The Secrets To Setting Smarter Goals

If you're looking to maximize your startup's potential, start by setting the right goals. Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell provide tips and strategies for setting goals that will help keep you and your new business focused on success—plus provide examples of bad goals to avoid as a startup.

00:00 - Intro
00:17 - Setting Goals: The Stupid Games
01:18 - What's a Too Aggressive Goal?
03:35 - What are the Fake Metrics?
05:43 - Stupid Comparatives
08:03 - What is Sandbagging?
09:39 - Why People Screw Up Accomplishing Goals
11:25 - Take The L
12:41 - Excuses
14:29 - Stupid Prizes Companies Win
14:48 - Most Money Raised
16:16 - Most Employees
17:45 - Execution Team
19:33 - Burning Money
21:07 - Acquiring Companies
22:22 - What's the Prizes for Defrauding Your Customers?
24:11 - Become an Amazing Investor

[ycombinator]

What's one of your goals for the next week?

[benholmquist]

What's nice about these videos is: being a founder is hard and things aren't going great this week, this month etc., but it's nice to realize people are making mistakes left and right that you AREN'T making, thank god, and things could be worse. And laughing about some of the problems we've all faced and learned to get through. To be honest these vids just make me feel a little better out in founder island. Thanks guys!

[luishyunwookkang]

Thank you for making this video. I’m enjoying your series as a startup founder.

If I can give just a piece of feedback, I often notice that both of you are making a joke of poor founders rather than giving the advice that how to get it, how to achieve it with some concrete examples.

For instance, in this video, I opened up this video with an expectation that I can get some insights about how to set a goal well. However, all I have been told is the common mistakes or poor founder stories which I’m not doing or I’m not that interested.

I’d be grateful if I can listen to some stories about the best cases that I can admire and follow instead of jokes about poor founders.

Nevertheless, I’m learning a lot from your content and really appreciate it.

[Polapola]

Luv the sarcasm. I’m finding these vid more fun than other vids dedicated to entertaining us.

[chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - Intro
00:17 - Setting Goals: The Stupid Games
01:18 - What's a Too Aggressive Goal?
03:35 - What are the Fake Metrics?
05:43 - Stupid Comparatives
08:03 - What is Sandbagging?
09:39 - Why People Screw Up Accomplishing Goals
11:25 - Take The L
12:41 - Excuses
14:29 - Stupid Prizes Companies Win
14:48 - Most Money Raised
16:16 - Most Employees
17:45 - Execution Team
19:33 - Burning Money
21:07 - Acquiring Companies
22:22 - What's the Prizes for Defrauding Your Customers?
24:11 - Become an Amazing Investor
28:03 - Getting Good at Goal Setting

[MansaKimani]

Gems For Startup Founder Like Me. Hard Truth Always Hits Different

[meterfeeder]

I wonder how many founders are like, "That's not me"

[melissaviolin]

Man, I love these videos so much. In a short amount of time, they've really helped me positively restructure my business for success in both the short term as a small business, and hopefully in the long term with the software I'm currently developing. Thank you for the inspiration and wisdom! With just these videos alone, you've helped me reach and set better goals. I always look forward to them!

[machapuis]

I enjoy these video series so much. They are as pleasing as a warm cup of cocoa without the added calories.

[Entrepreneur_in_progress]

It is actually rather simple.
When you are in the early stage of finding product market fit, your only goal is to get a product that customers are willing to pay for.
Focus on product building and talking to customers, those are the only two things that matter.
You should only spend money if it can help you on the two points.

Once you get product market fit, then focus on building a company that scales with people and processes. That implies building the right culture and hiring the right people to build the teams and processes.

Once you have a product that works and a company that grows, money, status, M&A, and the executive team, will come to you as a by-product of your product and company's success.

But who wasn't once 22 and hungry to sit at the adults' table and be recognized? Only a few can hold their inner horse set themselves straight and keep the right focus.

[MrMajani]

With my current startup, I made the mistake of thinking we were going to blow up on day one. We did get a couple hundred users on day one, but they reported so many bugs. It's been 11 months now of fixing the bugs users report

[michaeljtbusch]

I love watching your advice but I feel you’ve leveled up your game with this one! Might be me being further along or me being german, either way - vielen Dank!

[douglachman]

This video is a great way to educate founders in a thinking manner. Perspectives and lessons from history based on real experiences by these educators. Well done!

[adityarai]

I have heard about sandbagging in Motorsports. Teams add weight to cars to fool the competitors and hide their real performance usually during practise round. So they can perform better in the race.

[Withlindaandrews]

Thank you! Good goal setting is a journey. It’s a matter of doing it and keep getting better. I think I’ve done all the pitfalls! Also the startup school dashboard was a wake up call for how much I lie to myself! Love your guys convos. Inspiring, intelligent and fun.

[cory]

In my opinion I think a lot of these problems are solved if you can really see the change you want to bring about and understand at an intimate level the value you bring to the end user. I've had more ideas that don't fit this criteria than do, and when you have an idea that doesn't clearly create value, you work so hard to make it viable in any way you can imagine. And tbh I have no idea how you sort the good ideas from the bad ones without trying many ideas out over many years allowing you to see the patterns and level of insight that comes with your best ideas of the bunch.

When you truly know the value you want to create / the change you want to bring about, I think achieving that MVP and then steering the ship post release becomes a much less daunting task. My two best ideas have been a race to the finish line because I believe in it so deeply and don't want unnecessary obstructions.

[characarosandi]

I typically love your content and still love the topic being discussed here. That said, for some reason, for a good portion of this video, both Brian & Dalton just seemed so stuck up and as though they're laughing down at people who make these mistakes. Dunno what makes this one diff from the others. There are other videos from Y Combinator and these 2 where they sorta do this as well and it's never an issue for me it seems, but for some reason something came across a bit off on this vid. Again, i know they dont intend to do that at all, for sure, but it sorta came across as such this time around.

In any case, I agree with everything you guys said and still love the content on this channel, just think how the content is communicated can be a bit better in this particular case as people can perceive things differently. Will defs come back for more great advice tho!

[AlyoshaNowlin]

Holy Moly --- Not a single word wasted. Thanks!

[caiocastro]

The most significant video i’ve seen in a long time

[solothebest]

“Working on the hardest problem in the company” That’s how goals should be based upon.