10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Company

I struggled a lot when I first launched my Startup, and there were so many lessons I learned in the process that I wish I had known when I first started.
So today, I sat down and made this video so that hopefully, your journey won't have to be nearly as hard or stressful as mine was.
From the dark realities of entrepreneurship, to the nuances of actually running a business, I cover a lot of material, so make sure to stay till the end!
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Advice from a Trillion $ Entrepreneur
02:20 - Advice #1
03:23 - Advice #2
04:41 - Advice #3
06:50 - Advice #4
08:49 - Advice #5
09:58 - Advice #6
11:09 - Advice #7
12:04 - Advice #8
13:14 - Advice #9
14:53 - Advice #10
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Connect with me on LinkedIn: / johnghu
DM me on Instagram: / jayhoovy
I'm Funniest on TikTok: / jayhoovy
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Want to start monetizing your content? Check out my company, Stan:
stan.store/
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[@jayhoovy]

Got any more tips?? Drop them in this thread and help out your fellow entrepreneurs :)

[@chumie8350]

can i work with stan store for partnership?

[@Conciliare]

@@chumie8350one tip for you would be to bring value first then ask 💯

[@henrykwan1932]

advice 11: don't drink

[@jamescoholan]

Can you make a vid on the benefit of content creation both for a personal brand and marketing for a startup?

[@HopeMkunte]

The most underrated thing about your videos is how many startup founders are in your comments. What a Community of go getters getting inspired together.

[@anuar1032]

I can see that you are a genuine and positive person, qualities that are rarely seen around. Full support to you my friend. You are the best!

[@harshpatel105]

Insanely hard video!

[@jayhoovy]

~insanely hard~

[@w.w.w.w.w]

Did not expect a catchy new tune ~insanely hard~ 🎵 together with some good advice!

[@luthandoqbaliya8543]

Bro i love how genuine you are. I’m working on my startup full time now and all your content is super relatable. Thanks bud. Full sending it now btw 😂

[@JCif92]

These videos are great man. I started my own company doing consulting for start ups and these help me bring a whole new view to the table. I work with the financial and accounting side driving business growth and your videos help me think of the other half of businesses I don’t get to see and I’ve had some really constructive convos with business owners because of it.

[@First.Time.Founder]

Hey Jay, huge fan of your work :) Currently building a startup in NYC - you inspired me to share my journey with the audience. Just wanted to show some love!

[@avishvijayaraghavan]

Love this channel dude - all your videos have been super informative to someone who's thinking about starting a company in the future and I appreciate how transparent you've been throughout. In fact, you were one of my main inspirations to start documenting my research process in a similar way! Looking forward to seeing Stan's development

[@jayhoovy]

Avish this means so much to me. Thank you so much for the support and I'm so stoked that you're starting on your own journey. You're gonna crush it!

[@robertthomassian9642]

Great stuff John always a pleasure to learn from you

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Robert!!!

[@ask-balu]

Great list of advice. Loved the 9th . Thanks for making it 🙏

[@jayhoovy]

Glad you enjoyed! :)

[@AnnaSabinoCoaching]

Love your energy, John! So cool that you're building it all in public. Use, love and recommend Stan!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you so much for the kind words Anna! And welcome to the #StanFam! Please reach out to me directly if there is ever ANY way I can be helpful! (or even feature requests :))

[@AnnaSabinoCoaching]

@@jayhoovy you're awesome! We've chatted and I have all I need, my members love Stan!

[@minjiesun]

This is gold! lol Thanks for sharing!

[@Retailleadership]

Wow, I love that video clip.

[@Calvbread]

Amazing vide as always Jay :)

[@theguyiskevin]

Thanks, John. Rough week - I needed to hear this.

[@jayhoovy]

You've got this Kevin!

[@agarwaldo]

Dude I needed to hear this, was hitting a mental crisis with my company. Most of the time I feel like I’m winging it, but that’s the mental game! Great reframe and reminder-don’t give up and just focus on your customers and your team. #insanelyhard

[@jayhoovy]

You've got this sir - keep pushing through! And let me know when you get to the other side :) I'm proud of ya

[@JohnMcclaned]

Awesome video! I would love to know more about how you logistically scaled the business. From hiring, to onboarding processes, to provisioning hardware for engineers, to giving access to source control to employees and managing tasks with project management software, to book keeping and general ledger reconciliation. What about products you use internally? Are there some you love? Are there some you tried and had to move away from? How do you handle logins across your org? What about off boarding when someone leaves? There is so much startup info on 'ideas' and 'how we stood in a circle and manifested growth', but I would love it if you can break that pattern and go into what you need to logistically consider when steering the ship into the scale phase.

[@jayhoovy]

Appreciate how in depth this suggestion was John! Tons to unpack here, but I'll take note and try my best to cover as much of this as I can in future videos! Thanks for the support!!!🙏

[@JohnMcclaned]

@@jayhoovy Thanks mate, looking forward to it, love ya work

[@winnieh834]

Thank you John 🍵

[@pajalixd4016]

Didn't know you were a profesional DJ. That piece of yours slaps ! 🔥🎶It's just insanely hard 🎶🔥

[@AiVideoStock]

lol that second drink u started to get tipsy and were like I love you man😄👏🏼 Great video, so much wisdom from your experiences.

[@jayhoovy]

XDDD yep definitely was feeling it by #2 hahahah

[@alanchee3768]

Dope content man!

[@wikimindset]

This video was insanely helpful

[@legotron369]

Ayoo! Great video. Love to watch!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you :)

[@phaattran]

Great video. Not the typical advices u see from anywhere else. Love that! One tip for u John: watch ur intonation at the end of sentence ie dont make it sound like a question. Check out Vince, he has a lot of content about speech and vocal techniques

[@MiguelLopez-pm9xj]

I just want to add to the therapist's tip. Think about it in this way: You are the only person who will accompany you throughout your life, you are the most important, the only one capable and responsible for improving your quality of life. Why wouldn't you spend time and work to improve yourself? Things like Self-knowledge, awareness and emotional management could improve your life in all areas :)

[@jayhoovy]

This is REALLY good perspective Miguel! Thank you for sharing!

[@tk116]

For those that are working in an internal audit or financial compliance audit role, if you identify a few problems at your current company and the executives choose to ignore fixing the issues, then flip the script and try to rethink of the issue/roadblock at work as an opportunity for you to start a business to address the above compliance issue. It's likely the problem is niche enough that you could dominate that market and small enough that people or businesses outside of your company wouldn't even realize there's this untapped market. The opportunity is that you have information asymmetry and you can implement a solution that will solve this compliance problem for these customers.... ex) if you're an auditor at CRA or IRS and you have identified a theme of non-compliance in a niche area, well, now you can setup a business online to hook these potential clients in with SEO and SEM.

[@carolene-meli-ghostwriter]

This video was significantly heightened by that old-fashioned you made. :) Apart from that... great breakdown. I'm learning so much about starting a company through your documentation.

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you so much Carolene!!! Let me know if there's any other topics you want me to cover :)

[@georgekrax]

Damn, I just watched the podcast episode before getting on your video 😄

[@bekhruzshavkiev]

Great storytelling skills - the buzz was a cherry on top LOL.

[@gabriel_michelson3425]

Amazing content! Will listen to Pattern Recognition.

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Gabriel!!!

[@AnthonySistilli]

Absolutely love how much you and V share your journeys on the path to 1B. Karma is real, like you said, and I hope it rewards you for all the amazing insights you’re giving to the rest of us ❤

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Anthony that means so much!!! Really appreciate your support :)

[@Conciliare]

Who’s V?

[@abdullahbera7428]

Jensen is a wonderful person, his podcast with Crucible Moments by Sequoia Capital is the most motivating thing I listened to recently.

[@tomascarignano5002]

Just love it

[@Wonderful_World007]

I watched this video and thought, 'Wow! 🤩 You are a young and wise man.' I only found you today, and this is the second video in a row.

[@MrWarcreater]

Thank you for sharing! It is a pleasure to tag along on your journey. Would be awesome to get your thoughts on starting a company with a co-founder that is living in another city! I don't recall you ever talking about this topic and think it would help people (me at least) Cheers

[@jayhoovy]

Approximate being in person as much as possible! We tried to meet up at least once a month for a few days!

[@drgLACity]

That’s cool man thanks

[@counting_stars_lately_oshe8098]

Loved the video!

[@justinjaewon]

Love a good old fashioned, but you gotta bring out the soju in the back for the next one!

[@jayhoovy]

Honestly would’ve preferred the Soju lol

[@joeltomalexander]

Advice #9 has got to be my favourite-- common wisdom was 'it's lonely at the top' etc but man is it important to have that support system. High school friends are alpha, think I got lucky there. From a fellow formerly miserable but currently not so miserable seed founder ahah

[@jayhoovy]

Cheers Joel! Also in the "not so miserable but still struggling" camp - you have to make it a priority to keep in touch with your loved ones!

[@cristianoronaldo-lr2mw]

Hey John - If i take you back to the early days, how did you uncover your problem and validate with market? how did u find product market fit?

[@jayhoovy]

I cover this in depth in another video actually! It's called "How to Find Product Market Fit" :) it'll give you the exact step by step I used!

[@jefftatarchuk]

great video and advice. but you forgot the simple syrup.

[@jayhoovy]

I knew I forgot something lol. Appreciate the support though hahahah

[@user-pt9kc4rh6n]

running to get ice was way funnier than it shouldve been 💀

[@jagicyooo2007]

INSANELY HARD JUST INSANELY HARD~

[@jayhoovy]

dance to the beat jagicyoo!!!

[@EdgarRios-rl4no]

one tip if you're ever going into a partnership, make sure everything is in writing. By everything I mean anything that could help you in court law and help you retain what is exactly owed to you. Trust me....

[@AcquireAI]

Insanely hard

[@resa574]

I actually wish I full sent my idea. I worked on it part time, but some other people eventually became first to market with the exact same product and they now have an approximately 500 million valuation within 3 years

[@SSEAPKC]

What was the idea?

[@atikahauliaputri6677]

I’m a 2x bootstrapped startup founder, chatGPT is my no.1 therapist 😂

[@jayhoovy]

facts lol

[@MatthewM214]

Been here since the Stanford vlogs🤌

[@MatthewM214]

TikTok*

[@jayhoovy]

Yooo thanks for being an OG Matthew!!! The support means a lot🙏

[@MatthewM214]

@@jayhoovylove ya bro❤️ can’t wait to be a public trade holder!

[@yashkumar-es6ol]

I think he was drinking before making this video !!😂

[@jayhoovy]

Might've had a pregame swig to kill the nerves ;)

[@vanshkumarsharma9345]

here before he gets super famous

[@jayhoovy]

Thanks for being an OG :)

[@ifiwererich]

Just to be clear, when you work for any company and you start a business while working for said company, then that company could take you to court and potentially own your company. This is typically why you quit your job to protect the future company from anyone else claiming the rights to that company or IP.

[@jayhoovy]

This is a good consideration for sure! Thank you for sharing! You can also be just super thoughtful and careful about having clear lines of distinction and boundaries.

[@alchenny]

overnight success takes 10 years, at least thats what i tell myself

[@jamespratt4]

🥂💪🏼🛐

[@3DPrinterAcademy]

Does Stan have Facebook pixel integration?

[@jayhoovy]

Yep! In your 'Settings' tab!

[@orekihotarou8200]

W

[@jayhoovy]

I always look forward to your W Atharva :)