Learn what are the primary things entrepreneurs should keep in mind before starting a business/startup? Idea, Product, Team and Execution are the four crucial things for startups. Know how to deal with these 4 important factors for your startup.
5. WHY ARE YOU
STARTING A COMPANY?
Usual answers:
• Want to become my own boss
• I can earn more money
• Because it’s hip to work in a startup
• My friend has become very successful so I’m inspired to
walk this path
15. Build a product that you actually understand
the pain point
If you have to depend on customer to
understand the pain point then solving the
problem is so much harder. You have to make
sure that you have fantastic consumer
feedback loop.
PRODUCT
19. MVP
• Reduce your MVP- You need to slim down your mock
up so that all you have left is the essence of the
product.
• Reducing scope of your MVP not only shortens your
development cycle, but also removes unnecessary
distractions
• Job of your MVP is to deliver singular/ basic value
proposition, eliminate nice to haves
PRODUCT
22. • Users- how many users have you spoken to ???
• Be an expert on your customers. It will help you to
succeed in a startup.
• If you don’t understand your customers or their needs
then your customers will find someone who understand
them
• Understanding the culture that your customers live in is
a huge step toward understanding their needs
• You need users to create the user feedback cycle, and
you have to create the almost manually, recruit them if
necessary.
PRODUCT
23. USER FEEDBACK
• What do they like about your product?
• What would they pay for?
• What would make them recommend it?
PRODUCT
24. MOST IMPORTANT LESSON ABOUT
USER
The goal is to get small users to love your PRODDUCT.
They will ultimately help you get more users.
25. PRICING
• Don’t ask your customers what they will pay, tell them – Your job
is to find early adopters who are willing to pay for your product or
service. Pricing is not only part of your product, but it’s also defines
the customer segments you attract.
• Charge from day one – make a goal of first covering your
hardware/software costs, then your people costs
29. • Are the founders choosing random co-founders
• Do the co-founders have some history together
• Do the team have team dynamics and have
complimentary skill sets
• Is the team mates is decisive, can act quickly and be
dependable.
• If it’s tech company, do they have a technical co founder.
• 2-3 cofounders are great, 4 works sometimes,
5 is a really bad idea.
CO-FOUNDERS
TEAM
33. • Hire Slow. Keep the team small at the initial stage
and try to do things as much as possible before you
are desperate for help
• Work on a quick assignment together before hiring
the employee to understand if he/she is real fit with
the company. Ask about projects people have done
in the interviews and email or call references – test
their skill sets
• But when it does not work out then fire fast
TEAM
34. Focus on personal referrals for first
hire. Focus on 3 things while hiring:
1. Are They smart
2. Can they get things done
3. Do you want to spend your time
around them
TEAM
35. MANAGING TEAMS
• Make sure your employees feel part of the team.
• As CEO you give credit for the good things and
take responsibility when bad things happen in
the company.
• Do one on one meeting and give clear feedback
to team member.
TEAM
39. FOCUS
Most startups are not nearly focused, They work really
hard but don't focus on right thing. Trick to great
execution is saying "No" a lot.
• How do you decide what to focus on?
By focusing on key goals that each member can execute.
Best founders repeat this goal over and over again.
And you can't be focus without great communication
EXECUTION
40. IDENTIFY A SINGLE KEY METRIC OR
GOAL
When building your business model, stay focused on key
metric you need to achieve
EXECUTION
41. YOU ARE WHAT YOU MEASURE
• If you want to make your user numbers go up, put a big piece of
paper on your wall and every day plot the number of users. You’ll
start noticing what makes the number go up.
EXECUTION
42. GROW YOUR
STARTUP
• the whole point of a startup is to grow. But you
need to define realistic growth targets, stated
preferably in terms of revenue .
• if you’re not initially charging for a product or
service, then you will have to select active
users.
• Focus on Weekly growth rate
EXECUTION
43. GROWTH EQUALS MONEY
• If you’re hitting your revenue goals every week, that’s good news
you’re making a little more money every week.
• It is important for startups to show a track record
of increasing revenues, which gets the interest of investors
EXECUTION
44. GROWTH METRICS
• Total registration
• Active users
• Activity Level of users
• Revenue
EXECUTION
48. TYPICAL
EXECUTIONS
Big Launch
Work and spend crazy amount to get
awareness
Build customer acquisition channels
Target 500,000 users by first 6 months
58. • Get a team that works well together
• Hire slow, fire fast
• Create a daily flow of work
• Create weekly flow
• Engage your customers throughout the development cycle
• Continually test your product with smaller, faster iterations
• Build a feature, measure customer response and validate/
refute the direction
• Solve a problem that customers are willing to pay for
• Maximize your efforts for speed, learning and focus
• Set your growth metrics
• Work out path to monetization, fast
• Plan, minimize cost & focus on ROI
KEY TAKE AWAYS
