Should I quit?

FEELING
LOST?

SHOULD YOU QUIT YOUR STARTUP?

LET'S TALK IT THROUGH

Find out if you should quit your startup

What: You can work on anything. Should you quit your startup and work on something which has a higher chance of making you rich? I'll help you figure that out.

Pricing: $400 an hour to $2,000 for a day

100% money back guarantee

I give value. If I don't give help, I'll refund you (inc fees).

Caveat: Not for piss takers and time wasters

Summary of a "Should I quit my startup?" call

What you need

How I help

Is my startup going to fail?
Do I have better options to get rich?
What don't I know that's going to make me fail?
Am I totally wasting my time?
Is it time to pivot to something else?
I'm passionate about something else, what now?

Zoom call with myself (not an intern)
Honest, direct and, critical feedback
Logic based discussion for pre-revenue
Metrics driven discussion for series-A+ stages
Conceptual or granular feedback
100% confidential and non-judgemental

Video overview

Yes, I'm a real person. I make these videos so you know that, and frankly to build trust.

If you hate reading then watch this and make a call. I have FAQs at the bottom for every question, though.

Startup founders have an RoI

Work is work. Startup is work but you're the boss and have an option to make more money in future. Hopefully.

If you can make more money working in Chucky Cheese long-term, I'm going to tell you to do that.

Founders have been mind wiped that they only do a startup for missionary reasons. That's partially true, but totally bullshite. You want to make it big at some point, whilst 'changing the world all the while'. Your investors only care about money and your staff, whilst virtue signalling, can only justify the sacrifices they make at 11pm on a Saturday night that they going to at least get a Tesla at the end of all this.

You're welcome to virtue signal too, and even to 100% believe it. But if your startup sucks, it's not changing anything. Martin "had a dream" but I'd like to believe it changed something, albeit not in his lifetime. You can have a dream to do good but if no one cares you aren't changing anything!

I have a friend who has blown his inheritance on social change. Problem is everything he's done has had no traction. It's only when he finally admitted after my commercial mind-washing that his change needs traction that understood it and had to do something that would actually work that he became the change he wanted to see in the world.

Like it or not, startups need to generate an RoI. You can work on anything. Why not work on something that works?

Feeling it's not working but something excites you?

I've convinced a dozen founders to date to quit their startup.

On the one hand it goes against all startup doctrine that everyone is capable, competent and entitles to achieve their dreams. On the other hand, it helps smart people realise they are spinning their tyres when that passion could otherwise be spent on something where the rubber hits the wheel.

Many startups are literally just bears shitting in the woods. We know it's happening but it's not even something we bother considering. Do you want to be Martin sharing speeches in the woods no one even hears?

When I have calls about whether a founder should "quit their startup", the funny thing is that there is always something else they want to talk about. An idea they have that they are actually passionate about, but they feel they don't want to talk about it as it's like cheating on their "baby".

Once you get the founder talking about the new thing they could work on, they can't stop talking about it. They just need to forget about the cheating part to feel free to be who they wish they could be, by working on what they care about.

Not that the new thing is always better! But it could be, or at least give you an RoI that pays by making you genuinely happy.

Who can possibly be honest about me quitting?

I told you I've had a lot of founders quit what they are working on. Prima facie that sounds like a terrible thing to do, and as I'm writing this I had to pause to question it. But it was.

Take a chap in his 30s in Thailand that is a brilliant marketer. He used to work for me. He started what I told him was an idiotic idea and 4 years later I did the math with him and he lost per year more than he could make per month doing basic consulting. I may have never liked the idea, but the metrics and math proved my point for him.

Take a lady in her 40s in Canada who after a high-flying career in banking then looking after the kids is hitting the startup trail. She hired me to help her with her deck and I told her what she was doing made no sense to me. She dropped it the next day and a week later focused on her side-project that she really wanted to focus on, but didn't want to lose the time she spent on the other venture.

You see, everyone has an RoI as we talked about before. But it also has a passion RoI. What you're passionate about might be what you should be working on but don't have the balls to do so. The passion I am talking about isn't just about hippy-dippy feel good stuff, but that what you could do could make you a lot of money by doing something that really solves a problem your audience has.

I'm different in that I have a slightly autistic willingness to share what might not be socially acceptable, and is grounded in pure logic. Rainman counts matches on the floor and that's how many there are. If you have options I count how many matches each box has, but also why some matches might be worth more than others.

Pricing

1 hour call

2 hour call

1 day call

We can discuss not only your startup but other ideas you might be considering, but haven't brought yourself to take seriously as an alternative.

If I feel your startup is likely not worth focusing your time on, we go through it in a lot more detail.

There's of course the possibility you can change some things or pivot and salvage your current startup. If this is the case, we can do a day session to get into the details of it.

I normally do a shorter session with founders so they know how I can help them and why will spend a day together.

On a day session, you typically agree with what I told you and now want to do something about it.

Founders normally have a list of 3 really meaty topics we are going to dig into.

I don't have a specific agenda as I need to listen to what you say to figure out the issues and what we need to work on.

$400

$800

$2,000

What we do on a call

Get to know another and build trust

Understand your goals

Deep dive into your business

Whether or not your startup will help you achieve your goals is a very complicated matter which involves a host of factors. These include the market size, industry, traction team, how you solve a problem customers have, how you scale customer acquisition, etc. There are also the soft factors as to whether you are motivated to solve it!

I need you to share as much structured information as you can to my questions. I know what I am doing.

Active debate

Once I understand your industry, startup, and personal objectives I can begin giving you my opinions. They vary in how strong I believe them and I'll need more input from you to refine my thinking.

I'll share with you the key issues I have and then the minor ones as we keep talking. This is a discussion. It's not be passing judgement on you personally. I know how hard startup is!

I will likely form an impression if your startup makes sense or not quickly, but I'll ask you questions as to why you do something that might appear to not make sense to me.

At a certain point I'll share what my view is. Depending what it is we will talk through it more. No conversation on this subject is the same!

Get a recording and book a follow up call

After the call I can send you a recording of the call so you don’t have to take notes. I want you focused on debating with me.

You are always going to have a lot to think about. If you agree your startup can be fixed, we will need to do more calls on how to fix what you are doing. If you agree you should quit and do something new, then that's another kettle of fish. They're normally a hardcore day session.

If you book an hour, I can only teach you so much and I don't want to leave you lost. You can book further calls with the booking link and we can go over more ground... well you'll get it after you talk to me.

Why I can actually help you?

Before you hand over money to someone, especially one that claims to be an “expert”, you should question if they actually are full of BS, or not?

Let’s face it, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

I have a tonne of nerdy content to read

I've made one of the largest (if not the largest) startup focused blogs on the internet with 30 quality and free tools to download.

I recommend reading this: If you do this one thing your startup business model is doomed to succeed!

My content is often technical which is why advisors, lawyers and even investors learn from me.

I don't need to call myself an expert. You can just read my content and decide yourself. Head to www.alexanderjarvis.com

Why do I have a clue?

Whether or not you should quit your startup involves understanding a lot of technical and soft topics.

I understand most of them more than most, lol! How is probably an essay, it might be easier to explain I'm a nerd.

I've been hustling small ventures since I was 6.

I went to university to learn about business specifically. Since lecturers teach you rubbish, I taught myself and founded the entrepreneur society.

I learned strategic complexities selling multi billion dollar financial companies at a big name M&A firm called Lazard.

I've been studying startup business models since 2007.

I've advised accelerators, VCs, government funds, startups and everything else since 2013.

I’ve run a blog on fundraising for 5 years now and I’m a Top Qriter on Quora with millions of views and thousands of posts.

I teach the people that teach you. I mentor people who run the largest accelerators in their country for example.

All of my businesses relate to helping founders start, scale and raise. I'm a business nerd.

What’s my background?

I started out at doing M&A. I worked in financial services M&A at Lazard selling multi-billion insurance companies and other equally dull companies.

I’ve been in startup and investing since 2005. During that time, I’ve founded or scaled 3 unicorns (Delivery Hero, Lazard, and Groupon), bootstrapped numerous startups, done venture building, mentored at multiple accelerators etc.

I’ve been a partner at a VC firm and I’m a Director of a VC and Fund of VC backed by seriously influential people.

And yes, I’ve also done a TEDx talk.

Why I am different

If you throw a stone, you’ll find someone happy to charge you to give you advice. I’m a little different.

There's almost nothing I don't have an opinion on as I've taught so many founders
I’m direct and zero BS. I’ll tell you the things no one else will tell you
I actually care about you succeeding. I do consulting because I want to help founders. If I advise you to quit your startup, I'll do it only in your best interest
I know so much that I can explain things simply and in multiple ways. There’s no fluff with me as I don’t need to pad the call to fill it
I can explain the matrix and how everything fits together. I teach you to have perspective and 'how to fish'
I never pretend to know something. I’ll tell you if I don’t actually know so I won’t give you bad advice

Let's figure out your next steps (Book now)

Questions and Answers

What is this call?

I'm going to talk through with you whether you should quit your startup and do something else.

We get on a call and I listen to you. I genuinely seek to understand your business from the perspective of a founder and an investor as to whether I would do it myself, or even invest in it.

I give you unfiltered feedback as to whether you are wasting your time, or you will not achieve your financial goals.

If you are on to something good, you get my affirmation and some advice to improve.

If you should quit, I will help you to think through and understand why.

You leave the call with with a lot to think about!

That's honestly a hard question to answer and to do so in a way to not break your spirit! A lot of startups aren't worth your time, but if you don't study business models you won't understand why.

Some startups might not work but could if they change a few things such as how they generate revenue, or who their target customers are, but it's not always that 'simple'.

I honestly don't know until I talk to you. Just being honest.

Should I do something else?

Why can you help me?

If you want my opinion as to whether you should quit your startup or not, I can easily share that after some talking, but this is a big decision for you that I take seriously.

Honestly, I won't be able to 'help' everyone in so far as 'fix you'.

Not to be a twat, but I get told I'm really smart a lot and startup is the only interest I have academically.

I know nothing about your business, but I know a lot about startup. I will never know more about your startup and industry than you do, but I'm fresh eyes that knows more than you do about topics you don't spend time on.

Whilst you are paying for my time, I genuinely want to help founders win and whether you should focus on something else is important.

Am I the only clueless one?

Yes, this is me listening to yet another pitch

How does it work?

What do I have to do?

What do I get?

Are calls recorded and can I have a copy?

Do I do prep time before a call?

Do you need to prepare anything before a call

Who is this for?

What if I should quit?

Who is this not for?

Do you sign NDAs

NDAs are BS as no one ever gets sued on them. Never ask an investor for one.

I've written a long blog on this topic. Read: Non disclosure agreements (NDA) for startup fundraising don’t matter

Trust me, nothing you have is actually confidential, let alone interesting.

The only time I've signed one for a good reason was that I was advising on an acquisition for a large exit.