Five Things All Founders Need
From what I’ve seen to date, here are the five things any founder needs, with particular attention paid to Female Founders.
1) Money
Founders fund the endeavor — and it always costs much more than originally estimated. I always tell people to budget, then double, then double their estimated amount again — that is the minimum amount to see the nascent organization through its startup phase and into sustainability or a funding event.
Third-party tools are a boon in this case (see this list of 300 resources). The overarching goal for the founder is to understand monthly burn rate and to ideate, coordinate, and manage the launch of an amazing, engaging, sticky MVP. The trick is to make sure there are enough users/subscribers to generate cash flow or get financing, before that money (or the founders’ ability to contribute time) runs out.
Solution: Funding resources such as savings, friends-and-family, crowdfunding, accelerators/incubators, and angel funding are usually the first sources available.
2) Mentoring
How does a big picture thinker start envisioning what it looks like to serve their customer base, but expanded 10x or 100x? Instead of thinking about “how do I serve my local community?” let’s begin thinking about building an ecosystem that impacts the desired industry as a whole.
I believe a capable, empathetic, experienced mentor provides necessary insight, understanding, and introductions to people who will move the founder into a mindset of being able to affect greater numbers.
The mentor typically has a few more years of experience and has a bigger field of vision, so as to encourage the founder to widen the lens of what they believe is achievable in the given timeframe.
Solution: A mentoring one-to-one relationship does wonders for unlocking some of the ongoing obstacles that the founder will most certainly bump up against.
3) Connections
Legal advice, tax requirements, incorporation, IP, advice on financing — all of these are extremely important to the founder, yet most of the time, that founder is solely focused on the product development, building the core community of users, and aligning the team.
Founders do want to make the world a better place / launch the product / make money.
Founders (typically) do not want to slog through incorporation documents, cap tables, convertible notes, equity dilution, tax codes, or charts/graphs beyond what’s on their pitch deck — yet they must!
Solution: A vetted, trusted network with these types of advisors in place will shepherd the founder through administrative details, which easily take up to 100% of the time related to building the startup, and allow the founder to proceed with confidence, knowing that the basics of their infrastructure are being handled.
Question: Do we know of networks such as these, directed to the unique needs of female founders? Please add in the comments.
4) Enthusiasm
The founder/s will always, always, always be the #1 fan of the product/service being developed. Without a doubt, if the founder loses desire, “ganas”, or the deep, abiding, unshakeable belief in the value of the endeavor, then all is lost.
The root of the word “enthusiasm” — filled with theos — gives us insight into that burning, passionate, hard-core vision that the organization’s leader actively translates into reality.
Enthusiasm is fanned and flamed by keeping spirits up in the company of peers.
Solution: Online and in-person meetups. We are building some of this community at the Female Founders LinkedIn group. There is also the Slack group at hashtagfemalefounders.com.
5) Expertise
The initial founder may or may not have the expertise around the product details (technical and functional specifications, database architecture, integration with other platforms, use cases, user workflows, or other deeper knowledge), but they definitely require the team that helps build this out. Those first 5 people within the company will be key to the overall ability of the organization to grow and scale.
Typically starting with the “go-to” person (who hustles, identifies the market need, has the idea/dream), then expanding to the ”tech/implementation” person and the “design/user interface” person, that core threesome typically grows to the overall team that assists with legal, finance, PR, sales, marketing, community-building, and communications (note that many on the team may start out as subcontractors or paid outside service providers).
Founders at startups are seeking the best people available, who:
- share their vision
- demonstrate a high tolerance for ambiguity/uncertainty
- operationalize and turn ideas into systems/processes
- establish infrastructure under the initial big idea
- bring all their resources and knowledge to bringing the product/service to market
It also helps if those first 10 people represent the product well and sell, sell, sell.
Solution: Find a wide variety of profiles at Cofounderslab.com. Connect with other female founders at http://www.femalefoundersconference.org/. There is a private Facebook group for Female Founders that is available, just ask through your networks.
There is no real magic formula to who will “win” in the startup race and who will fold; but all of us working to create something new, where nothing existed before, are part of a greater movement that encourages founders to take ownership, take advantage, make a stand for their dreams, and gain experience.
Newbies, serial entrepreneurs, dreamers, doers, and those curious — join the conversation at #femalefoundersleadtheway.
Ready for some deeper learning? Check out our YouTube playlist, including speakers from past female founder-focused conferences: http://bit.ly/femalefoundersplaylist
