how to set and achieve your startup goals

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with Matt Williams

HOW TO SET & ACHIEVE

YOUR STARTUP GOALS

This presentation consists of insights inspired by 33voices® interviews with Jenna Abdou.

FEATURING

Matt Williams

@talktomw

Founder and CEO of Pro.com

@getyourpro

The single biggest question entrepreneurs face is: What’s working, and how long

is it going to work for?

How do you navigate the tricky dichotomy between persistence and patience?

How do you navigate the tricky dichotomy between persistence and patience?

“Measure your business relentlessly. Startups need an operating discipline

focused on data and metrics.”

Every quarter, set one or two large goals that drastically drive your business forward

and six to 12 smaller goals to make progress on specific metrics.

Your high-level goals should result in a “game-changing shift in conversion, customer behavior, or experience.”

To determine your primary quarterly initiatives, ask yourself:

To determine your primary quarterly initiatives, ask yourself:

What are the mission-oriented goals we are going after as a company?

To determine your primary quarterly initiatives, ask yourself:

What are the key metrics we are trying to impact?

Approach your smaller goals as pilot experiments focused on specific metrics. For example, a quarterly project can be

reducing customer acquisition costs.

Depending on the size of the project and your company’s resources, these experiments

should be executed and debriefed quickly.

Depending on the size of the project and your company’s resources, these experiments

should be executed and debriefed quickly.

A general rule of thumb is not to spend more than two weeks on a trial. However, projects tested by your sales team, for example, may require a longer

timeline due to a physical team making calls.

The core benefit of goal setting resides in your time evaluating each goal.

The core benefit of goal setting resides in your time evaluating each goal.

“Institute everything for immediate measurement.”

“Debriefs are about data, questions being asked and answered, and decisions

being made on next steps.”

Maximize your debrief meetings by implementing a simple, straightforward

process to assess projects.

Use these three questions to guide your conversation:

Use these three questions to guide your conversation:

What worked?

Use these three questions to guide your conversation:

What wasn’t successful?

Use these three questions to guide your conversation:

What do the metrics look like?

In both positive and negative ways, your data will reveal unanticipated outcomes.

As a company leader, you’re responsible for “determining when to a cut a project

and try something new.”

In both positive and negative ways, your data will reveal unanticipated outcomes.

As a company leader, you’re responsible for “determining when to a cut a project

and try something new.”

“You have to be open as an entrepreneur and a team about the honest reality

of what is working.”

“If you can set ego aside and exercise humility in your business and the trials you’re performing, you can

build a successful company.”

Many times, your team will execute ideas today that you wanted to act on six months ago. Similarly, ideas

you’re currently discussing may not come into fruition until 2017.

If you remember one thing: Focus on the data. Your data will

tell you when you’re ready.

As each of these processes simultaneously flow throughout your

organization, it’s important to find quiet time to review these goals daily. This is

critical to shaping the company’s roadmap and evaluating your team’s performance

(both individually and collectively), to ensure that everything is on track.

“Startups are nothing but roadblocks.” As a leader, “it’s your job to remove

them along the way.”

The most significant way to elevate individual performance is to make it a priority that each team member can

confidently answer these two questions.

The most significant way to elevate individual performance is to make it a priority that each team member can

confidently answer these two questions.

What am I working towards this quarter?

The most significant way to elevate individual performance is to make it a priority that each team member can

confidently answer these two questions.

How is my progress being measured against this goal?

Ideally, you want to spend one-on-one time with each team member to help them

“architect their own path.”

Ideally, you want to spend one-on-one time with each team member to help them

“architect their own path.”

“In order to be productive, you have to have clarity of goals and mission.”

“Everyone should come to work every day knowing the metric they’re trying to impact.”

Institute weekly check-ins with your team to “establish the top things the

company needs to accomplish that week and tie those goals to units of progress.”

Review your goals, accompanying metrics, and the next steps to achieve them.

As you work toward each of these goals your competition will be doing the same. Whether or not their’s are successful, avoid focusing on them in “an unhealthy or reactive way.”

While studying their journey enables you to gain valuable lessons about what works and doesn’t work in the industry, “focusing on your competition doesn’t yield results as

much as focusing on your customer.”

Your customers give you your data. Follow their lead, not your competition’s.

When analyzing your metrics, actively distinguish between customer

feedback and behavior.

It’s one thing for a customer to relay a feature they’d like to see in your product. It’s another for them to actually use it. As

you test, iterate, and validate experiments “use direct action as feedback.”

A deliberate and unwavering focus on your customers behavior will enable you to maximize this framework by optimizing

for tangible growth in the right places.

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Presentation by Chase Jennings

Insights by Jenna Abdou