Well, before I will review the
last lecture of ‘How to Start a Startup’, I would like to give you the
opportunity to gain insight into the presentation and skype interview
with Sean Wise from the first lecture.
We
started the lecture with the question ‘Why to start a startup?’. To be clear
from the outset, this isn’t the best choice for work life balance. A startup
means a lot of work, especially for the CEO.
Making
money and being your own boss with flexible leisure time sounds good to you?
Then forget about the idea of a startup! You have not just a night dream about how to change the future, it also keeps you awake during the night. So start your startup now and make something people love!
The
idea of running a marathon is actually absurd . I mean you start with
hundreds or even thousands of people at point A and run 42.195 kilometers to
point B, what for?
Of course, for some
people it’s about the competition: Who’s the first? Who runs the most marathons?
And who gets the fame and the honour? For others it’s more about the experience
and reaching their personal goal, but many of them run the marathon for the first
time and they might get addicted as well. Furthermore it’s time-consuming and you are a
‘slave’ of your own mind. Nevertheless, that’s also what keeps you motivated,
because you wanna get through this challenge.
There
we got the commonality with an entrepreneur! On my last post, I already wrote about
2 out of the 4 most important areas to maximize the success of a startup. The
third one is EXECUTION! For the marathon runner I would say start running, same
for the entrepreneur. But it’s not just about starting, it’s more important how
to do it. You’ll never reach point B, the 42 kilometers if you just keep
running straight forward. There are two key question you should always ask
yourself to follow your strategy:
“One, can you figure out what to do and two, can you get it done”
Sam Altman
Regarding
"what to do", you should know the execution. But even more
interesting is the part "can you get it done". During the lecture we
talked quite a while about this topic and Bala figured out two main points:
Focus & Intensity!
Focus
on your goals: For your job it is the same like when you do sports. You will
have to repeat them over and over again, so that they get settled in your and
your running buddy's or employee's mind. In addition, a startup is running on
an extremely high intensity level during a certain time. If you can’t run on
this level, you are not ready for the marathon yet.
To put it in a nutshell, if
your business is not growing it is going to die!
To complete the four
areas, the last point is the ‘TEAM’– including investors, founders and employees. Actually the most
important question for all 3 categories is:
“Are they smart enough to get
things done, so that I would like spend time with these people?”
Sounds pretty easy - I
mean would you choose someone being your friend if you even don’t know him/her?
Of course not. You would start talking and communicating until you know the
person. Same in business - Make sure that you know the people who are willing
to join your startup.
“That’s probably why school or uni is one of the best places on earth to find a co-founder!”
Bala Kamallakharan
To sum it up, what I’ve
learned so far in 'How to Start a Startup': You’ve got an idea on your mind which keeps
you awake during the night? You figured out a product which people will love?
You sold your story and your vision to at least two investors who are willing
to support your startup and you convinced 2 to 3 co-founders who are able to
keep focusing under extreme pressure to reach the goal of your startup?
“So guess what? Launch your unicorn, because Life isn't a lottery ticket!”