the startup career guide

@robfitz

The Startup Career Guide

There’s a company missing here

today…

The plan

• Types of startups • 5-year career path • Tips to get started

Why bother starting a company?

Three types of startups

1. Scale 2. Reliability 3. Freedom

Scalable startupsAKA tech startups, hypergrowth startups

Scalable startups

Idea criteria: Potential for hypergrowth.

Getting paid: Sell the whole company and get rich.

Lifestyle: Consumes your life until you fail or sell it.

Investors: Yes.

Team: Small until start succeeding, then big fast.

What if it fails? Start the next one.

Learn

Is this a real problem?

Is this a real problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Learn

Does anybody

care at all?Is this a real

problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Learn

Confirm

Does anybody

care at all?Is this a real

problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Learn

Does anybody

care at all?Is this a real

problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Have I chosen

the correct

features?

ConfirmLearn

Does anybody

care at all?Is this a real

problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Have I chosen

the correct

features?

Will they actually use it?

ConfirmLearn

Does anybody

care at all?Is this a real

problem?

Do the market and budget

exist?

Have I chosen

the correct

features?

Can I get someone to pay for it?

Will they actually use it?

ConfirmLearn

Learn Confirm Grow

#1 killer of scalable startups?

#1 killer of scalable startups?

Premature scale: acting like a big company before you’re ready.

...

(this version of the graph originally from avc.com, I think)

The scalable startup journey

“Typical” funding path for tech startups

Sweat Equity: £0

Accelerator: £20-50k / team, prototype

Seed: £250k-1mm / product, some evidence that you’re succeeding

Series A: £1-5mm / more evidence

Series B: £3-15mm / traction

Reliable startupsAKA bootstrapped startups, SMEs

Question

Reliable startups

Idea criteria: Early profitability.

Getting paid: Generate profits, take dividends.

Lifestyle: Once it’s working, define processes, hire managers, and focus on what interests you.

Investors: Avoid them.

Team: Grows slowly & steadily over time.

What if it fails? Protect personal finances and then start the next one.

Freedom-oriented startups

AKA lifestyle businesses, artists, craftspeople, location independent

startups, micro ISVs

Freedom-oriented startups

Idea criteria: Enables your life goals.

Getting paid: Main benefits are non-financial.

Lifestyle: Start living the dream today.

Investors: No.

Team: Often just you, plus bare minimum help.

What if it fails? As long as you’re enjoying it, keep grinding away at it.

What do you need to get started?

Entrepreneurial resources

Insight: To build something people want, you must understand customers, market, partners.

Founder skills: Doing the core work, plus tech, sales, marketing, and design.

Cofounders: Others with founder skills who are aligned on goals and risk.

Surplus: You need either extra time or extra money to get started.

Paths to build the resources

Side projects

Freelancing

Apprenticing

Simplifying

Side projects

1. Making stuff 2. With other people 3. That you launch

The resources

Cofounders

Insight

Skills

Surplus

Paths to build them

Side projects

Apprenticing

Freelancing

Simplifying

The resources

Cofounders

Insight

Skills

Surplus

Paths to build them

Side projects

Apprenticing

Freelancing

Simplifying

Career entrepreneurship

Not all ideas are within your reach (yet).

As you do more stuff, you gain more resources.

Treat your first company like a stepping stone to get closer to where you want to be.

[Almost] final words of unsolicited advice

The point of working is so you don’t need to work any more.

The point of not working is to do whatever you most value instead.

Neither goal should need 50 years,so start building stuff.

—E. L. Doctorow

“It’s like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your

headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

The Startup Career GuideBook coming soon http://startupcareerguide.com @robfitz