It’s Velocity Dinner May 29 2014 and the guest speaker is Michael Worry from Nuvation.
When he graduated from uWaterloo in ‘97, he and his cofounders moved to California to do a startup, which led to Nuvation. Today we have him as a guest speaker and he’ll talk about his startup experience. Here are some things I found interesting.
Flinch price
This negotiation strategy focuses on trying to get the most money for the seller. How it works is, as a seller, ideally you want to name a price that is so high that the buyer flinches at the thought of buying it at that price. The buyer needs that product — but at that price, it is painful to think about. Starting a sale like this maximizes the amount you can sell.
Decision made on information
Make decisions based on information. If there are no new information, do not change the decision.
Opinions are not information; but may lead to new information.
Crab bucket mentality
The story goes that if you put one crab in a bucket, it’ll attempt to climb out. But if you have two crabs, when one tries to climb out, the other would pull on its legs and try to prevent it from leaving.
This is analogous to one trying to do a startup — when you want to get somewhere, you’ll have people drag you back. I.e. your parents want the best for you and they want that to be a safe and secure route, which typically is a steady job for steady income.
Fundamentally different skills
Engineers, management, sales are different skills. Those who are good at being engineers may not be good at the others. Michael’s story is that when he initally wanted to scale, he naively promoted his three best engineers to become managers. This was a poor decision in hindsight.
CEO gets the blame
As ceo, when things are going well then my staff gets the credit. When things go poorly, it’s ceo fault.