Sex Ed. for Startups pt. 1 - What is a Startup?

Not very often, but every once in a blue-moon, one of our customers turns out to be, what we call, a "baby", meaning not only a first-timer in the pay-for-service respect, but a complete first-timer. In the old days we would have used the term virgin.
Although quite stereotypical, it has happened that a father would make it a present to his son upon his 18th birthday. In another case it was a group of college frat boys that were out upon the town. Personally I doubt the fraternity yarn. I was more reminded of "Revenge of the Nerds".

I already can see you scratch your head and asking yourself - what's she yammering about again ...

There's a first time for everything, be it a male-female relation or the forming of a startup and just like the former needs some practice and preparation and maybe some guidance from an experienced entity, the latter might desperately need it.

Of course, there's always those that say: "Stick goes into hole. That enough. Yehaaw. Know it all." That might be enough for personal satisfaction, but with this approach the highest peeks will never be reached and I guarantee that a caveman never built a successful startup either.

While I now leave you to do your own juvenile explorations and may only intercede with those upon special request, I will give you an introduction into startups.
Let's lube up and explore what a startup actually is.

So according to Steve Blank a startup is "a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model".  Isn't he sexy, btw?
Another definition comes from Eric Ries -

"A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty."

You will notice that both definitions do not include words like money, company, firm, tech, IT, garage or programming and that is a very important observation.

According to our friend wikipedia a business then "is an organization involved in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers."

Now according to Steve's definition a startup then has nothing to do with being a business. Being a little presumptive, once the startup has found the repeatable and scalable business model he talks about, it might cease being a startup and become a business ... 

Eric, on the other hand, doesn't go that far and his definition is probably easier to grab by most people.

Generally, when doing a startup, one has to deal with many many unknowns - be they 

• market (Is there one?)
• customers (Are there any? And who are they?)
• product (will people want it/like it/pay for it?)
• budget (will my money suffice till I get those items above straight?)
• team (are my co-founders the right people?)
• despair (is it really worth it or am I wasting my time/life?)

or many more and that is probably, what defines a startup the best. But the good news is, that there are methods to cope with all this uncertainty and we will explore them in a later part of this sex ed series.

If you only take one thing from this - let it be this -

If you open a t-shirt business, a bakery, a used-car business or a lawn-moving thing - it is NOT a startup - oh, and just putting the plug into the socket doesn't constitute good sex.

Hey all my hot and sexy friends. I would greatly appreciate an invite to this years Burning Man in Black Rock, NV.
Would love to meet all of you there.

Your little StartUp Slut

Why cheating men are assholes ... and what it means for your startup

My good friend Dr. Kambs said something very insightful the other day.
I must admit, it blew me right out of my socks and that doesn't happen very often.
He remarked that men are assholes because they expect their wives to work a full-time job, fix dinner, keep the kids happy and themselves looking sharp and then get pissed, when the lady is spent and tired and has no eagerness to spread her legs for the old fart.

Now, this alone was a very good observation. One that could have occurred to anyone of us, but didn't. But he wasn't finished at that point.
He added that men now usually might look for their pleasure somewhere else and more often than not, they find it with someone. Of course, everything looks bright, they still got their loving wife handling the household, the kids and everything else that would be a burden on them and plus they now got a slutty someone on the side without all the attachments. The bigger problem now, according to him, is that they may fall a foul this logical fallacy, namely that everything is bright and naughty and so not everyday with the new lady and that this may continue until eternity, when he leaves the old cow and gives himself over to his new "love". This, of course, can only end in shambles. But Dr. Kambs has a very pragmatic and easy solution for this as well. When the pressure builds up and you can't release it at home, go find some professional, don't go all Pretty Woman on her and don't screw up your life, just for some itch in your pants. Just get your fix and then go back home and enjoy the great life you've actually got.

You will probably ask how this pertains to your startup and the answer is quite tride.
There will also be some stale, boring times during the course of your venture. Times when you feel, you should just find something else.
The secret lies in powering through it. Or if you just absolutely have to find temporary satisfaction and instant gratification; go somewhere else, get your quick fix and your head back straight, but don't throw all that hard work away. Your fix may not lie with a professional street worker and that is a good thing. An evening bullshitting with friends might actually be more valuable to you or a relaxing surf, a family visit, some paintball or whatever gets you going and takes your mind of your troubles for a moment, may be just the thing you need.

Slave labor in startups is not sexy

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Ever considered a startup slut?

Ever heard of a Startup Slut?

According to wikipedia a "slut“ is an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous.

A quick look into an online thesaurus offers us the synonyms "whore“, "hooker“ and "prostitute“.

Now, what does one of these creatures do? She, or in some cames, he will build the clients pressure, bring him/her to his or her boiling point and the help relieve the pressure.

You will now ask yourself – what is (s)he on about and what does it have to do with startups?

Just bear with me, while we indulge our sleazy inner self for a moment.

Imagine yourself sitting at the bar in a nice and elegant place. You are sipping your exquisite spanish brandy, just minding your own business and maybe relaxing a tad or reliving your day and all the things that happened.

You are so involved with your own thoughts that you don’t even notice the door opening and a lady, holding up a fancy little black dress, coming in. You only realize once she takes a place not too far away from you, makes eye-contact and every sign of being approachable.

Now, if you happen to be a little shy, she might even ask you, if you didn’t mean to buy her a drink and of course you do.

You two get to talking, she seems genuinly interested in what you have to say. She laughs at all your jokes and you two really hit it off. Hours later, the only question remaining is - to your place or mine?

Now, even on the way, she knows how to entice you, to tease you, to make you loose your head and let your blood rush to your nether regions. In short you feel like a pressure cooker ready to burst.

Once you enter your place, she is all over you [...] leaving out the kinky details [...] and in the end she skillfully relieves your pressure as you explode like you’ve never done before but in between, due to her expertise, you performed like you never knew you could. You’ve been the stud you 've always dreamt about being. Your mom would’ve been so proud (Ok, that might be going a little too far ...).

After it’s all over, she retires to the bathroom, comes back after a short while, again completly dressed and impeccable. She leans close to you and whispers: „Now, it’s time to pay up, stud!“

Now, let’s take a breath, cool down and  get our minds out of the gutter and focus again for a few short moments.

I therefore now propose the position of StartUp Slut. You may ask yourself, what a startup slut is or you may make some inferences from what you read above and that would be quite true.

What a startup slut is (I don’t use the more appropriate term „whore“ or „prostitute“, because of their derogativeness) is simply someone that through experience, knowledge and maybe contacts and network, helps a startup take off. He/she will keep everyone on their toes (keep the pressure up), help with direction, provide in-depth mentoring and actual hands-on service. He/she will be intimativly acquainted with latest developments in the startup landscape and the proper sectors and best-practices in founding and growing of a startup as well as the state-of-the-art in theories and frameworks.

Lastly the slut is an external factor that for a certain length of time becomes an internal supporter. Someone that provides the shoulder to cry on, the boot that kicks you in the nuts, the understanding of your best friend and the attitude of your coach, constantly pushing you to be at your best and that always keeps the eye on the grand price, which is building your startup and providing value to you and subsequently your customers and other stakeholders.

You may interject that that is exactly what incubators/accelerators (I feel there is much confusion about those terms, especially in the non-English native countries) do, but not every startup can count on Y Combinator or 500 StartUps to be in their corner and their business model is also somewhat different. Of course, they provide support, mentoring, some also office space and very importantly reputation and pedigree as well as great networking opportunities, but they simply cannot go the length and into the depth of providing hands-on service, 24/7 dedicated support and all the other soft and hard benefits that come with closely working with someone.

I don’t want to take anything away from the calibers of YC, 500, TechStars, Angelpad and the many others that offer outstanding service to their portfolio startups and by all means, if one can get into those programs then that is first choice above all, but for those that can’t or won’t, there may be some slutty alternatives.

I, of course, know that there are already very qualified and good consultants and consultancies available for startups that offer quite similar services, but this is giving the whole thing a different name and spin and putting some sex into the game. After all, do you want to wake up next to a suit or a slut?

So, if you think your startup might need a blowjob, give me call or maybe we just get started with some petting to get to know each other.