When you’re excellent at something, risk is reduced to near-zero.

Plus, you can swim.

Win.

What was your excuse again?

Make some noise

When the facts are on your side, pound the facts.  When the facts are against you, pound the table.

Some ideas don’t work.  The market isn’t ready for them or doesn’t want them.  You can tell when every “sale” is a grind.  The plow is just too heavy.

Admit it:  You’re already dead.

That’s when you get a little crazy.

1. Radical shift.  Not to the product (if you think it’s good)…but to the process.  Break the rules. Complete change of target, price or distribution system.
   
   
2. Make some noise.  Get loud.  Every piece of momentum gets a touchdown dance.  See who dances with you.
   
   
3. Lever up.  Put everything into the one thing that works.  Everything. 

There is no excuse for a startup dying quietly.  

That’s pride.  Newsflash— she isn’t gonna dance with the guy slinking off in the corner.

Put it all out there.

Die loudly.

Win.

Excellence eliminates reliance.

Be very, very good at what you do.

Be free.

Win.

Big companies fear you.  Let me repeat that.  Big companies fear you.

You’re fast, they’re slow.  You’re nimble, they’re not.  You’re innovating, they’re conference-calling.

Yes, their mass makes them extremely powerful.  They can monetize FAR better than you can even dream of.  That’s what they do… they push the big lever that works really well.

But if you’re smart and stay in the blue ocean, they can’t touch you.  They know it.  

That’s why they need you.  They need you to find a new lever that works.  They need you to show them the way through dangerous new water.

Don’t compete on the big levers.  Find the small ones that work and grow them.

Win.

“You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.” — Don Draper

You’re not gonna starve.

You’re not gonna to sleep in the rain.

What is it you’re scared of?  A mortgage?  A non-existant scoreboard that shows you losing to non-existant competitors your age?  You already lost.

401k, IRA, credit score, retirement, mortgage, lexus, granite countertops.  

Amateur-hour, dude.

You keep thinking you’ve moved up.  You’ve got more.  You’re almost “there”.  

The reality is, if you’re “moving up” just to move up, you’re doing very little other than ratcheting up obligations.   Trapping yourself into a situation where you feel like you don’t control what you do.  

The good news… it all goes away the minute you decide it does.  You’ve got the keys.  

DO.

win!

Attribution:  ”A Whiskey Girl” by daveydeathwish

Two steps to being happy:

1.  Be happy

2.  Attract happy people to be around you

Don’t be a Debbie.  It all starts with you.

Enjoy.

Win.

The only thing that matters is that you focus on the right things.

It’s difficult to do, but liberating.  And effective.

Focus.

Win.

Push the levers that work.

Too many entrepreneurs do the opposite.  They have a grand plan, and then only a couple parts of it work.  So they spend all their time trying to figure out how to get the other parts to work.

Instead, focus on the stuff that does work.  Leverage that to the hilt, and cut the rest. 

It’s really difficult to do.  It can hurt the ego.  But it helps you win.  

Win > Ego

Win.

p.s.  you would be shocked to learn how many Swantastic Startups subscribers are winning….and winning big.  You really should be among them.

STFU and DO for a while.