Heads up! This is a great time to start a company. According to NPR, there’s an Unexpected Boom In Startups. “Most of these new businesses are seizing opportunities created by the weird coronavirus economy — an economy where people don’t really want to do stuff face-to-face anymore… Economists have a term for this…”creative destruction.”… Harvard University economist Joseph Schumpeter… described it as a process of “industrial mutation … that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” He placed it at the center of capitalism, arguing that it was a force that made capitalism much more innovative than socialism.”

We know that many of you are working on newcos. We hear this from you all the time and our online investor breakfasts are certainly proof of it: everyone briefly pitches and everyone has a newco. We receive your decks and executive summaries and, since we do investor breakfasts semi-monthly, we must know all of the investors (we do know literally hundreds of them), so we’re often asked can we please send out your enclosed deck to the investors for whom we feel it might be appropriate? Happy to! But we get paid for our time.

“But we’re bootstrapping. We have to pay our developers,” we’re often told.

We do understand, but let us spell it out, and this applies to all consultants whom you expect to volunteer their time: we’re developers, too. We’ve spent a good part of our career developing those relationships/skills that you now sorely need. And we don’t work for free. Here’s why, as many a consultant will confirm: once you decide to be helpful and volunteer your time, in the entrepreneur’s head, your time and expertise are worth zero, in monetary terms: if you’ve undervalued yourself and charge zero, why wouldn’t they? We know that we’ve said this before, but the behavior continues – and so will these reminders.

But we’re going to give you some free advice here (although, you have hopefully noticed the ‘donate’ link at the top of this page – donations are always appreciated!): we know that you believe that you have the best and only real solution out there, or even perhaps the first of its kind, and trust us, chances are you don’t:

Don’t ever say ‘first’ or ‘only.’ Investors (or their associates/analysts) are bombarded with pitch decks on a daily basis. Trust us, whatever you’re doing, someone somewhere is working on that issue as well. When investors see ‘first’ or ‘only,’ their response is ‘NEXT’. It’s simply the ‘first’ and ‘only’ one that you’re aware of. Again, trust us. Eliminate it from your vocabulary and your deck. Don’t even think about saying it.

Don’t overstate/overpromised. Don’t tell me – show me. Hyperbole is a turnoff. Simply state the facts – with proof to back up your claims. If you promise that your software is going to solve every problem under the sun, the investor’s mind will naturally gravitate to the only promise you could have possibly left out: “and we’ll cure cancer.’ You’ve just destroyed your credibility and once again are relegated to the ‘NEXT’ pile.

Listen. Seriously, founders don’t listen. They are driven They’re also stubborn. Many get an idea in their heads and no matter what their advisors/mentors tell them, they believe that that person or persons still doesn’t/don’t know what they know. Founders are on a path, and often have blinders on, with a razor-sharp focus that leads to the exclusion of all else, stubbornly believing that they know what they know – and that they know better than their advisors. Those blinders are what make them go right off their path and into the ditch, every time.

In other words, do yourself a huge favor and get out of your own bloody way.

We’re going to sum it up with one of our favorite little poems/ditties. It’s short and succinct, so hopefully, it’ll stick in your head:

I met a man pursuing the horizon
On and on he sped.
“You cannot1” I said.
“You lie!” he said.
And sped on.

…but not likely onward and forward.