Page 15 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

xiv 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

dertake a study of entrepreneurial success factors and work exclu-
sively with early-stage companies, in which I took an ownership stake.
I had solid experience to draw upon, having launched a successful
consulting business, helped a favorite client turn a blank sheet of paper
into a $100 million company, and worked to improve the performance
of scores of management teams and a thousand executives over two
decades.

As I closely studied the entrepreneurial process, I came to under-
stand that the “secrets” of startup success are not so secret, and not
difficult to grasp. The fundamentals that distinguish healthy ven-
tures—principles such as understand your market, know your num-
bers, get adequate funding, stay flexible, and manage by fact rather
than assumption—are well understood by shopkeepers all over the
world. But for some reason, many entrepreneurs overlook one or more
of these fundamentals, severely undercutting their odds of success.

So I turned to a deeper set of questions: Why do so many entre-
preneurs fail to take care of the basics? Why do extremely smart peo-
ple rush to risk everything on untested business ideas? Why do so
many founders underestimate their money needs, adopt pie-in-the-
sky sales projections, or miss early signs that things are off track?

Most ventures are driven by passion and belief. Most fail.

Taken together, these statements are hard to reconcile, until we
consider the possibility that entrepreneurial passion and startup fail-
ure are somehow tightly linked. Could the legendary commitment
that drives and energizes so many entrepreneurs be the very thing
that leads many of them astray? The more closely I observed the early
challenges and choices of would-be business owners, the more clearly
I understood how passion plays a powerful and central role in venture
success and failure.

Drive, determination, fire, belief, optimism, courage, confidence, commit-
ment, certainty, and faith—these are the forces that animate a new busi-

American Management Association • www.amanet.org