20 things only successful startup founders know

"If your startup you got so intrigued that you do not sleep and socialize, then you are on something."


Theto success Startup becomes fast from the new American dream. The founder of Plucky - with a garage, a few dollars and the head full of dreams - stand out to create something that the world did not even know that he needed first place. But all of a sudden, we can not live without her. Cue the covers of fame, fortune and magazine.

However, reality is generally not contested. In fact, as we have discovered, melting a startup requires pain, uncertainty and lots and many stranded ideas. We spoke with many of the well-known founders who were in the technological trenches themselves (companies such as Hoteltonight, WhitchiFin, Greenpal, etc.), who emerged victorious after and know exactly what it takes to succeed. . So, read it, and for more career tips, discoverThe 25 ways in which the most intelligent men become before to work.

1
Your instinct could be wrong

Business Leader, Startup
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Launch of a successful startup is less at the moment "A-ha", and more about what comes after - the test slog and error error. "Your initial instinct, no matter what strength, often badly," says Jeff Gothef, a speaker and a co-author ofSense & Reply: How prosperous organizations listen to customers and create new productswho led the UX design teams to theladders andWeb trends. "Although the problem of the resolution can be real, the solutions you are considering first for these problems are usually false."

Those who have undergone the startup process of a company know how to trust the confidence of their instincts - and not to take it personally when they make a bad call. After all,By taking things personally, it's just one of the many things that a man should give up his 40s.

2
You are not the first

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There is never need to reinvent the wheel. "Someone tried the thing you do and probably wrote about it or shared their experience somewhere," said Gotheff. "The startup community is filled with the generous experience and insight of previous founders."

Start-up founders know that being first is much less valuable than being willing to learn from those who have come before. This means looking for books, blogs, podcasts, interviews, YouTube videos, and even FaceTime with other people who have followed a path you would like to go down to "understand what worked and has not For them before making the same mistakes they did, "as Gothef says. For more good advice, read about the experiences of famous leaders and businessmen such asMark Cuban.

3
Once you started, you do not stop

Businessman checking his smartphone

Once you have reached this entrepreneurial highway, it's hard to find an off-ramp ramp. "There is no real point on which you stop upside down," said Samar Birwadker, CEO and founder of the work platform and networking platformGood & Co. He describes how much he originally had the idea that once "successes" has been reached, things have calmed down and that the founder has given responsibilities and kicked while all the world works. It did not take place. Even after building Good & Co. and the shepherd through a successful acquisition of private market specialistSteps, Birwadker does not move away.

"My company account so much for me that I repeat so much energy in now, with more than 50 employees, as I did in its nascent stages at Techstars." It can mean the week-end time, so make sure you know you knowHow to do properly.

4
But know when loosening your handle

Businessman notepad desk

Working hard does not mean microsestation. Birwadker says you have to loosen his grip as a balance of society. "Founders have trouble delegating and abandoning control, even at a time when it makes no sense for them to have a hand in everything, it's just the nature to go from a single business, two Or three people to have more than 50 employees, "he says. "The transition is difficult, but good founders will focus on making smart hiring decisions in order to trust the management capabilities of those below."

Those who do not learn this lesson, usually see their business fail. As personal as the organization could be for you, its success depends on this leaving your hands and others contributing to its expansion and elevation. Bonus: The delegation of your employees shows confidence in them, which isOne way to make sure you are not a bad boss.

5
Your team should ask forgiveness, not permission

Successful starters found that the most profitable results come from workers with a certain level of autonomy. "Give parameters, not permission," says Sam Shank, Founder and CEO ofHoteu, the platform for last minute hotel offers on the leading properties. "You will be amazed by the ability of each person to face the challenge, blow past targets and dig in ingenious solutions."

It points to the acquisition of the user of Hoteltonight, Brian Han, which launched a new partnership "turbocharged our reservations". "He understood and was on the right track with our profitability plan, so asking me that permission would have lost time and slow down the process," says Shank. "Give your team freedom and space to innovate and execute." Take an inspiration from Google,one of the most innovative companies there.

6
Build a business means building a culture

As a starter founder, you want to create an excellent product, an effective team and maintain your costs. But you soon learn that you also build something else: a culture. And the decisions you make will have an impact on all aspects of your organization and will make its success.

As he guided the Hoteltonight in a force majeure, the stem is perhaps the most proud of the culture of society. "I have to build the type of business I wanted to work from the earth," he says, showing his plan with free water with long tables where everyone is sitting, the office bar and benefits Like treaty meals, HotelTonight credits and unlimited holidays. "[We take] a lot of care in the hiring process, which means that we always recruit amazing people and allows them to be friends inside and outside the work." To make sure you build the best possible office culture, checkThese changing leadership strategies.

7
Friends are not always teammates

Two male coworkers

"There is a good balance with friends with your team and be the CEO and founder," says Ishveen Anand, CEO and founder of the athletic sponsorship platformOpensponsture. "For the first time, many founders use people of their age with whom they would usually be friends, but there is a balance to be maintained." Remember: Facebook's co-founders were friends who fell on the other, one ofmany interesting facts about the social network.

8
Define your audience

"The most difficult business lesson I learned was: do not spend years developing a product that does not have a separate customer base," says Ross Cohen, Cofounder of the control platform of backgroundSummerVerified.com. "I wish someone gave us this review earlier, but it may be one of those things you need to learn yourself. You have to feel the pain before appreciating it."

He describes how difficult it was for society to identify its market. They finally understood that consumer targeting (rather than the B2B on served market) would be the ideal approach. These are the types of questions that founders must answer, through market research or other methods. And for more leadership inspiration.These changing men's life lessons are super-successful.

9
Know your client-by name

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Just as a singer occurs better when they sing directly to an individual in the audience, a business leader does better when he has a specific customer in his mind. Appreciating the importance of having a clear picture of the type of person or companies who buy what you have to offer is another lesson that starters learn - not only in a demographic or geographical sense (although it is Good too), but in good sense. Entrepreneurs who start their own businesses have generally seen the demand for what they offer and think that their customers are not like a faceless group, but as specific people looking forward to buying what they need to sell.

10
Get your dirty hands

"As co-founder of a start-up, is not a single job that is never above or below you," says Cohen. "For a long time, my daily work was really only whatever we lacked resources that day. I did everything to design our website in Photoshop to encode our conversion funnels in HTML / CSS. Some days where I was the sales force and others, I was the customer support team. "It can help you motivate yourself by noting thatsome of the richest men in the world In this way, found their own startups.

11
Be prepared to lose friends

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Starting your own business can also alienate some people in your life - the founders of lesson startups have been observed personally. At the end of the day, creating a startup is a huge commitment. "The immediate family and close friends will always be favorable sharing social media, writing critics, using your product, bringing food to the office at midnight. But second-level friends, like your friends, do not simply understand work it takes to build something from scratch, "says Gene Caballero, CofounderGREENPAL, the "Uber of Lawn Care". "They can not understand why you can not catch a Happy Hour or take dinner on Tuesday because you have to work. Slowly but surely, these friends may stop asking and becoming simple knowledge."

During the four-year period, Caballero admits that many friendships he had before founding Greenpal turned out that way. As with any major change in a person's life, the creation of a startup is likely to affect his social life. And since the work can take care of your life, it would help to knowHow to conquer stress at work.

12
Without passion, success is unlikely

"Passion is everything when creating and starting," says Steve Carlton, founder ofInvite, an invitation service-via-text-messages. Carlton emphasizes that the functioning of a start-up can be "as exhilarating as it is exhausting" and each founder strikes a point in obtaining his project on the ground where they plan to give up or that members of Their team are struggling to maintain the interest of the project. Often, the only thing that pushes a project on these bumps is the excitement of the person at the head. It must be the motivator for everyone, including itself, and if passion is not there, it is difficult to pull it.

"If your startup you got so intrigued that you stop taking care of sleeping and socializing, then you are on something," says Carlton. "Something less means that you are more likely to give up instead of fighting. stronger when you are saved in a corner. "Stay passionate is also one of theRules that follow the successful entrepreneurs.

13
Do not marry your idea

But do not get a passion go too far. Remember that the success of starting is like the meeting: bring energy, passion and optimism, but do not talk about commitment before you know. "Never fall in love with what you thought you were the best idea. It may be and often is just not the best idea, "says Barry Henthorn, founder of reeltime.com, a video provider on the online application. "Do not worry where an idea comes from. Evaluate on the merits not originally."

Most startup founders have at least one couple, if not dozens, faulty startups behind them. The difference between those who fail quickly and spend the next project and those who vomit their hands are that successful guys are always another good idea around the corner.

14
There are infinite paths to success

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"Founders learn that there is an infinite number of paths for startup success," says Ariel Quinones, CofounderIronhack, a box coding with campuses in Miami, Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Paris. "You do not necessarily need to be a programmer, or an MBA, or a charismatic public speaker to build a successful startup. The only constant is passion."

15
The market does not worry about who you are

Jordan Français, Fast 50 Serial Contractor and Technology Journalist, says that in the technical world, more than any other sector, old bias and traditions have little interest when an idea is a winner. "The beauty of entrepreneurship is that no matter what you are looking for or where you are," says French. "The markets are refreshing selfless - and purely interested in whether, how and when your product or service works."

16
Better makes that perfect

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Carlton says that sometimes "good" is good enough. There are so many things that a juggling founder and so many decisions he takes in a given day or an hour, that to try to do everything exactly is not only unrealistic, it's dangerous for the success of the project. . There are always changes and improvements to a platform, but by delaying the deployment of it until it is impeccable, it will probably never see the daylight. "If you launch a new product or even a new feature, take the door as soon as possible, then let your customers guide you from there," says Carlton. "You will lose less time and your customers will be happier at the end."

17
It's good to be the little guy

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The quinones of Ironhack feel that being "the little guy" or that the outsidogue is a huge plus. "The advantage of being a smaller young business is that you can be extremely focused," he says. "A large company can have hundreds of products and customer segments in different markets. Meanwhile, a start-up can succeed with a focus on the needs of a customer type."

Quinones says it means that its brand, position, can all speak directly to the special needs of a targeted audience. "To successfully compete with larger players, startups must capture small and very targeted market segments that big guys do not know or are not aware," he adds.

18
You are who you are around

Entrepreneurs have a go-itone spirit, but for their startup in the upper levels require a large team - and the wrong team can lead to a disaster. This is a Lori lesson plays, founder and CEO of the application platform based on applicationsCheck, learned as she went from a qualified architect career to build her own business.

"The team is everything. I just wish someone told me the importance of having the right team that tears me," says Cheek, describing a first team mistake with two people with the same skill, who owned 20% equity in the company and created big problems. "The technical aspect of my company has been one of the main challenges I met and it is the only thing I have definitely addressed differently from the first day. I needed a CTO. Four years Later and a little more burst around equity, I found the missing link of all these years before who helped to facilitate and finance the new face and the new technology behind the new choice. "

19
Focus on the strategy as much as the product

"A good idea of ​​his own value is almost worthless," says Neil McLaren, owner and founder of Vaping.com. "It's not because you build it, it does not mean that they will come. In fact, if you build it and it's good, someone else will probably build something similar, and can -be better."

Remember that many successful startups are built more on successful marketing strategies than on perfect products. If you still have leadership questions, see if you can get the CEO of the American's Fittest, Strauss Zelnick to answer him in hisColumn of the best life.

20
Manage yourself is often the most difficult part

Succesful man, startup

The hardest part to succeed in getting a soil start and succeed is to control your own state of mind. "Management of your time, your mood, your state of mind, your emotions, your coherence, your energy, your health, your balance," is the most important concern for a founder, according to Ben Brooks, founder and CEO of technical startPILOT.

According to the quinones of Ironhack, even if the founders often have extensive confidence reserves in their ideas and power of their ideas, how they react to strike an obstacle will determine if things succeed or fail. "After a while, you must assess whether your initial beliefs have been validated or you simply swim against the current without progression," says quinones. "Navigate this delicate balance between being optimistic and grounded is particularly difficult for the founders."

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