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What does it take to get to the top / The Startup Economy
" STARTUP" is no longer a passing stage. It is the constant state of business that determines success or failure.
Think startup and you think of a business at its most embryonic-an unpredictable and often chaotic time filled with big ideas and little money when scrappy entrepreneurs tinker endlessly with a new idea or product; work day and night; beg people to join their team; confront myriad problems and bugs; plead with poker-faced venture moneymen for enough cash to get it off the ground; and focus on that goal as if life itself depended on its success.
What does it take? What defines success for startups in this new era of startups?
The critical components of successful startups boil down to five symbiotic essentials - people, innovation, focus, speed, and equity. The magic of these five components isn't merely that each of them is a good thing to have or do-no news there. Instead, it is their form and mutually reinforcing combination that ultimately add up to the difference between having the business equivalent of a box of metal or a Saturn rocket.
1. PEOPLE. Yes, size matters-along with funding, a catchy name, great advertising, capital, technology, structure, partnerships. But people matter most. People matter for two reasons. First, they are the only unique differentiates among businesses today. Second, people breed, and like DNA, they breed in kind.
FIND GREAT PEOPLE, therein lies the ultimate mission of all startups: Get good people. Three kinds: employees, partners, and customers. Employees create and implement the value proposition of the business; they are the keystone of any new venture. Partners broaden both your reach and value proposition. And customers, of course, are the ultimate arbiters of a business's face.
2. INNOVATION. Dare to be different. Innovation is the feedstock of startups, surprise others before they surprise you. If you can-innovate, drop prices, launch a new service, speed delivery-you simply must.
3. FOCUS. Innovation brings a new value proposition to the table. Focus, however, is what brings it all to fruition.
4. SPEED. Get out in front and be ready to attack. There is no exit strategy for those who want to achieve lasting success. This is the endless race. Speed impresses customers; captures markets before, and hence without, challenge; and draws capital, which can be used to buy more speed, more innovation, more focus and specialization.
5. EQUITY. Equity is not only what startups use to lure people from incumbent businesses into your new franchise, it is what will retain them long enough to achieve some measure of success.
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