What I wish I knew 10 years ago
20 lessons learned in building Lexoo
Ten years ago my co-founder Chris and I founded Lexoo. We just sold the business to Kalexius.
This has given me time to reflect on all the things I messed up over the years and what I learned from them.
My top 20 learnings:
Solving the right problem is more important than working hard. Working hard on the wrong thing leads to frustration, not progress. Regularly take a step back to identify the bottleneck or root cause of issues, and focus efforts there.
Making productive mistakes is crucial for growth. Openly sharing mistakes within the company helps surface issues that can be easily fixed. Otherwise they will be hidden. Encourage a culture of sharing stumbles during the weekly meeting, without blame or finger-pointing. This is the easiest way to do continuous improvement.
Pivot a business model quickly if it doesn’t work. The sunk cost fallacy is real. It’s too easy to stick with something just because you’re on that path already. Whenever you change something that doesn’t work (even if painful in the short term) you instantly feel better and wish you did it sooner.
Simple tools > ‘all-in-one’ expansive solutions. Resist the temptation to add every possible feature. Instead focus on a simple, effective core product that solves a single big problem really well. It’s so much easier for customers to buy than a tool that forces them to spend 12 months implementing.
Eat your frog in the morning. Tackle your most important task first thing each day. Then no matter what happens you feel good about the day. If you do this every day, it’ll really start to compound.
Customer insights should drive product development. Don’t assume you know what customers want. When there’s legit debate in the team about the direction, solve it by committing to talk to 5 customers. Then regroup.
Innovation comes from weird places. The scientific method works well for iterative improvements. For big leaps you sometimes need to squint your eyes and be open to spotting weird and wonderful connections. Learn about how the creative process works (e.g Rick Rubin’s book).
Junior team members need more feedback than you feel you have time for. Use this hack: when fixing their work, record your screen using Loom and voice-over why you’re making the changes. This won’t cost much time, but has a 10x impact on their rate of growth.
Prioritize testing ideas over debating them. Smart people can argue any point well. Doesn’t mean you/they are right. So instead of endlessly discussing an idea's merit, find a quick way to test the biggest assumptions behind the ideas.
Use the IKEA effect to your advantage. People place higher value on products they helped create. Involving your team in developing solutions (like playbooks) increases their buy-in and makes change management easier.
Lawyers need to unlearn certain lessons before they can innovate. Deeply ingrained habits from past training (like a perfectionist mindset, no mistakes allowed etc) will hold you back in a startup. Consciously unlearning these is crucial.
Optimise for adoption over perfection. Like VHS vs Betamax, the most adopted solution wins over the theoretically "best" one. When in doubt, focus on making your product/advice practical and easy to use, even at the expense of some fidelity.
Focus on problems, not ideas. Team members have a lot of ideas. You can’t do them all. Use a structured process like ICE scoring (Impact, Confidence, Ease) to objectively evaluate ideas based on their merits in solving a specific, prioritized problem. This keeps the team focused on the most impactful initiatives.
Differentiate between problems and situations. Problems have solutions (even if difficult), while situations must be accepted. Save your energy for solving true problems, not fighting against situations. This is the only way to stay sane.
Embrace uncertainty as opportunity. Rewire your brain to stop seeing change as scary. See it as the moment the deck is reshuffled and where the biggest opportunities arise. It’s hard to capitalise on opportunity if you’re in a state of fear.
Pair human expertise with AI tools for the best outcomes. AI alone is not the answer. In law, the best results come from blending AI efficiency with human context and judgment, in a "centaur" approach.
Beware the valuation trap for startups. Startups with high valuations that are pre-product market fit can get caught in a doom loop. They need to grow at an unsustainable rate to justify their valuation at the next funding round. This often leads to over-hiring and over-spending, which makes it harder to find true product-market fit, not easier.
Write emails so they are read. Most people don’t want to read your email, so make it super easy for them. Think about what the recipient needs to DO based on your email (approve something, mitigate a risk, delegate something?). Then rewrite it to make it easy for them to do just that. Delete everything else.
Know the difference between incremental vs strategic gains. Most efficiency gains are incremental (like improving an existing process), while some are strategic (like removing entire steps from the process). Be clear which type you're pursuing to avoid over-investing in low-impact improvements.
Control your emotional response to triggers. No matter how hard we try, people will behave in ways that really piss us off. Catch yourself in that moment and choose curiosity and compassion. Even when you want to indulge in the anger.
Was this interesting? I may create another list if so!
Thanks for being here,
Daniel
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Daniel van Binsbergen
LinkedIn