Reflections on My First Startup

Chapter: Laying the foundation, shaping up for success

Visualize Your Ideas

As all our minds are different, explaining exactly what you mean is critically important. Visualizing my ideas helped me create understanding among friends, family, partners and investors. It also concretizes your ideas into functional design so you can see and challenge your own thinking.

Define Why People Will Use Your Service

It is easier to define a rationally good solution than to move people's irrational minds. A different form or price does not necessarily make people start using a service, unless it is categorically better. Emotional or other stronger urging factors have to be in place to move big crowds.

Be Picky When Picking Your Partners

With tens of moments of fundamental challenges around strategy, finance, marketing and team development, success depends on who you are with. Building a business is top sport. Your team is as strong as the weakest link. You can better start later as you find better business partners than to start while you think it's not the right one.

Remain Clear Around Why You Exist

Achieving alignment around an objective among your entire team is of significant importance when it comes down to efficiency and effectiveness. Everyone should understand why a company is being created and what the key objectives are.

Get Critical Feedback

Make sure you get feedback on how you do things so you continuously improve. The higher I got, the less feedback I started to receive. I concluded I should have created more room for pushback. My drive is my pitfall too.

Select a Diverse Team

As business means dealing with a wide range of requirements, situations and problems, it helps to have a well diversified team of people. A good team sounds like a nice piece of music. People balance each other out and natural diversity in tones keep the music nice and interesting.

Start Raising Capital When You Are Convinced

Speak with investors when you are convinced you will succeed. Great funding can determine success. But your strategy and tactics and working your butt off does most of the work. Conviction makes you determined. Perseverance makes a difference.

Establish Your Brand Identity

The customer experience and product and brand design should be in harmony. Staff included. Building a brand starts with laying a foundation that attracts and establishes trust. Invest in a professional and well thought through image as you kick off your business development process.

Life is what you make of it.

Cheers! — Thomas