The Challenge of Being a Startup Founder?

Today I would like to give you my understanding of startups and the role that founder need to pursue in order to make them successful.

A startup is for me is really amalgamation of all sorts of assets. Team represents your best assets. Research and design can be great advantage and your company ability to sell may be a great asset. A bank loan or a equity investment represents a valuable connection with one of your best friends, the banker or the VC’s.

My idea of a business is that it floats like a balloon in instable equilibrium pushed about by awfully nasty things. These things are raw material, new processes, technical evaluation, market demand and all types of events. We cannot measure or forecast these many forces, furthermore, their relative strength varies sharply from one time to another, try to image the picture of this balloon being pushed and tossed about by these many pressures constantly changing.

So what is our Job as Founders? First, we have to know what these forces are and we must try to dodge them and diminish their strength. We must be able to turn these forces around so that they act in our best interests rather than against our best interests rather than against us. Somehow we have to cut down part of their strength.

Secondly, we must determine a goal. This goal cannot be a fixed target but must appear as a zone. It is not a star in the sky but rather it is the direction in the sky towards which we must move. After we have set up this goal then we must create boundaries. Though our pattern towards the goal is a wavy line we cannot go beyond these boundaries. Sometimes a situation will come up forcing us outside of our boundaries. When this happens we must have our eyes open and realize that if we go outside of the original boundaries we must then set up a new goal. Suppose we were making web application in the range of 10-15L range. If we find that we cannot compete well in this market, we might start creating websites in the 2L class. However, when we do this we must realize that we are outside of our boundary and that we must work towards this new goal of creating cheaper websites for a very different market.

Thirdly, we must drive towards our goal. This effort is really the art of spending money so that we give each dollar a meaning. To do this we must be cost-conscious – find out what things should cost. Do not think of cost in terms of money, rather consider it in terms of effort or value.

Finally, we must find out what possibilities we have to reach the goal, We should find out what risks are involved in our effort towards it. We have to determine ways of checking our progress along the path. I do not want to give you the idea that we can weigh all the risks involved and then flip a coin to determine what we must do. One cannot arrive at decision that easily. After weighting all of these risks one still must determine the best course of action and then pursue it with courage and great determination.

Do You know what is the worst thing about startups? It is the uncertainty. With this concept of a balloon, I find that I am able to check the danger of uncertainty by knowing some of the forces which makes it disastrous. Remember Business is an art because nothing is ever certain, but for that reason founder are so much more important.

Success does not always come to a man because he is wise. If you look around you can find many people who have been successful in business who are not necessarily the most intelligent men, you meet. I am not sure why this is true, but it is a fact that some people are very lucky. Some entrepreneurs seem to generate good luck. I think that this results because they have an ability to be so keen that they can see an opportunity and then grab it. The superior entrepreneur, the winner, is the man who saw an opportunity when other people did not and then he did something about it. Lesser entrepreneur, looking at his success call it good luck.

Efforts takes much drive and push. It takes a tremendous desire to grow, to do things differently. One must feel this drive within you and try to develop an interest in those things that will give you the push you need for success. However, nothing is more tiring than professional driving. The best drivers are the once who is so relaxed that they people around him are not conscious of his drive. This drive must be genuine; it must help others to do better.

The outside forces that surrounds the balloon are worth studying because they form an atmosphere in which you must work. You must learn about these outside forces. You must determine what problems you will likely face, though I myself know that it is very hard to know what these problems might be.

The most difficult part of running your own startups will not be in solving problems. It will be in knowing which problems are most difficult and oftentimes in knowing where the most important problem are. Many able people can solve every problem that comes to them. They fail because they do not develop means of detecting the presence hidden problems and these may often be the most important.