Page 136 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

Your Math Story 115

Although every venture will face its own unique set of challenges
and opportunities, strong strategies tend to have a few common
threads. First, a good strategy meets the challenge of customer acqui-
sition head on. How are you going to find customers, and how will
you guarantee sales success? I can’t think of anything more vital to a
young business. Second, strategy is about focus, which means saying
“no.” Don’t fall into the habit of picking up every shiny object that
appears along your path. Third, strategy drives, and is driven by, your
core identity. What is unique, unchangeable, non-negotiable, or inde-
structible about your business? What makes you you, and how does
this translate into a competitive advantage?

ESTIMATING CAPABILITIES AND RESOURCES – Once you have envi-
sioned how you will create and deliver your offering, you can broadly
estimate what capabilities, tools, systems, and other resources will be
required to set up and run the business. What will it take to launch your
business model? What basic building blocks will form the foundation of your
overall cost structure? This step is partly creative, like crafting and as-
sembling the pieces of a puzzle, and partly analytic, starting with
broad categories like talent, technology, or capital equipment, then
breaking those down into component parts. Your ability to accurately
estimate these requirements will depend on your business stage, the
maturity of your concept, your understanding of the market, and so
on. But be sure to sketch out, as clearly as you can, what will be
needed along what timelines to put your business model in place and
get your venture up and running.

As you think about how to bring your business model to life, push
yourself to understand and utilize the more innovative options avail-
able to you. Today’s entrepreneur can benefit from a mind-boggling
array of tools and systems to get things done, access customers, and
deliver offerings. You can build a global brand from your basement
and distribute new products across the world with the click of a
mouse. An example is the game-changing practice of crowdsourcing,
popularized by Jeff Howe’s book of the same name, allowing you to
build and test sophisticated products at unprecedented speed and
minimal cost.4

American Management Association • www.amanet.org