Page 76 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

Founder Readiness 55

Founder readiness is the principle of bringing your absolute best
to your entrepreneurial effort, finding the best fit between your goals
and capabilities and the needs of your new venture. This means un-
derstanding what you bring to the business, as well as anticipating
what impact the business will have on you and the people you care
about. Although it’s true that founders shape startups, it’s also true
that startups shape founders. Your entrepreneurial role will test your
character and expose your strengths, weaknesses, desires, and fears.
Clarifying these issues at the start heightens your competitive advan-
tage and allows you to have your cake and eat it too: You can bring
rabid enthusiasm to your venture, doing what you do best and what
you love to do, while also having the confidence that you’ve consid-
ered and addressed the areas of greatest challenge and risk. From an
investor standpoint, the principle of founder readiness acknowledges
the critical nature of the talent in whom you are investing. How well
does the founder’s motivation and expertise match up with the needs
of the proposed venture?

You can improve your readiness to succeed as a startup founder
by undertaking five basic steps:

1. Clarify your reasons and your goals. Why are you doing this?
What do you hope to achieve?

2. Understand your entrepreneurial personality. Who are you?
What makes you tick?

3. Map your skills and experience. What can you do? What do
you know?

4. Leverage your relationships and resources. Who can help you?
What assets are available for your use?

5. Position yourself for high performance. Are you optimally po-
sitioned to bring your “A” game—your best effort, energy,
and performance?

In this section, The Fundamentals of Founder Readiness, I’ll fur-
ther explore each of these five areas. The framework mirrors a readi-
ness assessment process that I conduct with new clients to help them

American Management Association • www.amanet.org