Stop Paying for It

A Little How-To Guide to Not Wasting Money as an Entrepreneur

A few weeks ago, I saw something crazy and decided to post about it on Facebook. In 30 minutes, I had 300 Likes and dozens of comments. In a day, I had over 1000 Likes, tons of shares and comments… it touched a nerve.

For those of you who don’t speak French, here’s what I said:

To be in Capital [a French monthly business magazine] as a “Company to follow in 2017”, you have to pay €8850 (note the very specific price). The moral and financial failings of the media is the greatest contemporary threat to democracies. It’d be a good idea to find a solution to this mess…

Short version: WTF?

Reactions from around the French startup world varied. A lot of people got the same offer, so they weren’t shocked, just disgusted. Others never knew that this was going on, since media companies have gotten very good at what is called “native advertising” (and let’s be clear: Capital is just one of many doing exactly this, and in some ways it’s not even them — they give the commission to an agency, the agency finds the people who pay and takes care of the ad… let’s just say there’s an entire system). Some people thought it was so ridiculous that it must be a fake.

But I was really thinking about our Entrepreneurs at TheFamily, since my job is to help them grow, as freely and awesomely as possible. And I thought about all the questions that me and my partners get every day, and so I decided to put together a quick list of things Entrepreneurs shouldn’t pay for, and why.

And the list is probably only going to get longer. One of the effects of more and more capital going to startups (Hi, Softbank ;) means that there’s more and more people trying to suck that money away from you. As an Entrepreneur, your job is to figure out what’s a good deal, and what’s a horrible deal. But it’s not always that easy.

So here, a quick list of Things You Should Never Pay For:

1. Being listed as a “Company to Follow” — no return on the investment, no conversions, no impact.
2. A “market research study” — you’re worried about a problem and finding a solution that people want. You can do that with a landing page or a Facebook group, so why would you pay a consultant to study anything?
3. A business plan — either you discover this naturally as you grow your startup, or you don’t; either way, you don’t need to pay anyone for it.
4. Lawyers’ fees costing you more than €5000 — there’s almost no chance that anything you’re doing is that complicated.
5. Crowded internet conferences that charge you for a slice of booth space alongside thousands of others — save the time, money and effort and instead go find 20 more people who are huge fans of your product.

And remember, there’s two things here: one is the money, and that’s important. But it’s also a question of time. All of the things on this list make you lose focus, they take you away from the only two things that an Entrepreneur should be doing: talking to your customers and improving your product.

P.S. Don’t tell me that the press is just trying to survive and they need to make money however they can. The proposal I posted on Facebook is a ripoff. But yes, media companies need to find new business models. If they’re interested in really finding out how to find a new, innovative position in the industry, they should come talk to the PathFinder team — Miguel, Annabelle, Charlotte, Julie and Côme are more than happy to talk about how to do that. But sucking cash away from startups that don’t know any better isn’t the way to make money.