Entrepreneurship Tips — Pre-Startup

Absolutely. That is called a “niche” and often is the intersection of a vertical market and application/problem. And even smaller is okay and sometimes an advantage in the beginning. Of course, you also need a vision and steps into larger markets. Generally, $1 billion minimum if you seek institutional capital, as they only invest in companies that can reach $100M in sales after 5–6 years. Even if your price point is $250 that’s a $12.5M market opportunity. Which may be enough to validate your product, tune it, prove your value proposition, price point, marketing, and sales economics to raise funding...

There are many commonly accepted principles about success that come up again and again like pursuing your passion (so work is fun, not a burden), focus on a clear mission (medium term) and vision (long-term) so you will focus and be immersed in the problem, the solution and the value you create for your customers. Long-term commitment and persistence are never optional, either.  But there is one principle that few people talk about that can be the foundation of all of these, which I will reveal in this article. My dad gave me the gift of the standard of hard...

In any startup company, EACH employee MUST wear many hats. In a large company, job specialization is the rule. However, job specialization does not make for a successful startup, as it requires too many people and both the costs and risks would greatly increase with the added levels of people and communication. It is a well-known fact that there are diminishing returns with each layer and additional employees on any project. This is even more pronounced in knowledge-intensive areas and professional services like software engineering and other knowledge and design-intensive areas.  (Read The Mythical Man-Month). In early-stage and smaller companies,...

Early-stage companies are the most fragile, have the least resources and the biggest challenges ahead of them.  Developing a new business is one of the biggest challenges in life and generally requires experience in at least five key disciplines (product/service development, finance, sales, marketing, and operations) to do well.   For a founder or entrepreneur and their team to be successful, they must have not only industry domain experience but all these skills available to design the business at both the strategic and tactical levels (a vision).  Taking all these disciplines into account and then allocating resources appropriately for the specific...

Venture capitalists are not known for their humility, so take note of the following confession: Venture capitalists are chickens. Compared to entrepreneurs, they're spectators in the great game of small business hardball. They would no sooner personally guarantee a corporate bank loan than they would jump off the cliffs of Acapulco. Contrary to popular opinion, however, they are not totally worthless - they work long hours, sift through more garbage than a trash collector, and have to get used to disappointing 99 entrepreneurs for everyone they please. They are veteran roller coaster riders, but never get used to those big...