Founder's disappointment
My take on building and exiting businesses, questions every founder should ask, things worth treating yourself to, and insights I learn along the way.
“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” - A.A. Milne
Hey,
This week I talk about founder’s disappointment, must be the weather. Enjoy playing with The Streamplayer from Anonemo, and discover some cool things to spend your money on!
Founder's disappointment
Last week I had the pleasure of recording a podcast that’s due out in the next couple of weeks. I’d been invited on to talk about Squirrel, the affiliate industry, the ups and downs of running a business for over two decades*, and a few other things in between.
As the conversation flowed between topics, we found ourselves talking about what it’s like being a founder and what separates founders from everyone else.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a “founders are great, everyone else isn’t” moment, but it did make me think about what’s different between founders and non-founders beyond the obvious.
Dealing with disappointment
The one we settled on during the podcast recording, and that I’ve since spoken to other founders about, was that founders are very good at dealing with disappointment.
Turns out, most days don’t go our way. We’re striving so high sometimes that rejection isn’t just an occasional occurrence, it can be daily.
The difference though is that founders, well certainly the successful ones I know, almost always immediately bounce back as if nothing happened.
Didn’t get the deal across the line? Don’t worry, there’ll be another one tomorrow. That idea isn’t working? That’s fine, we’ll try something else.
Water off a duck’s back
It’s this water off a duck’s back approach that means no matter what happens, we just carry on regardless, or should that be oblivious?
That, it turns out, is our secret weapon, the thing that makes success look easy. Because when watching others who don’t have the trait, it’s easy to see how you can get stuck on a bad bit of news. Stuck enough that it slows you down, and once that happens, you start to lose momentum, and no good can come from that.
So next time you’re rejected, remember, it’s what makes you the successful person you are.
Here’s to the nos, it’s what we founders are made of.
*And yes, that is me in 2013 wearing the Google Glass.
Founder advice: Work on your business and not in it
Top tips from successful founders
I’m Caroline Gowing, co-founder of franchised virtual assistant company Pink Spaghetti. The network’s 50+ franchisees support small business owners and startups with everything from diary management to events and social media management.
My best advice when you are struggling to delegate is to start small and low risk and work your way up from there.
There are only so many hours in the day, and to grow your business, you need to be spending those precious hours on the highest value tasks, and delegating the rest.
In other words, working on your business and not in it. This way, your business gets more of the ‘best bits’ of you.
Questions every founder avoids (but shouldn’t) - #16
Key questions you should challenge yourself to answer
Who’s the next hire?
When was the last time you looked at your business and thought about who you wanted to hire next?
You might not yet have the resources or the capacity to do it, but by starting to think about your next hire you can start to put into place what you need to make that a reality.
A target, whether it’s stationary or moving, is a lot easier to think about than no target at all.
So, think about who your next hire could be. Will it be expanding a team, heading up a team, or a new role completely?
Good luck.
Treat yourself
Hot gadget announcements and my take on something worth buying.
Apple acquires secretive Q․ai startup for $2 billion, its second-largest acquisition behind Beats, suggesting AI on your Apple device could/should get better.
Samsung Unpacked rumoured to be at the end of this month: 26 February.
has also unveiled a new kind of e-paper display that is the world’s first to be designed with a bio-resin derived from, of all things, phytoplankton.
Astell&Kern has released a new £3999 flagship portable music player.
Is the race for 8K over? LG to stop selling the high-resolution TVs.
The next-generation Xbox is supposedly on track for a launch next year, after AMD CEO says development is “progressing well to support a launch in 2027”.
Spotify introduces Page Match, a feature that lets readers seamlessly switch between the printed (or e-book) and audiobook versions of a title.
Google confirms Pixel 10a coming 18 February.
Reviewed: The Streamplayer
The Streamplayer lets you wirelessly control and pair any speaker through your phone, regardless of brand or age.
What I like
I love its incredibly simple design (there’s just one button), its incredibly easy setup (the app took longer to download than to actually get working), and that once up and running you can stream music to anything that you plug it into via Airplay 2, Google Chromecast, Spotify Connect or Tidal Connect. This is plug it in and forget about it territory.
What I didn’t like
There’s a status light on the box that’s so small it’s hardly noticeable. Luckily you don’t have to pay too much attention to it for too long to get set up.
My take
As long as you’ve got an AUX on the speaker, you’re good to go. Whether that’s a temperamental Bluetooth speaker that never got Airplay, or something older, this little black box will breathe new life into those speakers once more. Sadly it won’t fix your music choices.
About Me
If you don’t know me, I’m Stuart Miles. I founded the popular consumer tech site Pocket-lint in 2003, which I bootstrapped taking it from an audience of zero to over 12m monthly readers before successfully selling it in 2022.
I chair two forums at founder community Helm, advise businesses, universities, and industry bodies on strategy and storytelling, and comment on the biggest stories in consumer tech for LBC News in the UK every Friday morning.
Never one to stop, I’m also having a second go, building Squirrel, a suite of tools that help publishers grow and understand their affiliate revenues (as you might expect, if you purchase through links in this newsletter, I may earn an affiliate commission).
Oh, and now write this newsletter 😀.
Thanks for reading.