Patrick Vlaskovits is an entrepreneur, mentor and author. He founded two startups and co-wrote The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A Cheat Sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Affectionately known as the “CustDev book,” it serves as course text for classes at Stanford University, Boston University, University of Minnesota and University of Norway. Patrick is a national speaker and blogger at vlaskovits.com.

On top of his accomplishments, he also enjoys monthly involvement with up and coming startups and serves as a mentor for the 500 Startups seed fund/accelerator as well as for The Lean Startup Machine. Patrick organizes Twiistup, a well-attended tech/startup conference that celebrates the entrepreneurial talent of the Los Angeles startup community. He also organizes the Los Angeles Lean Startup Meetup.

Clarity was lucky to get the chance to sit down with Patrick to gain more insight into his understanding of Lean Startup and Customer Development. Here is our interview:

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Think money motivates your employees? Sure. But it’s not the biggest motivator.

Many entrepreneurs believe that digging into their pocketbooks will help drive employee engagement, but the reality is that 67% of workers say praise and commendation from a manager is what truly motivates [Tweet This] (vs. the 52% who say an increase in base pay does the trick.)

Instead, consider making quality time with each employee a priority, pick up a personal tangible gift, offer a high five or fist bump, tell them they’re doing a great job or pitch in on a task. Connect with them. They’ll respect you more and work harder as a result.

This infographic takes a look at the truth behind employee engagement and how you can motivate your workforce without reaching into your pocket.

42% of the global workforce says they’re disengaged at work. [Tweet This]

90% of leaders say employee engagement is essential to their businesses. [Tweet This]

75% of leaders do not have an employee engagement strategy. [Tweet This]

What do you do to motivate your employees? Share with us below!

Have you ever felt the urge to:

•  Lock yourself in a room with 300 people for 54 hours
•  Test your limits of sleep deprivation
• Get grilled by some of the toughest industry experts around?

If the answer is yes, then chances are, you’re a crazy-ass entrepreneur and you should probably check out your local Startup Weekend. Read More…

You aren’t going to get a nice parking spot because you wished for one. That’s ridiculous.

So what makes you think that you can start your business, get financing or sell your company because of a distant dream?

You need to mentally create these outcomes, and ultimately achieve your own happiness and become a good person.

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Update: LinkedIn recently closed thought leader applications due to an overwhelming response. Using these tips to create a great profile will still help establish you as a thought leader on LinkedIn (and other platforms, too). Here’s how Lewis Howes, who literally wrote the book on LinkedIn, established himself as a thought leader.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, an employee, or a student – your ability to become a thought leader will catapult your success.  A great way to accomplish this, is on LinkedIn.

I’ll be honest, I love LinkedIn. It has made me the business person I am today. After getting permanently sidelined from my football career, I needed to find a way to earn a living. I turned to LinkedIn for that help and ended up writing the official book on it. Despite being the most active person on the site, it still took me a long time to achieve my current status as thought leader.

Why? I needed to learn what it was, what it meant and what I could do to become one. A sidelined athlete simply won’t make the cut.

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In the time it will have taken you to watch that video, Bill Gates will have made over $500,000.

How, you ask?

The same way that Steve Jobs was given a job at Hewlett-Packard at 12-years-old. By the CEO.

By getting off his ass and creating opportunity for himself #JFDI. And because of that, he has wealth, power, and an empire bigger than most of us can even conceive of.

Before you read any further, I have one question for you: Are you ready to hear the simplest, but most important piece of advice an entrepreneur can receive?
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When founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, moved on and launched Milk Labs, there were plenty of compliments flying around, especially from top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley who actually invested in Milk. There was no way someone like that would fail, right?! Wrong. Milk’s first app, Oink, was shut down in less than 5 months and the company was acqua-hired by Google. There is the expectation that someone like Kevin will, by default, be successful in whatever he does, based on previous success and a freshly stoked ego.

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Every year, several million startups are launched. There will be well over 12,000 posts published on TechCrunch alone this year. In the U.S., approximately 1,500 startups get funded by venture capitalists every single year. Another 50,000 get angel funding. That’s 51,500 funding announcements annually. Staying top of mind isn’t easy, but it’s more essential than ever for entrepreneurs.

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Image courtesy of http://www.maritimecrossfit.com/

There’s a running joke about CrossFit. “How do you know that someone is into CrossFit?”, “Because they won’t shut the fuck about it” . All joking aside, it’s not that far from the truth – and rightfully so. CrossFit is the type of workout where you pretty much bring yourself to puking without killing yourself. Yep, in the first three sentences of this blog post, we’ve already dropped an f-bomb and talked about puke. Now, let’s get to the point and talk psychology.

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My brother Pierre with his daughter on a recent ‘workation’ we took with our families kiteboarding in Dominican.

175. That’s the number of countries thirty-something Chris Guillebeau has visited to date. He has never earned a paycheck or held a real job.

His’s “secret sauce” is a system that is surprisingly human and tangible—concrete goals combined with a schedule, priority system, and relentless determination. Rather than waiting for everything to fall into place, he designed a life with purpose and meaning.

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