30 WeeksValues, Vision, Motivation, Dilemmas

Jen van der Meer

MOTIVATION

Why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this?More time

More money

Can’t work for other people

Social impact

Huge financial returns

Control over my own destiny

I want to have CEO in my title

Control over product, autonomy

No one looking over my shoulder

Freedom

I see a huge opportunity

Hungry to learn

Uber feminism - defining my own rules

I’m not employable

It’s my family business, my legacy

Environmental impact

I want to be a founder

No one would hire me

I am creating art / culture / music

What else?________________________

What is a startup? (according to 3 w.m.)

“A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” – Eric Ries

“A startup is a company designed to grow fast.” –Paul Graham. Y Combinator.

“A startup is a temporary organization designed formed to search for a scalable repeatable business model.” – Steve Blank.

“”Most startups change their business model multiple times. A scalable startup is a special class of startup – world class team, large vision, large target market, passionate belief and a reality distortion field.”

Motivation & Ambition

“The most important factor for business success was ambition with those firms starting out with high growth expectations performing most strongly. Indeed, motivations influence

business success mainly by driving differences in growth expectations, which in turn drive success.”

Entrepreneurship Understanding Motivations UK Survey 2015

Rich V. King Founders choices are straightforward: Do they want to be rich or king?

Few have been both. - Noam Wasserman

Fail Rich

King Exception

Well below potential Close to potentialLi

ttle

Com

plet

e

Con

trol

ove

r com

pany

Financial gains

The Founder’s Dilemma at HBR.org.

FUNDING PHILOSOPHY

Not every dollar is the same

Forms of FundingAngel

Incubators Venture

Customer-funded revenue SBIR Grants

Prizes and Other Grants Loans

Private Equity Corporate VC

The Wonders of Customer Revenue

It’s revenue! You need less capital! You can hire a team,

invest profits into product

Who + What

Custom Offer Scalable OfferLa

rge

Nee

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all m

arke

t

Cus

tom

er S

egm

ent

Value Proposition

Who + What

Eek High

potentialstartup

“Lifestyle”Begin here, cross the chasm

Custom Offer Scalable OfferLa

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Nee

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all m

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Cus

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Value Proposition

10X

Vision

Vision is long term - think Visionary. Someone who sees the world in the future, and can describe a future they are working to create. A visionary founder speaks with confidence and optimism about what they want their business to become.

Vision

You’ll attract co-founders, and early customers, and your first employees, and investors with your vision - your world view. The bigger and clearer and more compelling your vision is, the better you’ll be able to attract these people.

Take a deep breath“I will get the money and customers and resources and people I need to build this business.” Then take about 10 very deep, very big breaths, and repeat that phrase a few times.

Now assuming that this statement is true - what does the world look like 1 year from now? Describe what has happened in your company.

Now what does the world look like 5 years from now?

10 years from now?

What is the future you are creating?

Did you describe technical achievements? Fundraising milestones? Did you describe how this vision was connected to you - your energy, your contribution?

Give it more details and rich color - what do you want to feel, create, how do you want your business to connect with the world.

Get more specific. What cities have you reached? How many people have you reached? What new kinds of customers have you found?

How have you changed the culture? How have you delivered impact?

Scale

Impact. Scale. Envisioning Big Outcomes. If it is clear enough and compelling enough AND BIG ENOUGH it will attract the SCALE AND IMPACT-SEEKING people and resources (VCs, angels, future partners and team members)

What does it mean to seek a 10x return?

Unicorn question

How pissed would you be if some other company was anointed the chosen one? And blew you out of the water?

Yesterday news broke of General Motor’s acquisition of Sidecar assets. Why the sale? In short, we were forced to shut down operations and sell. We were unable to compete against Uber, a company that raised more capital than any other in history and is infamous for its anti-competitive behavior. The legacy of Sidecar is that we out-innovated Uber but still failed to win the market. We failed — for the most part — because Uber is willing to win at any cost and they have practically limitless capital to do it. Sunil Paul, Founder, Sidecar Jan 20, 2016 Medium (Post Mortem)

How fast?

My current user base of _______ would be on track to grow to ____________ in 5 years to be considered worthy of growth investment (VC, angel) today.

What kinds of returns?

Now multiply by 10.

(the impact you’ll achieve. the money you’ll need).

And again.

x10.

Values

Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions

Customer Relationships

Channels

Revenue StreamsCost Structures

Key Resources Key Channels

Customer Segments

Are your assumptions still the same?

Purpose of Why We Search While you are here…

Learning how helpful humans are when you ask them.

Run through the exercise of seeing how you could achieve scale.

Defining a hidden unmet need, and a scalable solution.

Uncover your blinders, limiting beliefs, and see how big you can think.

Realize you can’t really control for anything, so follow the water around the rock.

The Conscious Pivot

What’s encouraged: find the biggest business model potential, scale and win ($$$$$)

What may make sense for you: figure out your values, and keep one foot firmly planted on the ground in those values. Pivot to the place where the business model fuels your values, and vision.