Having an idea is easy. Executing the idea is real hard.
In a world where there are startups popping up left and right, the quest for success is often met with failure. I have met such failure which leads me here. But with all failures there are lessons learned and so hear me out.
Do
- Great business partner
- I’m fortunate enough to have found an awesome business partner. We share the same thoughts and ideas and philosophies which make working together fun. - Develop a customer onboarding and feedback system
- This is CRUCIAL, seriously. You want people to use and love your product and will ultimately pay for it. - Get a (working) MVP made fast
- NO, you don’t need a perfect product. Just make something and validate! Have people use it and see if it provides value. - Competitive intel
- See what your competitors are doing if any and do a SWOT analysis. It helps, I mean it. - Market Research
- Figure out where the market is headed don’t make something that is being phased out. Try and stay in front of it. - FOCUS
- You have a defined roadmap and a set of prioritized features. Follow it! Also you should really focus on your startup and not try and run it on the side, its hard to juggle and really exhausting. - Focus on you
- There are MANY, TRUCKLOADS of motivational / startup guides, articles, etc, out there. This information is valuable but please do not spend time and energy trying to implement it and trying to make it work for yourself. Read and learn in your spare time. - Be agile
- Enough said. - Have an experienced mentor
- Having an experienced mentor within your startup industry is highly valuable. They may see something that you clearly didn’t. - Develop investor relations early
- You will ALWAYS need capital. Investor relationships take time to form and mature. Better to have them now than later. - Engineering and Sales together
- Engineering you need to learn some sales! Sales you need to learn some engineering!
Don’t
- Getting every single process right
- We are humans, we are going to make mistakes. So please do not spend time getting every single process and flow done right. Create a basic process or flow that works and stick with it. - Make it nice and pretty
- Ok, having a nice UX/UI is great to have but when you are just starting up you don’t have to prioritize this. I love you UI/UX, but maybe later. - Create the perfect product
- You can create the best product with the best software architecture, a beautiful UI, super well tested, etc. But you have no customers… Whats the point? My friend, you goofed up. Make something and once you have revenue coming in you can either throw out the initial implementation or make it better with a V2. - Invest in all the fancy subscriptions to support sales and or tech
- Enough said. Just use something simple. You don’t need an APM for your software stack this early on nor should you use a best of breed CRM. - Hire inexperienced people
- I like to help people and working with likeminded people. But hiring inexperienced folks simply robs you of your time and right now time is money. - Find a mentor
- I’m contradicting to what I said as a DO. But if you don’t already have a mentor don’t waste time trying to find one. You need to focus on your product and sales. If by chance you come across one then please establish this relationship. - Create a pricing model like your competitor
- I’m on the fence about this so it may depend on your situation. But don’t copy your competitors pricing model especially if you are in an emerging market. We are all figuring it out and it may be that your model works better. But in a well defined and mature market you just might need to follow whats already out there
You live and you learn.
Would I attempt another startup? Yes. Yes, I would. Even though it’s at times painful, exhausting chasing your own ideas and implementing it, making it work is so VERY REWARDING. I LOVE the process.
