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Five Questions to Ask Before Building a Startup
The document discusses five key questions to ask before building a startup: 1) What does success look like? 2) Who do we want to work with? 3) What do we want to create in the world? 4) What's our vision? 5) What are we willing to do to get there? It also outlines key elements for a startup like team, market, product, technology, and money. Finally, it shares advice from experts on important questions to consider such as founders' risk tolerance, how decisions will be made, and whether the product fills a real need.
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Five Questions to Ask Before Building a Startup
- 1. THE FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASKBEFORE BUILDING A STARTUP IAP 2014
- 2. WHO ARE WE ElliotCohen R. Colin Kennedy
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- 4. WHAT ARE WEDOING HERE? Understand how to build the right thing with the right people.
- 5. AGENDA o 2 typesof questions o Key elements for a startup o 5 key questions o What the experts think o Where to go next
- 6. 2 TYPES OFQUESTIONS
- 7. QUESTIONS YOU ASKYOURSELF
- 8. QUESTIONS YOU ASKOTHERS
- 9. AGENDA o 2 typesof questions o Key elements for a startup o 5 key questions o What the experts think o Where to go next
- 10. KEY ELEMENTS FORA STARTUP
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- 16. KEY ELEMENTS FORA STARTUP • • • • • Team Market Product Technology Money
- 17. AGENDA o 2 typesof questions o Key elements for a startup o 5 key questions o What the experts think o Where to go next
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- 19. WHAT DOES SUCCESSLOOK LIKE?
- 20. WHO DO WEWANT TO WORK WITH?
- 21. WHAT DO WEWANT TO CREATE IN THE WORLD?
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- 23. WHAT ARE WEWILLING TO DO TO GET THERE?
- 24. 5 KEY QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Whatdoes success look like? Who do we want to work with? What do we want to create in the world? What’s our vision? What are we willing to do to get there?
- 25. AGENDA o 2 typesof questions o Key elements for a startup o 5 key questions o What the experts think o Where to go next
- 26. WHAT THE EXPERTSTHINK
- 27. THE RESEARCH “What doyou wish you’d asked before starting a company?” Over 30 responses from serial entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, & first time Founders
- 28. How do youfunction when your feelings are hurt? Startups are more prone to hurt feelings and ego beatings than any place on earth. Can you still cope and do the job when your ego is bruised? Kai Gray Do my values and priorities in life align with the startup lifestyle?”… or rather, "Can my lifestyle sustain the startup 'thing'?” What does that really MEAN to each co-founder? Do they have any idea how HARD it is, how much they are going to have to hustle? Amanda von Goetz
- 29. What’s your relationship history? Becausewe are about to be married (seriously and I’ve been married for almost 10 years…) Dan Adams Think about the kind of work that they will be doing NOW and in 3 Years … is this person truly knowledgeable about a specific skill set necessary for your company? Are they a pair of hands? Gihan Amarasiriwardena
- 30. Have you foundone person this product will easily help? James Altucher What unique insight do you have for the specific problem you are solving? Why is that insight unique to you, and why do you believe that insight to be true/correct? Brett van Zuiden
- 31. How will theco-founders make decisions and resolve conflicts ? What are the biggest decisions you've had to work through so far ? The biggest controllable reason why startups fail is cofounder conflict: the founders don't figure out a way of dealing with decisions when they disagree. Drew Volpe If you learned tomorrow that the exact thing you've envisioned exists, how would you react? Would you run out and buy it? Would you try to join them? Double your resolve and try to outcompete them? Mark Soper
- 32. Who are allof the stakeholders here, and are we all on the same page? This includes founders, investors, advisor s, and it changes over time – so you have to revisit the conversation. Ty Danco What’s my risk profile, at my age? Should I be starting something vs. taking a secure paying job? What I didn't know is that the learning experience from being an entrepreneur will bring tremendous value to any future job I take. Alex Loijos
- 33. Which one ofus gets a boss first? ie: who doesn't scale. Set expectations up front, be on the same transparent page… and things might change obviously David Tisch Is this really the best use of your time right now? Delian Asparouhov
- 34. Is this ashotgun marriage? Get to know them first, do some collaboration together before becoming official and see how it feels. Jason Jacobs Do you really love our target customers or are they just bags of money? Taariq Lewis
- 35. How much dowe trust each other? Trust is super important. I wouldn't work with people I don't trust, can't confide in, or can't confide in me. You have to be able to have the hard conversations -- about each other, clients/customers, and employees. Jeremy Weiskotten Do you run toward or run away from uncertainty? My opinion is that the people who relish that uncertainty - those who view it as an opportunity to figure things out in ways others won't - are the ones who will thrive. Jason Shin
- 36. What part ofour plan are we each unwilling to change? Not all startups need to change their plans during the course of their evolution. Just the ones that want to survive and succeed. Having said that, there may be elements of the plan that you don’t want to change. Dharmesh Shah What can we do to test this now? There is always a way to test your value proposition. Unscalable is fine; just go out and try to sell your product before you build it! Will Whitney
- 37. Short of goinginto the Navy SEAL program, we are electing to take on the most challenging career possible, do you really want it that bad? And why? What are the drivers to create / own / manage your own business? (because it ain't pretty...) Tony Longo Do I know anyone who's currently an entrepreneur and have I spent an hour talking with her about what her life is like? Jeff Engler
- 38. In the triangleof speed, quality, and cost, do I have enough resources to worry only about speed and quality and not about cost? Wayne Chang What do you think is the relative ownership for me relative to you? Ed Roberts
- 39. Why now? Took me5 startups to finally figure out the importance of that question. It should be repeated/asked as a mantra. Why now? Why now?... David Cancel
- 40. AGENDA o 2 typesof questions o Key elements for a startup o 5 key questions o What the experts think o Where to go next
- 41. WHAT’S NEXT FORYOU?
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- 46. RESOURCES Books Web • Founder’s Dilemmasby Noam Wasserman • Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson • Startup Life by Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor • • • • • Quora 99u AVC by Fred Wilson Essays by Paul Graham Feld Thoughts by Brad Feld
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- 48. THANKS TO THEENTREPRENEURS • • • • • • • • • • • • Dan Adams James Altucher Gihan Amarasiriwardena Delian Asparouhov Fan Bi David Cancel Wayne Chang Anand Dass Ty Danco Jeff Engler Robb Fitzsimmons Kai Gray • • • • • • • • • • • • Jason Jacobs Cort Johnson Taariq Lewis Alex Loijos Anthony Longo Evan Morikawa Christopher Moses Nick Perold Kash Razzaghi Ed Roberts Christian Rodriguez Ben Rubin • • • • • • • • • • • • Dharmesh Shah Jason Shin Mark Soper Tyler Spalding David Tisch Amanda von Goetz Brett van Zuiden Jeremy Weiskotten Scott Weller Aaron White Will Whitney Drew Volpe
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Editor's Notes
- #3 Elliot began his career as a software engineer and product manager at Microsoft and a series of small startups. He later joined the Trust Center for Entrepreneurship as a Program Manager before earning an MBA at MIT Sloan. While at the Trust Center and later as a student at Sloan he helped co-found MIT's Hacking Medicine which is now in its 3rd year and has been the source of a number of new ventures in healthcare. He is now the co-founder and CTO of PillPack - a simple, hassle-free pharmacy.Colin took over for Elliot after a year as Founder of a small startup. Prior to that, he was on the founding team of Randstad Corporate Services, an enterprise solutions division of one of the largest HR firms in the world.While working at MIT he launched the class Applications on Advanced Entrepreneurship with Professor Aulet, the HackingIAP program, ran the Silicon Valley Study Tour for E&I, and launched the first Founders skills Accelerator (FSA).He recently left MIT to spend more time working on a web venture called Fitgiver, which helps people raise sponsorship money for cancer research with their everyday workouts.
- #4 How many are not from MITHow many are undergradHow many in Engineering?How many in Business?How any have been involved in a startup?How many want to start a company someday?Introduce yourself to your neighbor
- #11 The key elements in the following slides should factor into the conversation about each of the real questions
- #16 Related points:CompensationFunding: Bootstrapping or raising money?Personal runway: Can you afford to fail? Do you have market value and can get back on your feet quickly.
- #20 10 min of discussion, 5 per person. Role play. One talks, the other asks clarifying questions.5 min to share as a larger group, who was most surprised about where they landed at the end of their 5 min?Related points:Why are you doing this ?You have to have a fear of failure to grind it out but you also have to optimize to win, not optimize not to lose.What does success look like to you? Is it a $3M home you can ball in, is it a $500k a year paycheck, is it working with a team you love, is it building products you're passionate about. Do you want to be Rich or be King? (Founders Dilemma)
- #21 5 min of discussion - what skills should they have? What values? etc.2 min of sharing as a groupRelated points:Is my cofounder amazing at the things I’m not? Am I amazing at the things he’s not? What do you expect to work on day-to-day?What unique advantage does your team have that will make it win this market ? If we don’t have that yet, how do we find it? Who does that look like?Any reservations or concerns regarding your co-founders? They only get amplified when the stress level rises.Not just are you a day or night person, number of hours you work in a week, etc. (which are all important) but also what you're like to be on a team with.dont do a shotgun marriage. get to know them first, do somecollaboration together before becoming official and see how it feels.
- #22 5 min of discussion - some examples of things you’d like to create in the world / identifying how important this is to you?2 min of sharing as a groupRelated points:Is it worth doing? How much is this going to improve my customers' lives?
- #23 5 min of discussion – what’s your vision for getting to the thing you want to create?2 min of sharing as a groupWhat does vision mean to you?How do you make sure you share the same perspective?
- #24 5 min of discussion - talk about raising money or not, going without salary, how committed you are to making this the central thing in your life?2 min of sharing as a groupDiscussion pointsDo you like Ramen?What outside of work do you need to feel fulfilled?
- #25 Remember, the discussion around each question should cover those key elements, otherwise you’re probably overlooking somethingTeamMarketProductTechnologyMoney
- #43 MeetupsHackathonsStudent groups
- #44 Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam WassermanCrucial Conversations by Kerry PattersonStartup Life by Brad Feld and Amy BatchelorAVC by Fred Wilson (blog)Essays by Paul GrahamFeld Thoughts by Brad Feld
- #45 TravelMeet people you would not otherwise knowGeek out on things you don’t know much about
- #46 Hackathonsproject-based classesResearchIntern at a company in the industry you want to learn about