5 Tips on How to Launch a Startup
Starting a startup is a bet. A big bet. You’ll spend a lot of time and effort on it, possibly your money as well… Which is daunting! So you’ll want to prepare for your journey.
Before starting Skryv, I read plenty of blog posts & books, talked to quite a few people, and followed a support track. Out of that, I distilled my startup checklist, starting with the why, creating the legal entity and finding the initial idea and team to get started.
Along the way, I learned new things and captured some essential aspects I only later in my journey.
I hope my 5 tips on how to start a startup can help you raise your chances of success!
Tip 1: Know Your Talents
Talent is having a unique gift, a natural aptitude. Talent shows itself in every activity that goes effortlessly and satisfies you. When you do what you do well, time flies. And it charges your batteries. – Luk Dewulf
Starting a startup will put pressure on you. You will (have to) learn along the way and you will be pushed out of your comfort zone.
Besides running out of money, running out of energy is the biggest risk for startup founders. Staying within your talents will prevent this from happening. So you need to know your talents, stay as much as possible within these talents and avoid exaggerating your talents.
Tip 2: Combine Commercial, Product & Technology Skills
Most startups need a mix of 3 activities:
- Sales & marketing,
- Product or service definition, and
- Smart use and application of technology.
Each of these areas requires distinct talents & knowledge. Knowledge can be built, talents much less. So match your talents with these three domains. If you have a B2B commercial role in a startup you need to get energy from connecting with a lot of people.
If you do not cover all 3 domains, find co-founders or high-potential employees that complement you.
Think about the future as well. Soon, your startup will need you as a leader in your area. If you’re the tech founder, you must combine hard skills with people & communication skills.
Tip 3: Think Money as of Day 1
Many founders start with a mission, a vision or a personal drive to address a problem they are passionate about. A great place to start!
At the same time, a startup is not the safest financial bet. Running out of cash is a big risk for your startup. Running against money limits or money-bound growth limits or profitability is an equally big risk.
Even if you put your “why” 1st, thinking & talking about money should be part of your work as of day 1. Not only to thrive as a company but also to create clarity.
A business model aiming towards 10.000x €10 is very different from one that targets 10x €10.000 a month. So once you have a basic business model (e.g. through the business model canvas of the lean canvas), dare to add the numbers in a spreadsheet format.
Use this as an anchor to identify the commercial, product & technology assumptions.
Tip 4: Understand the Assumptions & Constraints of Your Startup Business Model
Being short in cash, missing the momentum of the market or partnerships that do not work out as hoped, … A lot can go wrong in the lifecycle of a startup.
As long as you do not run out of energy (use the tips above :), there is always a way to get out of these challenges. But the cost of overcoming some of these challenges is high. So it is a much better strategy to avoid them. Explicitly formulating the assumptions and constraints of the business model surely helps.
Once you identified the underlying assumptions, the testing phase can start. Iteratively validate these assumptions before doing heavy investments.
In the meantime, you can link the constraints of the business model back to your (team) talents. Take the theory of constraints as a guiding principle to focus your attention on the constraints. If you miss talent in the area of the constraint, you know what to do!
Tip 5: Install Structured Learning
Startups are heavily knowledge-driven. Knowing your customers, knowing the competition, knowing the relevant trends in your market, … all of these dimensions need to be covered.
Having an active learning culture is important. Dedicating time to learning is the strict minimum. Learning from other people and being part of a (learning) community can further enhance the benefits of your learning track.
It is even better if your learning becomes a structural knowledge-building process. Our (organizational) memory is fundamentally flawed and requires support. Think about the way you will build your knowledge. Do this early in the stage, picking a tool that has the flexibility to grow and evolve as your startup matures.
References & further reading
Talent discovery
- mytalentbuilder.com
- The accompanying book: Go With Your Talent
Testing business ideas
Theory of constraints
Thinking Money
Why this post?
As an early collaborator of several start-ups and as co-founder of Skryv, I learned a lot. As part of my public learning, I am more than happy to share my experiences.
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