Do More Faster: Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup, Second Edition

  • 4h 52m
  • Brad Feld, David Cohen
  • John Wiley & Sons (US)
  • 2019

Refreshed, updated, and expanded. Do More Faster provides time-tested advice, tips, and experiences by founders and mentors of Techstars to help entrepreneurs succeed!

David Cohen and Brad Feld, leading advocates for entrepreneurs and startups, team up to provide first-time entrepreneurs with the tools, insights, and experiences to help them do more faster. The authors share their decades of experience working with thousands of startup founders and have enlisted the advice of dozens of Techstars startup founders and mentors. Contributors include Tim Ferriss, Eric Ries, Matt Mullenweg (WordPress), Isaac Saldana (SendGrid), and other successful entrepreneurs.

Co-founders of Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed, Cohen and Feld recognize the daunting task of creating a sustainable business and have seen first-hand the common mistakes first-time entrepreneurs make over and over. The authors take the complexity and uncertainty of starting a business and distill the critical factors into seven themes: Ideas and Vision, People, Working Effectively, Product, Fundraising, Legal and Structure, and Work and Life Harmony. They share their hard-won successes, failures, and advice for anyone with an idea who wants to create a business.

Throughout the book crucial questions are raised and addressed from multiple perspectives.

  • How important is it to have an original idea?
  • How is founder conflict handled?
  • What are the tradeoffs between bootstrapping and financing?

Make-or-break decisions like company structure, hiring, and legal consequences are presented in an easy-to-understand style. Do More Faster will elevate your thinking on a range of important topics, help you avoid costly mistakes, and provide you with a resource to consult as you go from idea to successful business.

If you have the drive and desire to start a business, need to create a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in your community, or want to spark greater innovation in your organization—don’t go it alone. Use the advice, tips, and tactics found throughout Do More Faster to give yourself the best chance of succeeding.

About the Authors

David Cohen is the founder and CEO of TechStars. He previously founded and successfully exited several companies and is now an angel investor in over 100 Internet startups.

Brad Feld is a managing director of Foundry Group, an early stage venture capital firm. He has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty-five years.

In this Book

  • Do More Faster
  • Do or Do Not; There is no Try
  • Trust Me, Your Idea is Worthless
  • Start with Your Passion
  • Look for the Pain
  • Get Feedback Early
  • Usage is Like Oxygen for Ideas
  • Forget the Kitchen Sink
  • Find that One Thing they Love
  • Don't Plan. Prototype!
  • You Never Need Another Original Idea
  • Get it Out There
  • Avoid Tunnel Vision
  • Focus
  • Iterate Again
  • Fail Fast
  • Pull the Plug When You Know it's Time
  • Love Doesn't Scale, or Does It?
  • Reconciling Vision and Focus
  • Be Open to Randomness
  • Entrepreneurship is a Group Sport
  • Avoid Cofounder Conflict
  • Hire People Better than You
  • How to Find and Engage Mentors
  • Hire Slowly, Fire Quickly
  • If You Can Quit, You Should
  • Build a Balanced Team
  • Startups Seek Friends
  • Engage Great Mentors
  • The Mentor Manifesto
  • Define Your Culture
  • Two Strikes and You Are Out
  • Karma Matters
  • Assume That You're Wrong
  • Make Decisions Quickly
  • It's Just Data
  • Use Your Head, then Trust Your Gut
  • Progress Equals Validated Learning
  • The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data
  • Don't Suck at Email
  • Use What's Free
  • Be Tiny Until You Shouldn't Be
  • Don't Celebrate the Wrong Things
  • Be Specific
  • Learn from Your Failures
  • Quality over Quantity
  • Have a Bias Toward Action
  • Don't Wait Until You Are Proud of Your Product
  • Find Your Whitespace
  • Focus on What Matters
  • Obsess over Metrics
  • Avoid Distractions
  • Know Your Customer
  • Beware the Big Companies
  • Throw Things Away
  • Pivot
  • There's More than One Way to Raise Money
  • Beware of Angel Investors Who Aren't
  • Don't Forget about Bootstrapping
  • You Don't Have to Raise Money
  • Seed Investors Care about Three Things
  • Practice Like You Play
  • If You Want Money, Ask for Advice
  • Show, Don't Tell
  • Turn the Knife after You Stick it In
  • Don't Overoptimize on Valuations
  • Get Help with Your Term Sheet
  • Focus on the First One-Third
  • Choose the Right Company Structure
  • Form the Company Early
  • Default to Delaware
  • Lawyers Don't Have to Be Expensive
  • Vesting is Good for You
  • Your Brother-in-Law is Probably Not the Right Corporate Lawyer
  • To 83(b) or Not to 83(b), There is No Question
  • Discover Work–Life Harmony
  • Practice Your Passion
  • Follow Your Heart
  • Turn Work into Play
  • Don't Make Yourself Indispensable
  • Get Out from Behind Your Computer
  • Stay Healthy
  • Get Away from it All
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