Secrets to STARTUP SUCCESS

What Is in This Book and How to Use It

Part I of this book presents and explores its underlying premise: En­trepreneurial passion is a double-edged sword, bringing value as well as danger.

■ Chapter One explains what happens within and around a person who commits to the entrepreneurial leap. Why is the startup path so compelling to so many? What causes new founders to become emotionally attached to their ideas, to literally fall in love with their businesses?

■ Chapter Two introduces a central concept that every enthu­siastic entrepreneur should understand: The passion trap, a pattern in which new founders become blinded and con­strained by their emotional attachment to a business idea. You will learn the most common negative impacts of the pas­sion trap, and how it sneaks up on unsuspecting founders. I will map the core pattern of the passion trap, a reinforcing loop of ideas, actions, feedback, and interpretation. You will discover how common cognitive biases can sabotage entre­preneurial effectiveness and why some personality types are more susceptible than others. You will also find a list of early warning signs, helping you to flag symptoms of the passion trap when there is still time to counteract its effects.

Part II outlines and explores six principles to help you squeeze the most out of your passion, while not being trapped by it. When applied together, and with the right level of skill, these principles will dramatically improve your odds of new venture success.

1. Ready yourself as a founder. The premise of Chapter Three is that the most fundamental driver of your startup’s early success or failure is you. I will show you how to take an honest look at yourself as a founder; how to align your skills and your role with your venture goals; and how to purify your passion, taking it to a higher, healthier, more productive level.

2. Attach to the market, not to your idea. Passion is an inner phe-

Nomenon, but all healthy businesses are rooted outside the founder, in the marketplace. Chapter Four emphasizes the importance of a market orientation, and explains how market - oriented entrepreneurs do three things to ensure that their passion connects with ample opportunity: They obsessively emphasize the market; they strive to know their markets and core customers; and they execute on their market opportunity.

3. Ensure that your passion adds up. Most passionate entrepre­neurs develop rose-colored plans, over-estimating early sales and underestimating costs. Chapter Five explains the value of developing a clear, compelling math story. You will learn how to clearly articulate your business model and plan; how to think about profitability and returns; and how to ensure ample funding so that your venture has room to thrive.

4. Execute with focused flexibility. No amount of startup plan­ning can accurately predict the unexpected twists and turns imposed by reality. Chapter Six focuses on the importance of iteration and agility, allowing your venture to be shaped by market forces over time. You will learn the importance of testing and adapting your concept as early as possible, iter­ating rapidly, and continually improving the fit between your big idea and the marketplace.

5. Cultivate integrity of communication. Passionate commitment to an idea can breed reality distortion. Too often, aspiring founders see what they want to see, dismissing uncomfortable facts and avoiding tough conversations. You can avoid these dangers by improving the quality of early-stage conversa­tions and setting a tone for truth-telling and healthy debate throughout your venture. Chapter Seven stresses skills es­sential for high-integrity communication, outlining four per­sonal attributes that will help you avoid living in a “feel-good bubble”: curiosity, humility, candor, and scrutiny.

6. Build stamina and staying power. In an immediate sense, most startups fail because they run out of money or time. Chapter

Eight offers strategies for strengthening and lengthening your new venture runway and for summoning the personal resilience and perseverance that will give your big idea plenty of time to thrive.

In the back of this book, two appendixes provide additional tools and resources to help you launch a successful venture:

■ Appendix A features a Startup Readiness Tool based on a set of assessment questions I use in my consulting work with new ventures. The questions will help you evaluate your ven­ture’s strengths and weaknesses. Are you on solid footing? Where will focused support and attention elevate your odds of success?

■ Appendix B includes a resource list of books, websites, blogs, articles, tools, and thought leaders, organized by chapter so that you can delve more deeply into areas where your ven­ture most needs shoring up.

I want to offer one final note on the founders and the storylines that I introduce on the first page of this book. I have included these cases because I know them well—having done advisory work with three of them and getting to know the fourth through an interview process—and also because they illustrate how passion can both ele­vate a venture’s performance and also limit or sabotage success. My intent is to present these stories in a way that is fair, accurate, and unvarnished, so that they represent both successes and failures rather than a romanticized or idealized portrait of the mythical perfect ven­ture. In fact, the further I progressed in the writing of this book, the more clearly I understood that it serves as a sermon to myself, re­minding me of my own blunders and my continuing vulnerability to make them again.

In this spirit, I encourage you to harvest the lessons from this book that are most relevant and applicable to your own goals and circum­stances. As I think about the teachers and books that have had the greatest positive effect on me, personally and professionally, I can point to lessons from each that have been indispensable, and also, for Each, I can point to aspects of their teachings that were not fully ap­plicable or useful to me. I urge you, as a founder, to be a student of yourself and your venture and to use this book as one of many tools in your learning process, creating an approach to entrepreneurship that works for you.

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