Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

Chapter 30. Make Decisions Quickly

Ari Newman

Ari is the CEO and co-founder of Filtrbox, a web service that tracks and monitors new media content and news for small- to medium-size businesses as well as individuals. Filtrbox raised about $1 million from True Ventures and Flywheel Ventures after completing TechStars in 2007. It was acquired by Jive Software in 2010.

Filtrbox lives in a real-time world, both in terms of what we do and how we operate the business. The ability to collect data, look at the facts, and make decisions quickly is a huge asset to an early stage company. In the words of the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky, you have to "skate to where the puck is going."

One of the most valuable assets an early stage company has is that it is nimble. The number of constraints on the business is very limited compared to years down the road when you have a complex product, revenue streams, and masses of customers. The consequence of not making decisions quickly is akin to giving up one of your best assets.

At Filtrbox we started the company with the vision of solving the "information overload" problem for business professionals. We launched with a freemium model, through which we gave away a limited version of our software for free and—if you liked it and wanted more—you could pay for the full version. We lived the mantra of "build something valuable, get the word out, and listen ...