Techworld Australia spoke to start-up veterans from Bigcommerce, RecruitLoop, ScibblePics and PushStart about their top tips for emerging start-ups.
1. Find great advisors/mentors or coaches to work with. You can learn faster if you have a team of people who've done what you want to do before and you shorten the learning curve and make less mistakes.
2. Build a great team . The people in your team are what make a great company. Keep them happy, engaged and treat them fairly.
3. Find a great co-founder you can work with for a long time. It helps to have someone on your side who understands completely what you're going through.
1. Be a painkiller, not a vitamin (ie, solve a real big problem).
2. Focus.
3. Done is better than perfect.
1. The main problem for new entrepreneurs is usually finding out what's important and what's a waste of time. They waste too much time doing the wrong thing. My number one piece of advice is to learn how to make quicker decisions. If the decision is low impact or reversible, just use your gut feel. If it's not reversible and high impact then ask your mentors what they would do and make a decision and then sleep on it.
2. Use checklists and lists. Buy a copy of the 'Start-up Owners Manual' by Steve Blank. It has lots of checklists in it.
3. Learn how to sell. Every founder should be able to sell their own product. If you can't do a quick stint working in cold call life insurance, go through their training and practice. Also, learn how to present and pitch. Toastmasters is good at this.
1. Think about whether or not you're really passionate about the problem you're trying to solve and if you're prepared for the massive struggle (and potentially rewards) ahead.
2. Talk to potential customers before you build a thing (see the Lean Startup/4 Steps to the Epiphany books/websites).
3. Commit to being action focused. There are two types of founders -- those that can get stuff done and those that can't. If you're the latter the journey probably isn't for you.
Follow Stephanie McDonald on Twitter: @stephmcdonald0
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