An essay by John Melonakos
Startup Hustle
I’m a big fan of hustle for startups. It’s about doing things that bring your startup an extra dose of attention. It’s about getting in front of as many great prospects as possible as quickly as possible.
Here are some thoughts on hustle:
- Do things that show your prospects and your market that you are going the extra mile to win their business: handwritten notes, phone calls, personalized emails, etc. These things do not scale, but are a great show of hustle.
- Rather than printing boring flyers that no one likes to carry or read at tradeshows, print shirt pocket sized cards that invite people to check out your startup online. Get them to your website. Pass those flyers out in your booth, but get out on the floor and into the sessions. Pass them out everywhere. Leave stacks of them where people are eating. Make sure all your people carry them and break out of their shell to talk to strangers.
- Hypepotamus (the Atlanta co-working space) talks about the hustler as one of the 4 key roles in a startup. I love this post and infographic.
Everyone can hustle. Hustling should be clean and not misleading.
This post by Kyle Porter is a great example of hustle and prompted my thoughts tonight on this topic.
What are your thoughts on hustling in a startup?