The journey from an idea, to a product and to a sustainable business: My presentation at GLC 2014, Nantes, France

1. Global Leadership Conference
Association of MBAs
Audencia Nantes, France
6-9 February 2014

2. Create!
From concept/idea to product and from
product to business
Dimitris Tsigos
www.linkedin.com/in/tsigos
President, YES – European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs
www.yes.be

3. Questions & Decisions
• Why
• What
• How

4. Why?
• Maximize income, wealth
• Catch the wave (ride the bubble?)
• Create an organization larger than &
independent from you
• A way of living

5. Entrepreneurships Vs
Business

6. Sustainability Vs Domination
From pyramids to pancakes
© Josephine Green
http://futures.research.southwales.ac.uk/people/josephine/

7. What?
• “I want to startup, I just don’t know what to
do”
• It doesn’t really matter!
• Prerequisite is simply to like it

8. Must-have Vs Nice-to-have

9. Creative copying 
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what
they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood

10. How?
• Here’s where the great misunderstanding
is
• The “garage s/w” model does not really
work
• Thin & lean is the way to go
• Management should be in the startup’s

11. Reasons to fail
• Most of the failed startups lacked
management skills and capacity
• Founders should never underestimate the
necessity for management skills &
processes
• Founders often hesitate to add
management skills to the team

12. The management leap
• Many startups fail to make the leap from
1M to 5M in revenues
• Failure to introduce management structure
• The most difficult change a company has
to manage in its early years

13. A startup is …
• …an innovative, creating, dynamic,
aiming-to-grow…
• …BUSINESS!
• It then should be always run as a proper
business
• Tools, techniques, methodologies
• As lean as possible, but not more.

14. Thank you 