About this episode: Gina Danford is a business coach and owner of Red Zebra Coaching. We talked about the operational and tactical facets of running your business - working with vendors and customers, knowing your numbers and cash flows needs, joining trade associations, books worth reading, hiring slowly and firing quickly, and reading contracts and partnership agreements. We also talked about Gina’s startup experience at Aircraft Shopper Online from 2000-2007.
Lastly, we talked about Gina’s cancer diagnosis at the age of 19 and how she beats the odds to be talking with me on this podcast.
- 3:45 - Mid-growth business growth challenges such as hiring, cash flow & preparing the business to scale
- 6:00 - Can a good startup founder be a good mid-growth CEO?
- 7:45 - Incremental growth mindset & skill set
- 12:45 - Lessons learned from incremental growth companies for hyper-growth startups in hiring & managing teams
- 18:00 - Biggest mistakes of hyper-growth startups
- 21:00 - Negotiating payment terms & legal implications of contracts with vendors & partners
- 22:00 - Importance of partnership agreements among founders
- 27:00 - Vendor, expense and cash flow analysis
- 32:00 - Using your startup status to you advantage as a buyer of products and services
- 35:00 - Pulling the ripcord on a non-paying customer
- 38:00 - Finding non-cash currency for payment with customers
- 42:00 - Gina’s startup experience at ASO in a Web 1.0 world
- 43:30 - Fighting inertia in an industry to prove your product
- 50:00 - Engaging with your market via Trade shows and competitors
- 54:00 - Gina fight with ovarian cancer
Websites & Resources mentioned in the podcast:
Gina Danford & Red Zebra Coaching
[Book] "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation"