“Nothing in my last 7 years has been one major step. Everything has been tiny, tiny steps.” – Ben Cohn
“Starting a business with the view as to who will buy that business, or what industry is going to buy that business, is a really important point. This shapes the way you will to develop the business so that it eventually has a buyer.” – Ben Cohn
“The first-year and a half or two years were quite easy for me because I knew I only had to work really hard, and that it was just dependant on myself and my business partner. As the business grew, we got staff, we operated in 3 cities, and now we’ve got 49 full-time team members. People have things going on all the time in their lives, and you cannot carry all of that load. The interpersonal stuff that happens when dealing with people and work dynamics, I find it challenging.” – Ben Cohn
“As time goes on, the odds and the stakes are much, much higher. To be frank, I don’t find that it gets easier with time.” – Ben Cohn
“I’ve seen clients come in with a great idea and I desperately try to convince them to go and try to talk to their market. And they come back and say that they have talked to their market. And what they actually did was go to five people, who already like them, and said, “I’ve got a great idea. It’s going to be awesome. Do you like it?” and those people didn’t want to hurt their feelings and so the feedback they got was just rubbish. What the problem interview does is that it forces you to not show anything. It forces you to literally go to a group of people and just classify and prioritise the problem and just get a real sense of what is causing pain. If there is not pain in the market, it’s really hard to sell to.” – Ben Stickland
“Go and talk to people. Don’t just say, “I’ve got a great idea, I know my market, and I’m going to be determined.” That little phrase is highly correlated to losing lots of money. (Just on my experience and my observation.) Get out of the building. Talk to five customers with problem-solution interviews and in most cases, it will change your idea.” – Ben Stickland
“Really trust your gut instinct. We all have a very strong feeling in our gut as to who we really are and what we want to do in life. We get clouded by the expectation of what we should and shouldn’t do. Being in touch with your gut feeling as to what your calling is, and what you need to do, is a very powerful thing; it’s a very hard thing to do because there is so much noise around us.” – Ben Cohn
“I hire on culture; I do not hire on skill. In our business, we feel we can train anyone up. I hire for culture, and skill is secondary. There has to be an interpersonal connection.” – Ben Cohn
“The highest rate of success in tech startups is two people, not one, not three; and it’s people who have known each other for a lot of years, not people who have just met. Because when you know someone for years, you actually go into it knowing their faults and you don’t have unresolved expectations of them.” – Ben Stickland
With thanks to
Ben Cohn in a Co-Founder of TAXIBOX, the mobile self-storage solution that brings yellow cubes of joy to your front door. Ben did a lot of on-the-ground research to jumpstart his business. He explains his approach to making sure TAXIBOX customers always have a remarkable experience.
Ben Stickland is the Founder of Alliance Software and has spent a lot of time and money in the startup space. Ben says the first three years of business are like walking up a see-saw, then things start to level out and become a bit easier. He says he loves running experiments to see what’s going to work in his business.
About Masters Series by WeTeachMe
Masters Series is a show about inspiring entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, and visionary dreamers, and the stories behind how they built their companies.
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