Chances are, you're the monkey too.

As startups grow there come inevitable points where stressful times meet the dynamics of group psychology. During these lows, it’s  common to hear some people gripe or complain -

“I have no faith in this management team.”

The only problem is, in companies that are 25 people or smaller, everyone is essentially in management. What they’re saying is that they have no faith in themselves. The English have a word for that – loser.

Don’t be one.

Strategy Meatball is a good recipe for Strategery Spaghetti

Every growing startup has people approach them or interview for a job interested in “doing product marketing” and/or defining “growth strategies.” These folks range from fresh out of business school or on the heels of having taken some time off after the last startup they were a part of (as early employees, almost never as the founding technical people) had a liquidity event.

Tell them to go f*ck themselves. In a nice way, of course.

These people will not only waste your time, in a startup that is sub $10 Million in revenue, they will require additional resources to get their “ideas” off the ground. Read: hiring more people, consultants, expensive B2B intelligence apps, eating the time of the sales team, creating documentation no one will read, etc.

At the end of the day, they become the ones winning in the relationship – because they got to learn on your time and dime. And for some reason, they have a propensity for politics and blame games when things do’t go their way (they won’t).

Unless they can code, sell on the phones or generate leads, avoid them at all costs.