Startup Mindset
- We look at Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, the Google guys, Richard Branson. We think I’m not like them. We discount ourselves. We shut off the entrepreneur within us.
- Within you lies a dormant startup mindset. We need to switch it on.
- The will to create is in our DNA. We were born with a will to create.
- One trip to New York changed my entire life trajectory. I got up with terrible jet lag and went looking for a cup of coffee. America wasn’t known for great coffee. I walked into New World Coffee. I fell in love with it. I got back to London and I missed it.
- I couldn’t understand why I had to provide a solution to my own problem.
- I bought a ticket for the Circle Line and I learned that there was a gap in the market. My brain was fearful. I was clueless about everything in the business. We have no experience. We just immerse ourselves in this world. We ate and drank ourselves through it.
- All I got was rejection after rejection. Our friends said we were crazy. We interviewed with 20 bank managers. 19 rejected us. One said yes to us.
- We did all kinds of bootstrapping. We opened the UK’s first coffee bar. No one came in. Our break even sales were 700 pounds. We were only selling 200 pounds per day.
- People talk about overnight success. I don’t believe it. It takes 15 years to become an overnight success.
- Slowly we grew sales until we got to break even. Then we grew from there. In five years we grew from one store to 110 stores. Then something changed. The startup spirit we had in the beginning just went.
- The startup spirit is not about starting a business. It’s just tiny shifts in behavior. These tiny shifts have an outsized, really deep impact on how you live your life.
Step into Customer’s Shoes
- Me wanting to scratch my own itch is what activated the passionate entrepreneurship within me. I didn’t want to grab market share. I just wanted a skinny cappuccino.
- Think about your ideas from the end user perspective.
- We are all looking for purpose. We are rethinking about work and the role it has in our life. You find that in your customers, your clients.
- We can all think inside out, rather than outside in.
Get Out
- Focus groups, market research don’t do enough. Your eyes need to see it. Your ears need to hear it.
The Importance of Being Clueless
- I thought being clueless was our biggest disadvantage; it was our advantage.
- The naivete was helpful. It allowed us to explore.
- The right mindset is giving yourself the license to ask really stupid questions.
- Be a big kid. If you’re spiritual, be as little children.
- As we became bigger, it was almost corporate bullying. “We don’t do it that way.”
- Be like a tourist. Observe everything. See what needs to be changed.
- I bet all of you have had an amazing idea. We sit on it. We think on it. We ask experts about it.
Start Bootstrapping
- Bootstrapping is somehow making 2+2=5. You find a way somehow.
- Bootstrapping is about the power of little, tiny steps. The first phone call. The first email. The first meeting.
- It’s not just enough to have an idea. Take the first step.
- Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Perfection is an excuse to sit back and do nothing.
Think of a ‘NO’ as a Badge of Honor
- We got 39 Nos from bank managers. Howard Schultz of Starbucks got 275 Nos.
- Change your attitude to rejection.
- I welcome Nos. Factor in that people will say no.
- The only way to avoid a no is to do nothing.
- I have the same fear that you all have. It is not the absence of fear. It is just doing something.
- Momentum is really powerful. It is just a process of discovery,. It is messy but eventually you are moving it along.
100% You
- If you embrace these steps, the reward is 100% you.
- What I’ve learned about the startup mindset is that you learn about yourself.
- I found out things about myself that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. That adventure is priceless.
- There is a place for each of us. There is somewhere that we will shine, where we belong.
- The transformation will be extraordinary. The amount of fun you have will be extraordinary. You will find your sense of purpose.
- Purpose is knowing that every day we go to work we make a difference in someone.
- It’s not about self-belief. You build self-belief. The more you try stuff, the more your self-belief builds.