This article discusses about the essential steps to be followed by an Entrepreneur in today’s world to keep up with competition while utilizing the latest methods, platforms, and technology currently available in the market.

1. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS Issue 1
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
ENTREPRENEUR
ESSENTIALS
the first steps
18-Sept-2017
LAY YOUR STARTUP’S FOUNDATION, AS STRONG AND SOON AS POSSIBLE STARTUPIEG | IDEA TO EXECUTION AND GROWTH
Introduction
This article discusses about the essential steps to be followed by an Entrepreneur in today’s world to keep up with competition while utilizing the latest
methods, platforms and technology currently available in the market.
It’s common for idea persons to come up with an idea and immediately start working on it. While it is not all a bad approach, one will miss several great
outcomes which could be achieved by laying out a strong foundation for their startup. What an Entrepreneur must do is, understand the startup process,
tools, and techniques, and follow the best practices based on the relevance with their idea(s). The following sections will answer the What, Why, When,
Who and How with respect to each topic and the article will be published in multiple parts to cover each topic in detailed.
 Personal SWOT Analysis
 Customer Personas
 Customer Empathy Maps
 Value Proposition Canvas
 Business Model Canvas
 Brand Worksheet
 Message Maps
 Pitch Deck
 Business Plan
know Yourself, get Enlightened
It's certain that everybody knows who they are with respect to their character, personality and how they feel about one's self. It's also good to do a
personal analysis occasionally to know ourselves better and identify any areas of improvement, whether it's personal or professional or both.
Entrepreneur Essentials in today’s world
by P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach, raghavendra.philkana@gmail.com

2. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 2
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
There is a simple straightforward approach for self-analysis called the Personal SWOT Analysis. In this we work deeply on our core Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It takes very less time to do self-analysis, typically between 10 to 15 minutes, but one can always work on their
SWOT template for as deeply as he or she want to know about him/her self.
Who needs a Personal SWOT Analysis?
It is useful for everyone, a parent, a student, an employee or working professional and especially for startup founders and other core team members,
business owners and people in leadership roles. We can do this exercise along with our life partner or team members at work. We do the self-analysis
and ask others to fill the same about us, and then compare both version. Real fun begins now.
profile your Customers
Usually, aspiring entrepreneurs and/or idea persons broadly categorize their customer segments a.k.a. the target audience and use generalized
statements while describing them. Instead they could finely categorize their target audience based on the best practices for customer segmentation.
That is when we profile your customers or create Customer Personas for each customer segment.
STARTUPS ARE ALL ABOUT CUSTOMERS, GET IT RIGHT
~SOONER THE BETTER~
What is a Customer Persona?
A Customer Persona is a representation of our potential customers based on our market research data. The factors to be considered while creating
personas, most commonly, are customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. It is always better to include as much information
or as detailed as possible, to get better insights.
Although, initially the customer personas are created based on one or more hypotheses, keep updating based on the data collected via qualitative and
quantitative market research.
great Solutions come from deep Customer Insights
Almost every time we got to buy a product or service, we do a lot of questioning in our mind. How useful this product or service is for me? Does it fulfill
my needs? Is it a need or just good to have? What value do I gain from it? Are there any other products or services that offer me the same solution for
my problems?
We must follow the same approach when we come up with a business idea. Once the personas are defined for each of the customer segments, we need
to dig deep and do a lot of questioning to understand our potential customers. What they do? How they think and feel? What are they looking for? And
what could make them feel life is better with? Capture all of your assumptions/hypotheses in the form of Customer Empathy Maps, test each
hypotheses and then iterate if needed. This kind of brainstorming helps us end up with great solutions for our future customers and a step closer to
serve them with a product or service that they really are looking for. This is how we can make sure that we handled the problem-solution fit in a right
way.
sell Value to customer, rather than a Product or Service
Every day, the buyers, potential customers are bombarded with so many products and services. It’s not an easy task for them to choose one of them.
Entrepreneurs must make buying an easy task for customers by promoting the value they provide instead of just projecting their products and services.
Why promote VALUE and not just products or services?
When we promote the value for customers, they can easily get to know if that product or service is what they need. They will get a clear picture of what
problems of theirs are we solving in form of our products and services. It makes their life easy and our startup more valuable. This is how we can make
sure that we stand out of crowd. This principle can also be applied in our personal or profession life.
When we work on Value Proposition Canvas,we will exactly knowwhat kind of solutions does solve the problems and needs of our potential customers.
Which is then we come up with great customer demanding products. With a clearly and deeply developed value proposition canvas, we ensure to attain
the product-market fit. The Value Proposition Canvas is like a connecting bridge between the Customer Empathy Maps and Business model Canvas,
everything must be in sync.

3. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 3
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
the Blueprint of a Business
For most of the enthusiastic aspiring entrepreneurs and idea persons, the immediate step after working on their idea is to develop a business plan. Even
many a times, when entrepreneurs and idea persons reach out to potential investors, the first question they have to face is “Do you have a Business
Plan?” This is one main reason why idea persons start working on a business plan in the very early stage itself and spend a lot of time developing it.
While it is not a bad idea to develop a business plan as a first step, it is so much beneficial to develop a Business Model first and define all aspects related
to our business idea. We need to identify and work on all major building block of our startup or small business and then dump it on the Business Model
Canvas. A business model canvas is the blueprint of a business which shows the 9 building blocks and is like a one-page business plan detailing end-to-
end about our startup or idea. This is always a better option to start with instead of working on the Business Plan right away.
When to work on Business Model Canvas?
We need to start working on our BM Canvas as soon as we can and before even investing any time or money in designing or developing our products or
services. Let us consider the example of a construction site. The Architect develops a blueprint first, during which they identify potential issues and
come up with the best design as possible with all the constraints and then the actual construction begins. It is never the other way around.
In the same way, before investing even little funds and time in developing our products, we must work on developing our Business Model Canvas. This
is when we dig deep and deep about each and every aspect of our business and avoid the quick failure of our startup.
Brand is the startup’s identity
Brand for people is what we are and for a startup it is what the startup is all about. Most people see Brand as just a name, may be with a tag line, WHICH
IT IS NOT. It is our story, the story of an individual or a startup. Brand is the IDENTITY that defines what we are, what our character is and what value
we bring in for others (customers in case of startups). Though time consuming, it is easy to build a great brand just by following 8 simple steps from the
Brand Worksheet.
The Brand worksheet helps us think beyond and above with our Brand Name, our Promise to customers, market Positioning statement, our Story,
define our Brand’s personality, colors and symbols (for logo and text) for visualizing our Brand, and it’s always better to keep competitor information
handy. The information that we fill in the brand worksheet willbe the basis or foundation for all our web content, marketing and sales materials, product
and/or service design and text published or released on any platform.
Pitch within seconds, make it simple and effective
When we try to communicate our message, it must be very simple and clear to reach out to our target audience. Message Maps is one tool that helps
us in achieving the same. It is the easiest and shortest way to present our Startup or Business Idea to our customers, investors and even within our
internal teams.
Overall it has 3 different steps, first being the One-Liner, followed by the 3 Key benefits and supporting statement for each benefit.
Where/When can we use Message Maps?
Message maps are particularly usefulto pitch our startup or business idea. The one-liner statement (of around 140 characters) can be used as a 15 second
pitch, followed by 3 or 4 key benefits for a 30 seconds pitch and a 1 minute or elevator pitch when we conclude the pitch with supporting statements.
The under a minute or Elevator pitches are what attract or grabs the attention of our potentials investors and customers. So, we need to make sure we
are well prepared with our message maps, to grab the right opportunity at the right time.
Pitch deck, the ice breaker
There are different times when we need to build a nice catchy pitch deck. It could be a Startup or Business pitch deck, or intended for potential investors
or early customers or it could be a marketing pitch deck.
Basically a Pitch Deck is a quick overview of our business or marketing plan used to present it during a face-to-face or online meetings with potential
investors, customers, partners and co-founders (or internal teams).
Most startup accelerator or funding platforms have their own version of pitch deck format with the same intent. We can find little differences in each of
them, but will be the same for most of the part. It doesn’t matter which format we follow, but crystal clear and easy to understand content in our
presentation does really matter.
Success Roadmap of a startup’s Journey
Whatever we do in our life, we do a little planning in the background, intentionally or unintentionally, before actually doing it just to the task easy and
life easier. The same is applicable in case of startups or businesses.

4. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 4
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
A Business Plan is a guide written by us (or our internal or external teams) laying out each step to be followed, including the business goals and
objectives, vision and mission statements, how to achieve them, what resources we need and what and how do we need to do and many other aspects
of our business, just in detailed.
The Business Plan document is an in depth extension of our Pitch Deck, Value Proposition Canvas and Business Model Canvas combined while
referencing the Customer Personas and Customer Empathy Maps. While writing the business plan, ensure that the content is in sync with the content
in Message Maps and our Brand Worksheet. How well we can develop a business plan depends on our sills and interests, in other words Personal
SWOT Analysis. So, they are all connected, the Entrepreneur Essentials.
Figure 1 Personal SWOT Analysis
Image courtesy: http://creately.com/blog/diagrams/personal-swot-analysis/
Figure 2 Customer Persona
Image courtesy: https://herahub.com/resources/how-to-create-buyer-personas/
REFERENCES

5. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 5
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
Figure 3 Customer Empathy Map
Image Courtesy: https://innvolve2014.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/customer-segments-empathy-maps/
Figure 4 Value Proposition Canvas
Image courtesy: https://www.scrumdesk.com/sample-how-build-product-part-1/start-crm-example-value-proposition-canvas-ii-2/

6. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 6
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
Figure 5 Business Model Canvas
Image courtesy: https://www.slideshare.net/ThiagoPaiva/business-model-instagram-if-they-start-to-sell-pictures
Figure 6 Brand Worksheet - Canvas
Image courtesy: my personal business

7. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 7
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
Figure 7 Message Map
Image courtesy: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/developmentofmessagemaps-120811035240-phpapp02/95/development-of-message-maps-7-
728.jpg?cbx3d1344657695
Figure 8 Pitch Deck
Image courtesy: https://www.pinterest.com/springfels/startup-pitch-decks/

8. ENTREPRENEUR ESSENTIALS THE FIRST STEPS | Issue 1 8
StartupIEG | Idea to Execution and Growth Article by: P.R, Entrepreneur and Business Coach
Figure 9 Business Plan
Image courtesy: https://www.liveplan.com/features/samples_and_examples