Archive for the ‘Tips & Advice’ Category
Seven Golden Rules For Startups & Entrepreneurs
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 19, 2008 – 9:58 pm |
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I thought I’d try a fun little experiment and throw out the following question on Twitter:
“If you were to choose one golden rule for startups and entrepreneurs, what would it be?”
and then see what everyone’s feedback would be and share it over here with you all.
Here are the first seven replies I got:
- Always have fun #
- Read Guy Kawasaki’s the Art of the Start, and his upcoming book Reality Check #
- A startup’s job isn’t to save money, it’s to invest as much in the business intelligently as you can so that the gamble will pay off #
- Creating customer personas to narrow down your target market which would also help your business plan #
- Be different #
- Business is not about ideas, it’s about initiatives #
- Do not reinvent the wheel #
Thanks to everyone who replied, sending in their golden rules, and helping create this post.
Please do add to the list and enrich it by sharing your golden rules in the comments section.
On Going The Extra Mile
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 17, 2008 – 8:29 pm | View Comments
Study And Listen To Reactions To Your Product
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 7, 2008 – 4:47 pm | View Comments
Simplicity, Value And Quality
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 1, 2008 – 11:47 am | View Comments
Why Startups Fail
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 24, 2008 – 6:55 pm | View Comments
David Feinleib from venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures recently published a great post about why some startups fail. He answers that they fail because they run out of money.
But then he develops it a bit further, listing a number of points that get them there. In this post, I’ll be quickly listing them here with my thoughts on each one, and then let you read the details over on his blog.
The main reasons he mentions are the following:
- They spend too much on sales and marketing before they’re ready: I couldn’t agree more with this point, many people launch with a half-baked product, mainly in an attempt to be the first-to-market with the idea, and they start promoting the product heavily and sending out people to sell, when the product wasn’t ready enough to be sold.
- The startup doesn’t move fast enough and is outpaced by the market: This is very true too, it’s somehow the opposite of the first point, where the startup takes too long to launch their product, or they fail to keep up with the market developments; it’s a very thin line and big balancing act.
- The entrepreneur behind is unable to take the idea and transform it into a well defined product: Whether we like it or not, not everyone who launches a startup is an entrepeneur and has the necessary energy and commitment to make it work.
- The market takes too long to develop: This is a risk every entrepreneur who launches a new idea faces; the idea might be perfectly awesome, but still it might take just a bit more to develop than the startup is able to hold on; leaving the big win for someone else who launches later on or for someone who can manage to hold on that bit longer.
- Risky Business: Well every business has a percentage of risk built in to it, some more than others, and depending on how much research and planning went into it; In the end it’s really up to the investor to decide how much risk he is willing to take.
Read the full post here: Why Startups Fail
On Following The Traditional Path
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 23, 2008 – 10:20 am | View Comments
Momentum In Continued Improvement & Delivery Of Results
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 17, 2008 – 10:54 pm | View Comments
Paul Graham’s Six Principles For Making New Things
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 9, 2008 – 5:41 pm | View Comments
Pixar’s Brad Bird On Achieving The Impossible
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 4, 2008 – 9:13 pm | View Comments
Don’t Start A Startup, Start A Business
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 2, 2008 – 7:19 pm | View Comments
Jason Fried, from 37signals, wrote a great post last week on Signal vs. Noise, titled Start a business, not a startup, in which he talks about the importance of handling a startup as the business it is supposed to be, and the obvious rule that any business needs to generate revenue to live on and grow.
From the moment they go live, startups are as real as any other business. They are governed by the same set of market forces and economic precepts that wrap around every other company, new or old.
At the atomic level, all businesses need to generate revenue to pay their bills, grow their business, and stay in business. The sooner they find themselves in the black, the better chance they’ll have to survive.
[...]
A poorly run startup is a poorly run business. A wonderfully run startup is a wonderfully run business. I don’t believe there are many great startups that are bad businesses. Maybe less than 1%. If the business is bad the startup is bad. A great idea, maybe, but a great business, no.
So if you start something up, start a business, don’t start a startup.
– Jason Fried; Start a business, not a startup
I think this is very important in an age where the speed and ease of getting things off the ground makes many people overlook or delay the very crucial business planning part of building their startup; while some others have a business goal as simple as being acquired by X or Y of the giant companies.
Some of what’s going on nowadays reminds me a bit of the first internet bubble, when everyone launched startups covering every imaginable idea with no business model whatsoever, aiming to cash out with an IPO. Now it’s no longer IPOs they’re after but acquisitions by bigger players. That will come to an end too, as those big players start considering how they are going to fit those startups into their bigger picture and make more money out of them.
Another thing to consider is that even if you’re after someone acquiring your startup, you’ll certainly have better chances of getting a better deal if your startup actually generates money and will bring an extra financial value to them.
