Teaching taught me to compress. Over the years, the lessons in my lectures boiled down to a short list of lines I could say in a sentence and defend for an hour. I call them The Axioms of Entrepreneurship. Every one of them was paid for by a mistake I made or watched someone else make. Here they are in the order I teach them, each with the story that paid for it.
The axioms and what they cost.
- It takes sheer determination, guts and all your resources
- If you are holding something back, the company will find it. Desert Storm demanded everything. So did the early days at Galt.
- There is no black magic
- The founders who made it stopped looking for the shortcut.
- Speed is life
- I brought it out of naval aviation. At Lycos it became the rule of the portal race, the weekend Jim Gilliam camped in his cube and built MP3 search. See Speed Is Life.
- Only an idiot runs out of fuel in an airplane
- Internet Venture Works was early without staying power. The second time I was early, at COSIMO, I made sure we could stay in the game.
- Lady Luck favors those who invent new ideas, not rules
- We never pitched the Mosaic team. They called and put NETworth in their browser menu. Distribution found us because we were out building.
- Passion is the fuel of life
- Passion is the engine. Everything else is the vehicle. The full model is in Understanding Entrepreneurial Passion.
- Money follows passion, not the other way around
- In 1999 I raised the easiest money of my life. The market was telling me the market was hot, not that the plan was right. In 2001 I handed it back.
- Your culture is your brand
- At Lycos my stress could ripple through 350 people by lunchtime. A careless inside becomes a careless outside.
- Simplicity always trumps persuasion
- Lycos Clubs had every feature. Yahoo Clubs did less and took off. See Simplicity Always Trumps Persuasion.
- Make the customer the hero of your story
- Players never chose Vivox. They chose a game, and voice made it feel human. The customer is the hero. The product is the tool.
- Think like your customer. Always.
- At Internet Venture Works we sold to buyout firms. Shoppers were not yet ready to buy dog food online.
- It’s the product, stupid
- Nobody buys a jackknife when they need a screwdriver. Twilio beat Vivox on shape, not technology.
- Repeat customers rock
- A first sale proves interest. A second proves value. The ladder is in From Cynic to Apostle.
- Awesome design creates repeat customers
- At Affinnova the design consumers preferred was one the brand team admitted they would never have made.
- Don’t make me think
- Steve Krug’s title. In 1994, getting online meant configuring winsock.dll yourself. A company called Spry built a business by wrapping it in one installer.
- Polarize your audience. Delight your apostles. Design for intermediates first. Design multiple pathways.
- One axiom that is really four. See Pick a Side and Design for Intermediates.
None of these are secrets. That is the point. They are simple to say and very hard to live.
It means that as far as is humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.
Why a short list.
A short list is easy to carry into a hard moment. A long one stays on the shelf. I teach the series at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan and Carnegie Mellon. The lines are simple. The stories under them are what make them stick.
Write your own axioms.
- Write five to ten linesEach one must be a lesson you paid for, not one you read.
- Write the story under eachThe mistake that taught it. If a line has no story, cut it.
- Compress to one sentenceIf you cannot say it in one sentence, keep cutting.
- Teach one this monthSay it to someone who needs it, with your own story.
Quick answers.
What are the Axioms of Entrepreneurship?
The Axioms of Entrepreneurship are Rob Frasca’s short list of founder lessons, each one a line he can say in a sentence and defend for an hour, and each paid for by a mistake. They include speed is life, only an idiot runs out of fuel in an airplane, money follows passion, simplicity always trumps persuasion and don’t make me think. He teaches them in his lecture series of the same name.
How do you write your own principles as a founder?
Rob Frasca suggests writing five to ten lines, each a lesson you paid for rather than one you read, with the story that taught it underneath. Then teach one of them to someone this month.
Sources.
- Rob Frasca, The Creator’s Journey (forthcoming), Chapter XII, Passing the Torch.
- Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (New Riders, 2000; 2nd edition 2006; 3rd edition, Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited, New Riders, 2014). Wording checked against the passage as quoted from the 2nd edition by rob-tomlinson.com. Source