The internet has previously seen Things You’re Allowed To Do (as an adult) and Things You’re Allowed To Do: University Edition. The idea is to list things that are totally possible, often easy, but people often fail to think of because not one of the highlighted options. Things like “run mturk surveys” or “dissect a cadaver”.
What belongs on a similar list for startups, founders, and early employees?
Some ideas I’ve heard so far:
host a podcast so you can invite on people you want to meet
any relevant factory will be happy to talk about how they would make your product.
[Feels like good practice to acknowledge I was commissioned to create this new list. I wouldn’t have put this on LessWrong if I didn’t think it was relevant and interesting to users, but I’m open to hearing I was wrong]
You may adapt office space. Choose a working environment that suits your team’s needs, whether it’s a traditional office, coworking space, or remote work setup. You may ask the landlord for changes (best done before moving in because the landlord may be willing to help to acquire a tenant; may involve a minimum rental period or some other cost sharing).
You may Say No: Decline opportunities or partnerships that don’t align with your vision or values. Set boundaries to maintain focus on your core objectives.
You may experiment. Test new ideas, marketing strategies, or product features without the need for perfection. People always suggest A/B testing, but that is not the most effective may of doing it. See You Are Not Measuring What You Think You Are Measuring.
You may seek help, for example, reach out to mentors or join startup accelerators for guidance. One well-known accelerator known to be very good at this is Y-Combinator and they have good learning resources called Startup School.
You are allowed to pivot and change course. Maybe obvious, but it may not feel like that when you already have some customers or made presentations to investors.
A smaller version of this is: You may adjust pricing. It may disappoint some users but attract more new ones. And you may make exceptions for existing users.
You may fail. Failure is part of the learning process and can lead to growth. You don’t have obligations to your investors for failing (if you tried hard).
You may share your failures openly, e.g., to build a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.
You may get a co-founder (there are places like this). And you may also break up with your co-founder or buy them out.
contra evidence, I ’ve been trying to make a vein finder device and multiple Chinese manufacturer on alibaba have been cold to luke warm to talk to me.
been trying to find out how to export squid from australia and both the fisheries and the trandport companies have been ignoring my emails
granted I probably sound totally unprofessional in some way as I don’t have much idea how the process look like.