Stages of Startup Lifecycle

STAGE 1: DESIRE

If there is one thing that all great founders share, it’s their strong desire to solve problems and make a difference.

STAGE 2: INQUIRE

After you discover a problem you are passionate about fixing, it is up to you to inquire and learn as much as possible from people who have been facing the same issue.During this period, share your idea with everyone you meet (don’t worry about them stealing your idea) and seek out a mentor who is willing to coach you along this journey.Smart founders always make use of the resources around them.

STAGE 3: BE ON FIRE

Passion is the fuel that feeds this fire.A start up WILL consume every waking minute of your day.The flip side of being on fire is that everything else in your life takes a backseat to your startup. In the initial years of your startup, you end up sacrificing relationships with friends and people you love.

STAGE 4: HIRE

The company with the smartest people wins.

At a certain point, you will have found product-market fit and it will be time to scale your company. From here on out, everything comes down to execution. Execution starts with finding the best talent.

STAGE 5: INSPIRE

Once you have great people on your team that you trust completely, you stop shouldering as much of the day-to-day work and your main role shifts to inspiring your team to increase the productivity that they did not thought of achieving.

STAGE 6: GET ACQUIRED

When you’re raising capital, one of the common questions you get from VCs is “Who is going to acquire you?”
Getting acquired is outside your control and focusing on it too much at the early stage will not do any good. The best piece of advice ever received from someone who has sold their company is:

Build a company that solves a real problem, delights your customers, and has a strong P&L.

If you do these things someone will want to purchase you.