Overview
The Start Co. Starter’s Toolkit is designed to guide Startups in the early stages of development from the idea phase to the product success phase through the Startup Valley of Death. As a Startup it will often seem like the odds are against you, when you pursue your ideas, you burn through your precious time, money, and resources, it is no wonder that the average Startup founder fails 3.7 times before achieving some form of business success. By creating this toolkit, Start Co. is hoping that promising entrepreneurs will recognize how much work is necessary to put into their companies and themselves to achieve success. Founders will not be able to attain this success without growing on their own, without the aid of Start Co, and this pathway should teach entrepreneurs to be more self-sufficient.
4 D’s – Tool’s and Methods
The 4 D’s are the four stages of development, while not a comprehensive list, it points to solid first steps to establishing some staying power as a business. Entrepreneurs should be well-versed on their own companies stages of development before seeking out investment dollars or other late stage resources in order to gain trust and market knowledge to show how viable their business ideas really are. These methods are put in place because there are no shortcuts when it comes to achieving entrepreneurial success, but structure and planning will push your business forward while enforcing clearset goals.
D1: Founder Development
To attain Startup success the founder must continually aim to better themselves as a leader and entrepreneur. Their business cannot stagnate and that means they must equip themselves with skills for forging strong ideas. They must be well-versed in their business topic and the industry, prepared to answer questions to customers and investors, and continually research to be as familiar as possible with the potential obstacles and opportunities that will meet them. Through secondary research, the entrepreneur will be able to have a better base to complete their primary research. The goal of this research is the discovery of the problems your customers face while skewing them away from the problem the entrepreneur is trying to solve. The Startup will not be feasible without the founder having some form of expertise or strength in the field they will be entering. There is plenty to consider as the founder of a new Startup, so in this stage of development it benefits both the entrepreneur and the business to look at the idea from a macro perspective to decide on how they will build for the future.
D2: Customer Discovery
As the founder advances not only themselves, but also their Startup, they have to bring in what will actually allow them to grow as a business: the customer. By utilizing customer relationship management and project management tools, they can begin to hypothesize about what actual consumer needs and market segments are their targets as a business. Data management with customer responses and contact information will begin to play a pivotal role in receiving feedback to learn to better your ideas and gain intuition into how this product or service is perceived by the user. Upon receiving this feedback, the founder should consider the final assets that they will need to have to go in front of investors, noting that a formalized pitch is not yet required, but it is always beneficial to be ahead in your planning.
D3: Delivery
Once the founder has defined a solid plan for building the business, it is time to move towards development of the product or service from the prototypical stage to a minimal viable product eventually achieving something that customers would be willing to pay for. This is done through iterations, as we say at Start Co. ITERATION TRUMPS PERFECTION. It is more important to repeatedly engage the consumer to build a product for their tastes, because this is what will bring you closer to perfection. Without interim prototypes, founders will often work for extended periods of time to find products that are out of touch with customer needs, unenlightened to the key features or complex needs that the customers would present with sufficient prototype experience. Iteration will get the product as close to perfect as possible with the least amount of time or stress about whether or not the customer will even find the product to be useful, because customers are often very willing to provide feedback in order to get a better product or service for their own usage. Proof of concept is the most important factor to find this need, it will gauge appeal, find if the product will deliver value to the customer and to the investor, showcase that value, and protect the founder’s intellectual property. Eventually through this iteration customers will no longer have to provide feedback but rather ask about when the product will be finalized for open usage. These iterations should continue, development can not stop during this delivery phase, building a loyal customer base and allowing further feedback which will form a stronger product.
D4: Dollars
This stage is the culmination of all the other steps above, proving that the business has a favorable reception amongst customers with a product or service that is not only within reach, but will also be used. The business model should be put together and the founder is ready to start operating as an established business. It now becomes time to focus on mitigating risks, and instituting a branding and marketing strategy to work against competition.
Summary
Starting your business is undoubtedly an intimidating task requiring plenty of investments of resources, however, through thorough research and planning, a founder can position themselves for success. The worst mistake for a potential entrepreneur to make is to go through the process alone, without feedback or aid, and expecting a miraculously perfect product to emerge at the end of their journey. Iteration will always trump perfection, and it’s the quickest way to make a viable product which will breed a profitable business. There are no shortcuts to success, but there are keys.