6 Secrets to Startup Success

by Bradberry, John; Slim, Pamela

• ISBN13: 9780814416068
• ISBN10: 0814416063
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-20
• Publisher: Amacom Books

Summary

Over six million Americans start businesses every year. That's 11 startups a minute launched by passionate dreamers hop ing to transform their lives for the better. But a huge gap exists between the skyrocketing levels of desire and what entrepreneurs actually achieve. The harsh reality is that most new businesses fail within a few years of launch. Why do so few startups make it? And what distinguishes those that do succeed? Entrepreneur, consultant, and investor John Bradberry set out to discover the answer and came to a surprising conclusion, that the passion that drives and energizes so many founders is also the very thing that leads many of them astray. Filled with compelling real-life stories of both success and failure, this groundbreaking book reveals the key principles entre pre neurs must follow to ensure their big idea is on the right track. In 6 Secrets to Startup Success, readers will learn how to: * Convert their passion into economic value with a moneymaking business model* Improve their readiness to launch and lead a new venture* Manage funding and cash flows* Chart a path to breakeven and beyond* Avoid the pitfalls that often accompany unfettered passion* Build the stamina needed to persevere over time Complete with indispensable tools including an assessment to gauge a venture's strengths and weaknesses, 6 Secrets to Startup Success will help entrepreneurs everywhere turn their dreams into reality.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. v
Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. xi
Entrepreneurial Passion: a Double-Edged Sword
True Believers: Why Founders Fall in Love with Their Ideas	p. 3
The Sparks of Entrepreneurial Ambition
Fanning the Flames of Commitment
If You Build It, Will They Come?
The Passion Trap: How Attachment to Your Idea Can Sabotage Your Startup	p. 23
What Is the Passion Trap?
The Damage Done: Six Negative Impacts of Entrepreneurial Passion
The Core Pattern: How the Passion Trap Works
Icarus Qualities: Who Is Most Vulnerable to the Passion Trap?
Early Warning Signs: Are You in Danger of Being Trapped?
Moving Forward: Six Principles for Making the Most of Entrepreneurial Passion
Your Foundation: Six Principles for Launching a Can't-Miss Startup
Founder Readiness: How to Prepare for the Entrepreneurial Journey	p. 51
The Fundamentals of Founder Readiness
Purifying Your Entrepreneurial Passion
The Pull of the Market: Attach to Your Customer, Not to Your Idea	p. 81
Developing a Strong Market Orientation
Antidote to the Passion Trap: Give Your Idea a Market Scrub
Your Math Story: Charting a Path to Breakeven and Beyond	p. 103
Planning Is Clear Thinking
Constructing a Compelling Math Story
Securing the Right Funding
Startup Agility: Executing with Focused Flexibility	p. 125
The Paradox of Strong Execution
The New Venture Learning Curve
Integrity of Communication: Your Secret Startup Weapon	p. 149
No One Is Immune to Reality Distortion
Integrity of Communication: The Basics
Four Personal Tools for Bursting the Feel-Good Bubble
Staying Power: Give Your Venture Time to Take Flight	p. 169
Venture-Level Strategies: Strengthening and Lengthening Your Runway
Founder-Level Strategies: Performing and Persevering over Time
Startup Readiness Tool	p. 191
Resources and Readings	p. 207
Notes	p. 215
Index	p. 227
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The purpose of this book is to dramatically improve your odds of entrepreneurial success and enjoyment whether you aim to build a thousand-person venture or a solo consulting practice. It springs from my quest to understand what differentiates successful ventures from the large percentage of startups that disappoint.

In 2007, I set aside my work with large corporate clients to undertake a study of entrepreneurial success factors and work exclusively 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 ventures—principles such as understand your market, know your numbers, 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 entrepreneurs fail to take care of the basics? Why do extremely smart people 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 failure 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, commitment, certainty, and faith—these are the forces that animate a new business and fuel and sustain entrepreneurs through the ups and downs of the new venture pathway. Each of these qualities, however, when magnified or misdirected, can lead to unhealthy business behaviors— to rose-colored forecasts, to unwise commitments, to inflexibility in the face of new data, or to a catastrophically bad fit between a founder’s skill set and the needs of the new business.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The good news is that you, as a founder, do not have to choose between passion and reason. You can do what you love and put the full force of your commitment behind your idea, while successfully navigating well-known startup challenges and minimizing inherent risks. This book is designed to help you do just that.