how to set startup goals
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HOW TO SET GOALS
This presentation consists of insights from the following founders:
Brittany Hodak Co-Founder of ZinePak
@Brittany Hodak
Mike Townsend Co-Founder of HomeHero
@Mikettownsend
Julie Lorch Director of UX at DoSomething.Org
@jooLAAY
Melanie Perkins Co-Founder and CEO of Canva
@MelanieCanva
Vivek Sharma Co-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
@Vivsharma
Aaron FiresteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
@AaronFuegostein
Table of Contents
Page 4
Page 19
Page 28
Page 33
Page 46
Page 51
1. Top 3 Productivity Hacks
2. How to Set and Achieve Your Goals
3. How to Raise Awareness and Close Deals
4. Top 3 Traits to Identify in New Hires
5. Life As An Entrepreneur
6. Beating Adversity
TOP 3 PRODUCTIVITY HACKS
READ THE BLOG
Create task lists: “I create a sorted list and give myself tighter deadlines on items where
I might be a bottleneck.” When it comes to your team try WeekDone and Asana.
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Say no to meetings. “90% of my time is spent on things with an end-goal in mind.”
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Delegation: “The second we figure out a piece of the business I find someone to own
it completely...Your only job [as a founder] is to build a machine that can scale. Sinking yourself into a role makes you a bottleneck and doesn’t
give someone else an opportunity to lead.”
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Schedule, schedule, schedule! “It takes a lot less willpower to do something that’s scheduled than to “find time” to deal with
an outstanding item on your to-do list.”
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Track it! Try the app Way of Life to chart your weekly and monthly performance.
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Match your activities to your values. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’s book The Power of Full
Engagement is a great way to get started. “Time and energy are finite resources, and it’s important that you manage them effectively.”
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Free up your time, attention, and creativity by setting: 1. A routine of waking up
2. Eating a set number of meals 3. Exercising
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
“Startups can consume your life 24/7, but the goal is not to spend all your time working on your business, it’s to be as
productive as possible.”
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
Focusing on the end goal: “Looking at every task in the context of the bigger picture provides motivation to see the task through.”
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
Writing lists: “Jotting things down is often the first step to seeing them realized.”
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
Long walks for brainstorming.
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
To-Do List: Write out big tasks and list the sub-tasks that need to be accomplished.
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
Coffee and tea to start the day followed by instrumental music
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
HOW TO SET AND ACHIEVE COMPANY GOALS
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“Every week on Monday each of the teams in our company meet and make a plan for the week and then on Friday each team creates a Canva design and presents what they have
been up to in front of the rest of our company.”
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
We just started a new small teams model - where each team in our company creates a ‘pitch deck’ with their objectives,
goals and their timeline for the quarter.
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
“Goals are quarterly, ambitious, quantified, and visible throughout the company. At Movable Ink, we want everyone to be
CEO of their piece of the business. OKRs help with this by giving everyone
visibility on what each team owns, how they are performing, and what their role is in contributing to the company’s success.”
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Use the S.M.A.R.T. goals system: Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Realistic, and Time-Bound.
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
“Hard goals and milestones are hugely important, but going after soft
wins is important too. You want to hit numbers but you also want to build a culture.”
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
“We use our own internal dashboard that indicates our key metrics, which every
employee can see. It gives a clean look with line graphs at the state of the company in
marketing, sales, engineering, and growth.”
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
“We have a kickass kanban pipeline of design challenges with a specific KPI attached
to each card...We prioritize builds based on which product we hypothesize will move the
KPI the most but know there’s richness in the ideation phase itself that often pays dividends in unexpected connections.”
Julie Lorch — @jooLAAYDirector of UX at DoSomething.Org
HOW TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CLOSE DEALS
READ THE BLOG
Referrals. “If you haven’t talked to a client for a few weeks, pick up the phone and ask
how he or she is doing. Check to see if there is anything you can do to help him or her, and
then ask him or her to connect you directly with your desired prospect.”
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
On DoSomething using Snapchat: “You have to generate funny, informative, and heartwarming content on a channel
they’re already using. Find out where your users are, and talk to them there.”
Julie Lorch — @jooLAAYDirector of UX at DoSomething.Org
“The lessons you’ll hear by reading popular tech blogs are cliche for a reason...
For us, going out and talking to our customers proved to be the thing that led
to the fastest early growth.”
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
“Hitting the streets, guerilla-style, has been hugely important.”
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
TOP TRAITS TO SEEK IN NEW HIRES
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The Three Questions Guiding DoSomething.org’s Hiring:
1. Would we want to be in a bunker with you?2. Can you hit a homerun in 90 days?
3. Are you going to be doing something amazing in four to six years?
Julie Lorch — @jooLAAYDirector of UX at DoSomething.Org
Intellectual Curiosity: Have an interviewee teach you
to do what they do.
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Great Communication Skills: “Companies scale because they are able to coordinate what everyone is
doing. Great communication is at the foundation of this.”
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
The ability to Get Shit Done: “I’ll devote a lot of time on thorough reference questions. Don’t accept a superficial answer
without digging two levels deeper.”
Vivek Sharma — @VivsharmaCo-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink
Cultural Fit: You spend half or more of your waking
hours with your coworkers, so nothing is worse than having a jerk around the office
bringing down everyone’s moods.
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Embrace Change and Risk: At startups, there is always change. A job
might look completely different in July than it did in February. Some people embrace
this reality while others hate it.
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Owning His or Her Role: As a founder, your biggest goal should be to build a company with people who are better
at specific tasks than you are. Look for people who are the very best at what they do.
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
The 8 Values Guiding the HomeHero team:
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
1. Focus on long-term success.2. Fearlessly contribute new ideas.
3. Have higher expectations for yourself than others do for you.4. Focus on building real value
over perceived value.
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
The 8 Values Guiding the HomeHero team:
5. Challenge yourself to do the hard thing.6. Treat every problem as an opportunity.
7. Promote and protect our brand.8. Default to transparency.
Willingness to do anything, honesty and a hunger for learning
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
LIFE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR
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“Sometimes running a startup feels a bit like you’re on some kind of reality show with hidden cameras where you’re faced with totally unpredictable obstacles and expected to handle them perfectly…on
the spot…in front of an audience.”
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
“You have to say no to the first version of your design, and no no no to the people
who tell you no. All these NOs are incredibly annoying. But they’re necessary if you ever
want to get to OH HELL YES.”
Julie Lorch — @jooLAAYDirector of UX at DoSomething.Org
On relentlessness: “It doesn’t come natural to 99% of people be-cause it will kill you or push you through the
uncertainty to the other side of success.”
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
“When you have a gut feeling that your idea is something new and positive in the world,
you’re more willing to take major risks.”
Melanie Perkins — @MelanieCanvaCo-Founder and CEO of Canva
BEATING ADVERSITY
READ THE BLOG
Maintaining the early mindset: “We relished every opportunity to take a
chance. Although many of the choices we made were gutsy, they helped us create a
wonderful foundation for ourselves...We strive to make decisions from a place of optimism and
opportunity instead of being ruled by fear.”
Brittany Hodak — @BrittanyHodakCo-Founder of ZinePak
Learnings from the DoSomething.org website redesign:
“We emphasized early prototyping and cross-functional collaboration, bringing tech, design, and content together at the
start of a project...We’re better off because our product and tech team took on a massive
challenge, figured out how to get sh*t done, and documented it just enough
to improve it for the next build.”
Julie Lorch — @jooLAAYDirector of UX at DoSomething.Org
The importance of focus: “When we first started, we didn’t focus enough on senior care, we
considered cleaning, personal assistants, and transportation services all in the same
experience and it was a tough lesson for us to find a laser focus on senior care.”
Mike Townsend — @MiketTownsendCo-Founder of HomeHero
The eleventh hour: “Like a lot of companies there were
some 11th hour moments when trying to raise money, but it worked! I think we’re better off because you know you cannot
take how far we’ve come for granted.”
Aaron Firestein — @AaronFuegosteinCo-Founder and Chief Artist at BucketFeet
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Presentation by Chase Jennings
Insights by Jenna Abdou