Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics interview with Paul Cheek

I will cut the beginning and the end of it. We're going to go one piece.

Do you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah. My name is Paul Cheek. I'm the executive director of the Martin Trust center for MIT Entrepreneurship and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan where I have the pleasure of teaching entrepreneurship.

Great. And what brought you to Warsaw, Poland?

I'm here in Warsaw to talk a little bit more about the book that I just published, Startup Tactics. I'm here visiting the Start Smart Cee Group and they just hosted a wonderful event here at WeWork in Warsaw.

You mentioned entrepreneurship. What is entrepreneurship and how you're teaching this.

Yeah. What is entrepreneurship? Everybody associates entrepreneurship just with startups. The reality is entrepreneurship is about a lot more than just starting new businesses. It's truly about doing more than is reasonable with the resources that you have control of. What does that mean? It means moving the needle, having an impact. How do we make that happen? The entrepreneurial mindset, skill set and community mode of operating is how we do just that. How do we teach it? We now have data that proves that entrepreneurship can be taught and it can be learned. We teach entrepreneurship by using the discipline entrepreneurship methodology. That's 24 steps to go from idea to business plan. The book that I just published, Startup Tactics, follows on to the discipline entrepreneurship process with 15 tactics to turn that business plan into a business. Thinking about things through four stages. The first, setting the foundation. It's really good goal setting. The second, looking at market testing. How do we go and get a line of customers waiting down the street to use our product before we've even built it. Third is product development. Building that product that people want that they've demonstrated their interest. And fourth, once we have customers and once we have product going and acquiring additional resources, how do we acquire additional resources? That's through the process of storytelling, fundraising, and then ultimately, once we have those funds in the bank, hiring, bringing people onto the team with the expertise that we need to grow and scale the business. And this all comes together in one wonderful roadmap illustration.

Everything is cool. The whole idea is amazing. But how practical is that?

Oh, it's so action oriented, you know, entrepreneur. There's a lot of content out there on the Internet. But what entrepreneurs really need, we found, is they need a step by step approach to make it happen. And this is not all theory, of course. You know, we do work through the process of building a really comprehensive business plan, a business strategy. But what we believe is that you need not just strategy, but you need tactics. You need tactics to Figure out not just what to do and why to do it, but how to do it. And this all comes from the one on one advisory meeting that I've had with tons and tons of entrepreneurs. They come to me and say, Paul, Paul, how do we run that first marketing campaign? Paul, how do we design the product? Paul, how do we figure out how to test the product with users and get feedback in a really systematic and unbiased way? Paul, how do we go fundraise for our company? Or Paul, how do we hire the next set of employees, even the co founder, how we build that team? But the thing that people always come to me with is they say, paul, here's our goals. Or I'll say, what are your goals? And we all think we're good at setting goals until the rubber meets the road. And then we look at those goals and say, are those actually good goals? Are those actually the things that we need to be doing entrepreneurs? There's a million things under the sun that we could spend our time doing. We could build a to do list that's incredibly lengthy. But oftentimes those things that we see emerge into the to do list on a day to day basis are not necessarily the things that will help us to achieve that next milestone in support of our ultimate vision. And so goal setting is where it all starts. Those are the foundations. And prioritization being one of the most challenging things for entrepreneurs is one of the reasons why the entire tactical journey starts there. And that helps us figure out what action to take. Right? It's not just about the high level, it's about what are the things that we do today, tomorrow and the next day to work towards that ultimate vision?

Entrepreneurship is all about spontaneous acts. And at the same time, you have to act at the moment. How do you read a long book and then try to remember what to do at any given moment?

Oh, it's a wonderful reference book. The audio book is so difficult because you can't easily flip back to what you need. The beauty of the Discipline Entrepreneurship books is that you can easily flip to the step that you are on or the tactic that you are on. But more importantly, a book is really valuable. It's really useful for gaining knowledge. But again, these are action oriented. And so both Discipline Entrepreneurship and the Startup Tactics book come embedded with additional resources. Those additional resources include things like reference tools that you can use on the Internet. They come with workbooks. So every single tactic, all 15 tactics, come with a dedicated digital workbook that you can access on the Internet@startuptactics.net the workbooks help you to work through those next action items as you try to apply the tactic to your business. So it's about more than just reading a book, it's about using it as a reference tool and also leveraging the additional resources that come provided within.

If somebody wants to get the book.

Where can they go and find available everywhere? Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org or wherever you can buy books.

Locally. Is there any place that you can practice those steps and workshops so that it would be more.

Practical? Oh, yes, absolutely. Where can you go practicing steps to be more tactical? Well, look, if you're trying to build a company, you're trying to build a startup, I would say go find the local ecosystem, go find the events, go find the mentors, go find the coaching, go find the resources in your local ecosystem. The reason why? Well, I want you to connect to that ecosystem, to get the resources to contribute to that ecosystem and to provide value to other entrepreneurs, but also because that's where you're going to find the people who are going to give you the advice you need in terms of how to apply the tactics, how to go through the steps. If you're an intrapreneur, you're a corporate entrepreneur, you're somebody who wants to be entrepreneurial within an existing organization. I would say go find all the other individuals within that organization and make sure that they're going to hold you accountable to actually make things happen. And if you don't fit either of those two groups, go connect with the startup community and find somebody who you can help or find somebody who.

Can help you as you go through this process.

Yourself. How long are you working around.

Startups? I've been working around startups my entire career. You know, I began as a software engineer building products. And what I ultimately learned is that I really wanted to build businesses. You can build a feature, you could build a product, or you could build a business. Building a business is what's going to allow you to take that technology, that research, that invention, that idea, whatever it is, and have an impact with it. That's what I wanted to have, that's what I wanted to do. And for the past six years, I've been at MIT helping entrepreneurs commercialize research, turn their idea into a reality. And that's what I found to be so incredibly.

Powerful. Entrepreneurship is also full of funny stories and things that people would not forget. Is there something during your whole time that you find it interesting or somehow anecdotal so that would be.

Interesting?

None that I can.

Share.

We will sign an NDA in that sense. You also mentioned something about somehow mixing the music and education, and I find it very inspiring. Do you want to maybe somehow elaborate on that.

One? Mixing the music in education you mentioned? Oh. Oh, yes. Mix it. Look, I believe entrepreneurship has to be fun. We all live on this big rock that we call planet Earth, and. And we have a limited time on planet Earth. We need to have fun with everything that we do. Entrepreneurship is no exception. The highs and the lows of entrepreneurship are exacerbated compared to the highs and lows of the average job. And so when we think about that, we've gotta make sure that it's accessible, people can access it and that people enjoy it. Because when you do hit the.

Lowest.

Low.

The local bottom of the curve of the roller coaster, you know, it is. It's really hard. How do we have fun with it? One of the ways in which we do that is we make sure to incorporate lessons, entrepreneurship education, experiences that are fun in the moment and allow people to remember those key objectives, those key learning objectives, years down the road. So we try to incorporate, in some cases, music into that. Right. And you think about, well, when we think about entrepreneurial finance, what's one thing that we need to remember? It's the most important financial statement that any entrepreneur needs to be thinking about. And it's not the profit and loss statement, it's not the balance sheet, it's none of those. It's something different. And one of the songs that I will use often to try to inspire the right answer amongst entrepreneurs is a song called Cream Cash Rules Everything Around Me. And I'll leave that with you to try to determine what the most important financial statement is for any.

Entrepreneur. Any last words? For the Polish startups, the hardest.

Part of entrepreneurship is getting started. Take this opportunity. Figure out what you need, what resources you need access to, to go ahead and get started and do it.

Today. Amazing. So just do.

It. Just do it.

Yeah. Thank you very much for giving me your time and looking forward to seeing you back in.

Warsaw. Oh.

Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you.