The Most Important Business Lessons I’ve Learned

http://www.ryanallis.com/most-important-business-lessons-learned/

by zaidf • 16 years ago

58 10 16 years ago

ryanallis.com

skowmunk• 16 years ago

That's a bunch of some really good advice with loads of common sense.

Thanks for posting it.

zaidf3• 16 years ago

I like Ryan's focus and explanation of the key metrics he uses:

To grow your sales, it is critical to calculate the lifetime value of an average customer, calculate what you’re currently paying to acquire an average customer (total monthly ad spend divided by customers acquired in that month), determine the maximum you’re willing to pay to acquire an average customer, and scale your marketing scientifically by testing relentlessly and finding the channels in which you can acquire customers for less than your maximum acceptable customer acquisition cost and then growing spend within those channels.

Never raise more equity capital than 1x your current annualized revenue (monthly revenue x 12). If you raise too much money too soon you’ll give up too much ownership and control of your company and be tempted to spend the money in ways that aren’t carefully controlled. Wait to raise a large round until you have proven mathematically than $X amount of additional spending with generate $Y amount of additional revenue. (once you figure out #2 this is easy).

frankdenbow• 16 years ago

His company just raised $40+ million

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/30/icontact-raises-40-million-...

zaidf3• 16 years ago

Yup! They are killing it.

smoody• 16 years ago

I agree with everything except for one point (which was a painful process for me to learn): some people want and need to be told what to do and there's nothing wrong with that assuming that, once told what to do, the people can execute.

I just assumed that everyone on my team was like me -- didn't want to be told what to do at a micro-level. I had a couple of team members who were really good engineers and they were failing miserably. Once I realized that they needed to be give explicit instructions on what they should be doing, they coded like a house on fire. One attribute of great CEOs (IMHO) is the ability to get a careful read of everyone on your team and understand exactly how much or little to manage them. In an ideal world, one could hire an entire company of people who do not need to be micro-managed, but real life doesn't always allow for that luxury.

zaidf3• 16 years ago

I, too, was often confused by this message because you hear it preached often. After digging deeper via one-to-one conversations with people like Ryan, you realize that it is already implied that you make each individual's responsibility very clear.

I bet even at Ryan's company the programmers are given very explicit specs on what to code.

c00p3r• 16 years ago

Hire people who are smarter than you. It is the essential.

It could be stated as Hire a young passionate geek and make him feel special and comfortable. It is actually very cheap, compared to hiring an impotent 'certified professional'.

wheaties• 16 years ago

My Web of Trust Firefox add-on declares this site to be on the lowest of low ratings and recommends I don't visit it. Quite funny, guess he's disagreed with some pro-active people.

tszming• 16 years ago

Can't agree more with this point: If you create a great culture (a fun work environment filled with people who are high performers and who care about their work and their impact on the world) you will be able to attract and retain better people who will be much more engaged and productive and create a much more financially successful company.

abalashov• 16 years ago

OT, but this tendency of marketing droids to noun "spend" (as opposed to "spending") drives me absolutely insane...

The Most Important Business Lessons I’ve Learned

Related Stories