{"id":40048,"date":"2023-10-20T15:06:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-worst-advice-i-ever-received-vinomofos-co-founder-and-other-startup-leaders-come-clean-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:06:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:06:00","slug":"the-worst-advice-i-ever-received-vinomofos-co-founder-and-other-startup-leaders-come-clean-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-worst-advice-i-ever-received-vinomofos-co-founder-and-other-startup-leaders-come-clean-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"The worst advice I ever received: Vinomofo’s co-founder and other startup leaders come clean – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

\u201cThere are no jobs in entrepreneurship\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re on the receiving end or have ashamedly handed out some yourself, bad advice is part and parcel of the entrepreneurial journey. But it isn’t always as obvious as the statement above.<\/p>\n

While it’s important to listen and take on guidance from trusted advisors,\u00a0speaking with \u201cexperts\u201d <\/a>can\u00a0be a double-edged sword as entrepreneur Ramon Martinez-Mendozah points out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel obligated to listen to them anyway because you never can be sure when the right piece of advice is coming from the right contact,\u201d he told StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So what does bad advice look like for startups?<\/p>\n

We asked Vinomofo, a startup backed on Shark Tank,<\/em>\u00a0and a tech leader who has been in the startup game since the dot com era.<\/p>\n

Hire the most experienced and qualified<\/h3>\n
\"Vinomofo
Vinomofo co-founders Justin Dry and Andre Eikmeier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEverybody says you need to go out and hire the best people in their field,\u201d Vinomofo co-founder Andre Eikemeier tells StartupSmart. <\/em><\/p>\n

But hiring someone with a proven track record, extensive experience and who can tick all the boxes on paper does not automatically mean they\u2019ll be the best fit for your startup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried that and it just didn\u2019t work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone back to investing in our leaders within our business.”<\/p>\n

Eikmeier says the success of the company, which raised $25 million and is about to launch in\u00a0its third international market<\/a>, boils down to having a foundation where people are learning, developing and growing constantly.<\/p>\n

While this does take active management and ongoing team support, he says it means the heart of Vinomofo keeps beating as the business grows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re realising the real culture, and the belief, the real ownership \u2013 and that ingrained being a part of this \u2013 is more valuable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For example, Eikmeier says the Vinomofo head buyer is seriously outperforming a highly experienced and qualified professional they previously tried working with, and is a testament to this approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though it\u2019s not a skillset she\u2019s had, it’s something she can learn in a couple of months,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you can\u2019t in a couple of months just get Vinomofo.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customers don\u2019t respond to the same sort of tactics and tricks and principles that [the experienced candidate] was used to. It\u2019s definitely feeling and working better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go hard or go home<\/h3>\n
\"Those
Those Girls founders Lauren Davie and Elena Andoniou with Steve Baxter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those Girls sparked the imagination of multi-millionaire Steve Baxter, one of Australia\u2019s most successful tech investors, when they first met on Channel 10\u2019s Shark Tank.<\/em><\/p>\n

With a $70,000 investment, founders Elena Andoniou and Lauren Davie haven\u2019t stopped a beat since the episode aired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What was the worst piece of advice they ever received?<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning, we were only about a year old and somebody recommended we go into shopping centres,\u201d Andoniou tells StartupSmart. <\/em><\/p>\n

Instead of jumping at the idea, they\u00a0undertook due diligence and found the costs and overheads of setting up in a shopping centre, on top of\u00a0competing with major retailers like Coles and Woolworths, did\u00a0not make good business sense.<\/p>\n

Those Girls has enjoyed strong growth over the past year, with the duo now managing a team of 12 and a searching for a general manager.<\/p>\n

The business has a Melbourne head office with three to five active sites.<\/p>\n

Andoniou says taking giant leaps and growing at an unmanageable rate leads many founders to their demise.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really need to learn how to take baby steps,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Only saying \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d in dispute resolution<\/h3>\n
\"Zendesk
Zendesk MD and VP of Engineering (Australia and NZ) Brett Adam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brett Adam, the managing director for Zendesk Australia and New Zealand, has worked in startups since the dot com era and he has survived the more egregious side of business and investment deals.<\/p>\n

Hear more about the startup fail that gave Brett Adam nightmares on The Audacity to Fail podcast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lot of bad things that happened during that period [like] how to deal with arbitration,\u201d Adam tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cArbitration in theory is supposed to be better, cheaper and faster than going to court.\u201d<\/p>\n

But taking advice to only respond with \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d during an arbitration threw Adam down a painful path.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hindsight, I feel that my counsel gave me far too narrow instructions about how to respond to questions the arbitrator asked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt opened the door to an awful lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more examples of bad advice from Australian startups, out next Friday.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere are no jobs in entrepreneurship\u201d. Whether you\u2019re on the receiving end or have ashamedly handed out some yourself, bad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}