Arkansas Business

Max Farrell and Jordan Carlisle, organizers of Startup Weekend Little Rock, offer their 10 tips for startup success.

Farrell:

• If you’re passionate about it, you’re onto something. Sleepless nights are validation your idea is worth building.
• Hustle your tail off. Network and connect inside and outside the state to share your idea, build with the right people and with the right resources.
• There is validation in things that suck. Learn from it. Adapt. Keep building.
• Fight like hell to get the best people on board. Waiting for the right team is better than pushing forward with the wrong people.
• Make your passion contagious. If you’re willing to give up your life for an idea, spread that passion and have the community rally with you.

Carlisle:

• If you can’t relate to an idea, don’t do it. Passion is attractive and exceeds intellect.
• Find a way to “sustainably” give your customer more than you receive.
• Attack life as a student. If you don’t, kids in Asia will. (Learn from failures and iterate.)
• Accumulate organic revenue as soon as possible. Raising capital is awesome, but self-sustaining is much better for long-term success.
• Love and trust the people you work with.