the startup career guide
TRANSCRIPT
@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