Page 89 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

68 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

9 General technology skills and knowledge

9 Networking and developing business relationships

9 Effective communication and public speaking

9 Interacting with and influencing senior executives

Whatever your skill set, identify significant gaps between your
own capabilities and what your venture will require, and ask yourself:
Who has the necessary skills that I’m missing? Who might bring the pattern
recognition that I don’t possess?

PAST ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE – Many successful startups are
launched by founders who have learned from prior entrepreneurial
efforts, and a range of experiences qualify—being a member of a
startup team, for example, or launching a new venture within a larger
company. Both J.C. Faulkner and Mark Kahn started small businesses
during college (a pizza parlor and a storage service, respectively). Al-
though dealing with fewer zeros than in their later attempts, they
gained invaluable experience for the future. Also, they both worked
with or ran new ventures within their employer companies prior to
making their startup leaps. When it comes to prior startup experi-
ence, success or failure is less important than the experience of going
out on a limb, with something significant at stake, and making deci-
sions in highly uncertain environments.

ADVERSITY – What have been your toughest challenges, professionally and per-
sonally? How did you handle them? What did you learn from them and how
might these lessons apply to your new venture? Answers to questions like
these can build your confidence and prepare you for the most chal-
lenging moments to come along your startup path.

Chris Holden continued to watch with interest as his former em-
ployee, Mark Kahn, built a series of specialized websites on the wild-
west Web of the late 1990s. He recalls Mark’s entrepreneurial
adventure:

“He used his casino winnings to pull his team together, with no
pay, and got the thing ready for prime time. One year into it, at the
height of the dot-com bubble, he signed a deal with Martha Stewart’s

American Management Association • www.amanet.org