and it’s raw.

If I had this exposure when I started, it not only would’ve saved me time, but it could’ve altered the way I built other businesses and maybe they would have done better.

What makes ‘Been There, Done That’ unique?!

• It’s the dirt. No bullshit, no holding back. Real people sharing real fundamentals without ego. The same fundamentals that you, too, will most likely deal with in your own business
• It’s actionable. Screw the outcome. We’re giving you the steps it took to get there so you can implement them on your own.
• It’s a conversation. This isn’t a monologue. It’s a dialog. I’m looking for engagement and I am making it a priority of my own to respond to emails, blog comments, social posts etc. I’m here to hear your stories, answer your questions and participate in your debates.

Consider for a minute Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quote:  “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I mentor because I know how damn hard this all is and I want to get to a point where we’re HONEST about this fact. It’s time to cut the bullshit and start helping each other get beyond the inevitable struggles.

I ask you to make a mental shift from guarded to open… To stop comparing yourself to the progress of others and, instead, learn from it.

So join me with the ‘Been There, Done That’ series. We’ll be releasing each new post in advance to a select email list. To get a copy of the post emailed to you before it’s live, sign up below.

Remember, I’m dedicated to the conversation I hope this series creates. I encourage you to respond to the early access emails, leave comments on the posts and reach out via Facebook and Twitter. I’ll be reading and responding to each and everyone.

Have specific topics you want to hear about or share?

Leave a comment on this post and I’ll do my best to get them slotted into the calendar.

And if you have extra space in your office, please think about sharing it with one of the great early startups out there that could use it. Remember, we’re in this together.

Thank you.