If you’re expecting to get inspired or motivated to build your startup after reading this blog, you should get the fu** out of here and go find something else to do for a change.
This is what it feels like to work on a startup, it SLAPS YOU IN THE FACE.
Actually not necessarily, I’d rather describe it as exciting and life changing. I’m someone who has been on both sides of the coin, a young entrepreneur who was living the dream and a startup mentor who supported young entrepreneurs convert their early stage ideas into startups, one thing I’ve definitely learned is that “YOUNG” does not have an added value to “ENTREPRENEUR”.
If you’re young and you were able to come up with this cool disruptive idea that will probably change the world in the next 10 years, good for you boi, but let me tell you something… There’s much more to it than just coming up with an idea.
To start things off, how about you validate your cool idea in the market, checking out if people are actually willing to use your product/service, and most importantly, PAY for it. Trust me when I say this, you don’t want to work on some product and realize 6 months later that you’re broke and your beloved product isn’t selling.
The basics of any business lie within what makes it special through the values you are proposing to your potential customers, AKA your UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION, AKA your startup’s core. In my mind, coming up with a UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION that sells will only get tougher as time passes. I’m saying that because everyday there are new values proposed to the market and your job as an entrepreneur is always be updated on that and most importantly TOP those values with your startup’s own.
Another note about working on startups is that people misunderstand working on startups as a messy incompetent environment which is not the case. For you to be a leader and an entrepreneur, the must-have traits in my opinion are self-motivation, task management, work organisation and trust. A startup is not a corporate enterprise, you don’t clock-in and out and you don’t work on a fancy desk. Saying that, you should be disciplined about delivering on your tasks that you set for yourself. That means you should be able to shift between PLANNING MODE and EXECUTION MODE. The way that worked for me is when I’m in PLANNING MODE, I open Asana (a project management system) and throw in all crazy end-goal ideas that we should reach by a certain due date, and branch out subtasks with due dates for each week and each day that would eventually lead me to reach my target if I meet my deadlines. After this, Asana puts together my daily tasks and BOOM, I’m never lost again and I’m always on track.
Make it very clear that as a startup you need to use technology within your operations to scale your business. If you’re still going to the bank to get bank statements and if your still heading to the post office to pay your bills you’re simply being inefficient. Such activities can easily be done online with 10% of the time spent. As an entrepreneur your biggest asset is time, you should be very careful about how you spend it.
More to come in the next blog. 🙂