{"id":1743,"date":"2021-06-22T18:44:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T01:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/?p=1743"},"modified":"2021-06-27T13:23:33","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T20:23:33","slug":"business-goal-setting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/business-goal-setting\/","title":{"rendered":"What I&#8217;ve Learned Talking to 100+ Startups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Over the past couple years, I&#8217;ve been a mentor on <a href=\"https:\/\/app.growthmentor.com\/mentors\/david-kelly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GrowthMentor<\/a> for startups. And <a href=\"https:\/\/tidycal.com\/david\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I do independent ad hoc consulting<\/a> when people ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve talked to over 100 startups and businesses&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Solopreneurs building their first MVP. Established SaaS products. Multi-million dollar startups who are successful and want to grow more. Businesses that used to be successful but are falling apart. B&amp;M stores transitioning to online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are <em>so many<\/em> similar questions no matter the scale and size:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&#8220;How do I get more customers?&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;What feature should I build next?&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;How do I know what I&#8217;m building is the &#8216;right&#8217; thing?&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter the size or success of the business, there&#8217;s one HUGE issue I notice with 95% of any business&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><strong>They rarely have a S.M.A.R.T. goal.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They might have a broad, ambiguous goal of &#8220;getting more customers&#8221; or &#8220;making more money&#8221;. But, these goals don&#8217;t help startups or businesses understand if they&#8217;re successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s similar to driving a car with an ambiguous hope of going somewhere cool. If you don&#8217;t know where you&#8217;re going, how do you know you&#8217;re going to end up somewhere you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend and mentor <a href=\"https:\/\/okdork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Noah Kagan<\/a> always taught me the <strong>importance of a specific, measurable goal in business.<\/strong> Using the S.M.A.R.T. framework is one of my favorite ways to dial in on a more helpful goal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">S<\/span>pecific<\/li><li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">M<\/span>easurable<\/li><li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A<\/span>ttainable<\/li><li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">R<\/span>elevant<\/li><li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">T<\/span>ime-based<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Everything<\/em> in business \u2014&nbsp;every decision for your product, every idea, every hire, every feature, every question \u2014&nbsp;should cascade from a specific S.M.A.R.T. goal. Everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At our $3 million business <a href=\"https:\/\/appsumo.com\/collections\/appsumo-originals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AppSumo Originals<\/a> we have a specific goal for the number of new customers we want to bring into AppSumo this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, we break that goal down into monthly numbers so we know if we&#8217;re on or off pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"382\" src=\"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal-1024x382.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1744\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal-1024x382.png 1024w, https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal-500x187.png 500w, https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal-768x287.png 768w, https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal-640x239.png 640w, https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/dmkthinks-goal.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>Our S.M.A.R.T. goal model for AppSumo Originals<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Many startups get overwhelmed at coming up with a yearly goal, and I get it. You don&#8217;t have to establish a yearly goal if you&#8217;re a new business. Your goal can be much simpler:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I want to get 5 customers this month<\/li><li>By the end of the year, I want to make $2,000 on this idea<\/li><li>I want 10,000 people to visit my website this quarter<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Break your goal down into something that&#8217;s exciting and clear for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you do that, you&#8217;ll be ahead of 95% of startups and businesses out there who fly blind in a direction hoping they&#8217;ll end up somewhere nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of flying blind and hoping, put in the effort now to set a clear vision. You&#8217;ll arrive at your destination much quicker (and build that business of your dreams).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past couple years, I&#8217;ve been a mentor on GrowthMentor for startups. And I do independent ad hoc consulting when people ask. I&#8217;ve talked to over 100 startups and businesses&#8230; Solopreneurs building their first MVP. Established SaaS products. Multi-million dollar startups who are successful and want to grow more. Businesses that used to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}