A cheat sheet to turn your vision for a successful new business into a reality
Some of the most important things in life don't come with
instruction manuals: homes, spouses, kids, and start-ups are a few.
That's why I created this start-up road map. Inspired by the lean
approach often favored by today's tech entrepreneurs, the principles
apply to any industry.
1. Come up with an idea. Pick an idea that fits your passions,
goals, strengths, resources, and tolerance for risk. But keep in mind
that your initial idea is just a hypothesis. Don't fall in love with it
just yet.
2. Think through all angles. Evaluate the opportunity like an
investor would—in an objective, thorough, analytical way. Who are the
customers and what do they need? How big is the opportunity? Is the
timing right? What will it take to execute? Is the payoff worth the
risk? What's the business model? A rough business plan is a great way to
make sure you've covered all your bases. Here's a free tool you can use to make sure yours is comprehensive.
3. Get feedback. Find people who know the market, the business
model, the competitors and predecessors—people who have been there,
done that, and can help you understand what works and what doesn't in
the real world. Also, talk to customers—people in your core target
market—and find out what they think about your hypothesis. You'll learn
lots more once you get a product to market, but this initial research
will increase your chances of starting out on the right path.
4. Respond to feedback. Make any necessary changes to your business plan, product, and go-to-market strategy. Run some numbers
to get a sense of how much capital you'll need to reach key milestones.
Develop an implementation plan with your most important goals over the
next few months, and determine whom you need on your team to execute
that plan.
5. Build a basic product. When you envision the product or
service you ultimately want to offer, it probably has a slick design,
and a full set of features. Keep that ultimate vision on the back burner
for now. Instead, strip the concept down to the bare minimum offering
to address the needs of your core customers. Build that basic product as
quickly and inexpensively as you can.
6. Open shop. It's tempting to wait until your product is
'perfect' to start selling it. Instead, realize 'perfect is the enemy of
good enough'. Until your product is out in the market, you're flying
blind, spending time and money with a limited ability to learn how
customers react. Make a core product and get it to market quickly.
7. Test what you've created. With products in market, you can
figure out how to match your offerings with customer needs. To do that,
test elements like pricing, branding, features, and customer
experiences. Next, find a cost-effective, repeatable way to attract
customers by experimenting with marketing messages, promotions, sales
pitches, and distribution channels. Measure the results and draw
conclusions.
8. Make adjustments. Once you learn which aspects of your
product and marketing you got wrong, you'll want to fix them, of course.
But hopefully you will have gotten some things right, too, and you'll
want to leave those intact. To do both simultaneously, you'll tweak or
'pivot' your approach.
9. Get ready to grow. Revisit your business plan, and update
your product, team, marketing, implementation, and finance strategies.
Gather resources you'll need to expand. If you intend to raise capital,
this is a good time. Your pitch to investors now sounds something like,
'We figured out how to get new customers for $x, and make 3$x from each
one. With such and such amount of money, we can grow this big, this fast.' That's a winning pitch.
10. Stomp on the start-up accelerator. With a market-tested
plan and resources in place, it's time to expand. Make sure your team
knows and believes in where you're heading. Check that everyone
understands what's expected and that they have what they need to get it
done.
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