Thoughts on Startups - Especially in Todays Economy

Where to start?

Try this analogy. Have you ever seen a house that probably started as a small starter home and was expanded as the owners either earned more income or added children? Most of these homes are probably functional, not optimal and certainly not pretty. This is how most companies grow - organically. You start with a basic need and build what is demanded next. Usually functional but shortly the structure just doesn't work for the long term.

What if the house was first built with expansion in mind? Built with fore thought so nothing needs to be redone like moving a bathroom or breaking the slab and digging a basement. This is possible in home construction and an imperative for growing a company.

What is the foundation for startup companies?

Today we will cover What, tomorrow the How.

What
Research

• Understand Economic Trends (economic stage - contraction, trough, expansion, or peak - each has it's own demands and corresponding best practices)
  
• Market Research (based on economic stage - impact on your industry)
  
• Identify Best Customers (based on economic stage - impact on potential industries/customers with the highest economic return with needs that match your offer)
  
• Competitor Research (based on economic stage - their response to the economy and the nature of their offer)

Focus

• Clarity of Purpose (Brand and Strategy - when people think of your company - what image does it create in the customers mind; given the economic stage, competitor response and their brand image - which customers have the greatest need with available budget; which initiatives must you undertake and how are you going to align the organization to service those accounts )
  
• Role Models (Fake it till you make it - act like you are leading a major corporation from day one and make those practices part of everyone's daily habit)
  
• Distinguishing Mission Statement (Brand on the inside - clarity on what value you provide to whom and why it makes a difference)

Structure

• Rapid Response (what are the rules for dealing with customer issues - how will you satisfy their needs and deal with mistakes)
  
• Challenging Work (you need talent and can't pay for it - how do you make the job challenging and fun to compensate for low pay and long hours)
  
• Local Control (make sure people can do their jobs without micromanagement so you can focus on bigger issues)
• Technology (how are you going to manage the sales funnel and service accounts; usually the early application of some type of CRM, customer relationship management, software or platform to automate the process and reduce mistakes)
  

From our research on startups in Stage I - Dream to Plan, these 11 attributes are essential to opening your doors. Once you start selling it becomes very difficult to perform rework on the plane inflight.

Tomorrow we will cover the basics of how you quickly move from the dream to a winning plan and opening for business.

New Direction, Same Best Practices

Just a quick note to our readers. We have changed the focus of our blog dedicated to misc. ramblings from living in the corporate consulting world. We will continue to skewer stupidity when ever and where ever it is encountered, however dealing with the governments mismanagement of the economy requires we add economic insights to one of our blogs.

The current government induced economic contraction has forced us, like most businesses of our size, to change our focus from growth to survival. It doesn't change our underlying library of best practices, it only changes the application.

We are adding a new economic reporting business unit to provide you with the latest information to save your business, to save everything you have invested to date.

Tomorrow marks our new news unit.

Ciao and keep your head - we will win. Whenever entrepreneurs and government bullies tangle, entrepreneurs win! The reason, if they were as smart and dedicated to preserving wealth, they would not work for government. We can invent and therefore resist faster than they can legislate.