You Don’t Need This Book

Early Moves

The term early moves is abstract on purpose. It can mean so many different things in entrepreneurship. Early moves are actions that brew progress. Initiative is rewarded with positive energy infused into moments that help us climb the mountain toward momentum.

The term early moves is used throughout this book. To get thinking, sharpen the sword with these tactical examples of early moves that keep leaders building:

listen
be honest
read a book
explore current markets
attend local community events
participate at hackathons
connect others
practice the pitch
discover resources
form the company
organize accounting
compete in pitch events
seek accountability
travel to learn
mentorship
create
do

Early moves are exhilarating, but there’s value in being efficient as you decide if something is going to work. When we say yes to something, we say no to something else. It’s tempting to say, “Let’s gooo,” but this is opportunity cost. Be strategic with early moves. As you build, collect feedback like a scientist. Use feedback as data, because an early and proper no is much better than a long, wrong yes.

To avoid swinging at a bad pitch, take time alone. Along with your experience and honest thoughts, the internet is too powerful not to research online. Don’t hope something doesn’t exist; try to find it. Run some numbers. Talk with people to begin customer discovery. Think about ways to prototype something worth testing. Practice storytelling and see if you can snag a pre-order. Will strangers buy in?

If enthusiasm remains genuine, talk with others who may be interested in collaborating. Think about your own real skills to identify where you’ll need help. Attend related events to further qualify early concepts. Even if you’re not ready to share details, the readiness to show up often links to new allies who can connect dots. Stay organized and see how it feels to create and post content online as you continue working through the early stages of any idea maze.

Before you go much further, take a pit stop with your future self. Is this a quest and environment you want to work in for the foreseeable future? Perhaps this should remain a hobby? For instance, if you like pinball, it doesn’t mean you should start a pinball business. The hardships that come with being a business owner can compress, divert, and decrease passion. At first, the allure of new-made things is fun and exciting, but pressures add up. If the dance remains motivating, positive tension is relieved by executing early moves that help sustain a sensation of growth.

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“Inspiration is perishable—act on it immediately.” –Naval Ravikant

Determining which actions to take when is a juggling act, but as early moves are blended and strategically sequenced, they collide to jolt a business idea forward. 

You Don’t Need This Book: Entrepreneurship in the Connected Era prompts diverse types of early moves that guide an idea toward commercialization. Here’s a reminder of that book’s table of contents for readers to revisit.

You Don't Need This Book: Entrepreneurship In The Connected EraChapter 1 – Ideation
Chapter 2 – Community
Chapter 3 – Team
Chapter 4 – Side Hustles
Chapter 5 – Research
Chapter 6 – Testing
Chapter 7 – Marketing
Chapter 8 – Sales
Chapter 9 – Results
Chapter 10 – Persistence

If this evolving business idea continues to touch your heart after internal and external analysis, you may have something ready to pursue. Yes!

Inspiration is perishable, so when this happens, be ready to take action. It’s not how fast you move; it’s that you find ways to get started and keep moving.

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Things you dedicate time to will grow.

As you make early moves, stay nimble. Agility is one of the best advantages to being small. It often takes many versions to land on something ready for the wild. Remain sustained by timing early moves based on personal bandwidth, the environment, things you do well, and things that make you uncomfortable. Leverage educational support, accelerator programs, and resources. Stay intellectually humble, work with others, and continue executing more early moves.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Die Empty

Graveyards are full of good intentions, untold ideas, disconnections, and missed opportunities.

As we celebrate year-end holidays and look to 2022, it’s easy to make audacious plans for what’s next, but perhaps it’s wise to pair big ideas with small actions?

This obviously means something different for everyone. For example, there are times in our lives when we seek to do so much more. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when cool ideas, good intentions, and even positive action doesn’t lead to the anticipated outcome. For those who face this mental mountain, first give yourself grace by remembering that we either succeed or learn. This will help you find closure with past failure(s). As you push through this self-limiting mindset, lean back into your community of fellow founders. It’s even harder to show up when you’re experiencing a dip, but movement activates motivation and leaning into the prosperity of others will percolate helpful conversations. Pair this curiosity with a pinch of vulnerability and you’ll be reminded how generosity builds trust and helps you solve new problems.

In contrast, there are other times when a profound sense of accomplishment leaves us wondering what more can be done? This would seemingly be a privileged state, but our sense of purpose can waver when goals have been met. This can cause even the most ambitious spirit to feel lazy. A sense of achievement dysmorphia can also set in, which downplays our accomplishments in an effort to create space for more. Perhaps one way to counter this type of mental moment is to pair celebration with relaxation, creativity, and humility. Rejuvenation often emerges from self-care rooted in gratitude. This form of vulnerability brings peace, which often provides clarity on prolific ways to make a deeper impact on familiar fronts, or energy to explore brand new ways to fuel positive change.

The nudge you need will be dynamic based on the complexity of your ever-shifting environment, but a willingness to persist allows us all to keep building.

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The YDNTB audiobook was just released and listeners love it! It is now available as a direct download (with bonus features) in this special Holiday Bundle. It can also be found on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon.

It’s impossible to measure the amount of time and effort it took to narrate, edit, and professionally publish this 5-hour audiobook (here’s how I did it), but that’s not what matters. What matters is that I have a remarkable relic to be proud of forever. Enjoy the show my friends!

Along with what you’re able to undertake, appreciate all that you cannot. When idea machines have an opportunity surplus, it’s easy to over commit. It’s much harder to stay cognizant of our personal bandwidth when our connected era is always introducing new ways to spend your time. These are crossroads where you’re invited to be honest about your own purpose, by allowing the superpowers of others to activate something you can/should not. As you share the love, deliver ideas, resources, connections, and opportunities without hidden agendas. You can’t take such things with you, so boldly give them away with a sense of abundance and find renewing joy in helping others bring more good things to life.

My hope is that after reading this year-end reflection, you observe the blunt title less around loneliness, and more as positive encouragement for doing all that we can with our precious time in this life.

A sustainable cadence leads to longevity, but a profound legacy awaits those who exhaust all their love, intelligence, connectivity, and energy to leave satisfied in the end.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Slide Deck Design

Ready to inspire an audience? Maybe you’re looking to host a meaningful meeting? Let’s explore translating your transmission with a supportive slide deck.

Before we dive in, why are slides needed? Building a slide deck highlights your key points while establishing the tone, cadence, and flow for your storytelling. Think of a slide deck as the visualization of a story, which supports what you say when expressed in a natural way. The unconscious objective is to deliver impact in the least amount of time.

There are endless templates that will help you format the look of a slide deck, but find creative ways to make it your own. You can customize your slide deck with colors that match your brand, icons, and other graphics that add character beyond the status quo.

When every slide matters, it’s tempting to overload slides with too much text. This is a common mistake, but if the audience is tasked with reading, they’re unable to listen. One hack is to remove punctuation. This eliminates paragraphs, full sentences, and lengthy bullet points. Good storytelling, short titles, eye-catching images, and concise key phrases are all you need to guide the audience.

Make your slide deck stand out with bold imagery and less text coupled with simple transitions and creative movement of the content on each slide. Subtle animations will keep your audience curious, while graphs, charts, and other data visualizations keep things informative and easy to digest.

As content comes to life, include specific details related to any themes, goals, or requirements. For example, pitch competition judges often use a rubric to score each participant. Creatively addressing these details will answer questions before they become a distraction.

As you bring a presentation to a close, design the final slide with intention. The last slide is often on screen longer than any others, so combine heroic imagery, branding, calls to action, and simple contact information to finish in style.

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Pitches are built to impress.

Presentations are meant to share.

After you glide through your impressive slide deck, are questions allowed? If so, consider including back slides. Back slides live behind the final slide. They are used to highlight material not included in the main presentation. Handy back slides include detailed pricing, competitive analysis, marketing strategies, research data, testing results, and intricate financial information. People who understand what they’re talking about use fewer words and optional back slides allow you to simplify your storytelling. This reduces the numbing effect of information overload.

With back slides in place, you can be more concise. This makes for a more impactful tone. It can even be good to purposefully leave out a curious topic from the main presentation. When the inevitable question is asked, you can use the sneaky back slide to share a focused response. If your presentation includes back slides, memorize their order and you’ll soon be leading a more authoritative exchange. In short, back slides prove you’re a pro.

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When your story and slide deck resonate, the audience nods, laughs, asks questions, and takes action to connect with fellow attendees.

Being prepared is obviously important when all eyes are on you. With a striking slide deck in place, practice what you plan to say and sync the narrative to the timing of each slide. Whether you use animated content or not, it’s best to have a single click to move between each slide. As you speak, you should focus on connecting with the audience, not on the slide deck or the handheld clicker.

Memorization is also a trap. A more genuine tone comes from the heart. We’ve all seen people lose their place in a memorized script or fumble through notecards. Avoid this by practicing what you plan to say out loud. Memorize the order of your slides but not exactly what you plan to say.

As you practice, move around and find ways to keep track of where you’re at without reading from the slides. Further challenge yourself by introducing distractions. A small audience throwing ping-pong balls, starting from random slides, and practicing with strangers are a few ways to get past the ease of speaking in front of a mirror.

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Watch this presentation and notice the slide deck.

To complete your slide deck preparation, export everything into one PDF and create a JPG file for each slide. The richest presentation will come directly from the software your slide deck was built with (Apple Keynote, Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.). These flat formats can be used as marketing materials, but they also provide a quick answer to unplanned technical issues. Deliver the digital assets on time, and organize everything on a backup flash drive.

When clarifying visuals become part of the equation, slide deck design will spark the imagination, guide storytelling, earn that pitch competition win, keep attention focused, seal the deals, and invite more inspired collaboration. As you tell your story, take feedback seriously. Feedback from people you don’t know will sharpen the business, your slide deck design, and your presentation overall.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Pitch Competitions

Pitch competitions create hype within conventions, conferences, and trade shows. Business competitions can also be standalone events. When a founder’s storytelling becomes award winning, pitch competitions can enrich your business. Feedback, awareness, complimentary services, and cold hard cash are all up for grabs.

As you explore business competitions, recognize the commitment required for each event. While application fees are rare, applying for pitch competitions can be time consuming. As you apply for different types of events, repetition makes the process more efficient. Save content before submitting each application for a head start on future submission forms. Along with bettering the application process, consider the competitive environment you’ll be occupying.

How can your initial application solidify a positive first impression? What will be required to participate in a meaningful way? Will the audience respond to a presentation meant to share or a pitch built to impress? How much time will you be given? Who are the judges? How can your narrative be catered to the judges’ scoring criteria? Will there be time for questions? If so, what questions should you be prepared to answer? With these considerations in mind, it’s time to prepare the transmission.

NEXT WEEK: Slide Deck Design

By Ben McDougal, ago

Generosity Builds Trust

The art of connection aged in a readiness to consistently Show Up and #GiveFirst, often leads the willing to endless opportunity. Let’s explore the why.

Long story short, generosity builds trust. Such benevolence also instills wonderment from others. When our practice includes perennial actions that accelerate others, the ability to deliver on a promise is proven. This earns credibility and allows curiosity to spark new ways to collaborate, which over time, equates to endless opportunity from/with/for people you trust.

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Delivering on a promise sounds heavy, but passing this test can be as simple as suggesting a strategic introduction and following through, arriving on time, or providing the product/service/value a paying customer expects.

At a community level, when more people assume positive intent, tribes are tightened and become able to support more people with bigger ideas. The vulnerability required may introduce new challenges, but the risk is worth the reward when we’re set free to collectively build at the speed of trust. This can be hard to understand for those who have been hardened by the competitive nature of capitalism, but for those who see through the lens of abundance, when more people find their own definition of success, it translates into fresh ways for everyone to thrive.

By Ben McDougal, ago