5 top things to remember when starting a company

Whether you want to be the founder of the next Apple or Airbnb, become rich and famous, or just make a living, becoming an entrepreneur is an exciting journey.

But when you are just starting out, you have a lot to do and a lot to remember. So much even that you easily forget the most important things. Here are 5 things you should absolutely not forget!

1. Validate, validate, VALIDATE!

A lot of entrepreneurs get a great idea for a product. They think that because they love it so much everyone else must love it too. Except it doesn’t go like that, far from it. In the end, the only thing that really matters is that someone wants, no: NEEDS your product/service. And that there are enough of those people. Bad validation could be even named the number 1 reason startups fail. It is just so important.

So, validate constantly: from the initial idea to execution, to the tiny details, everything. And of course, make changes accordingly.

A helpful guide on validating here.

2. Have a team that can execute your vision

”It’s not the idea but execution that really matters” — pretty much every successful entrepreneur & business person.

There were social networks before Facebook, search engines before Google, and so on and so forth. It is not the idea but execution that matters. And who is 100% responsible for execution? Your team.

A brilliant team can make even a shitty idea into a diamond, but with a shitty team, even a diamond idea will become sh… well, you get the idea. That’s why even investors focus so much on startups’ team, even more than the business idea(!).

Many entrepreneurs hire their cousins, friends who need jobs and so on without looking what they can really bring to the team and maybe even more importantly: if they even fit into the team. Considering how important the team is to your startups success, there should be much more than ”Oh, I knew him from couple years ago, and I guess he’s a good guy” to let someone in to your team.

A lot could be said about this, but in short: hire smartly, and change accordingly (a good CEO at the early stages might be a horrible CEO on later stages).

3. Bit of money and time-related pessimism will take you a long way

When you are out of money you are out of business. And that is the faith of too many startups, often for simple mistakes:

Mistake 1. not checking their cashflow frequently and being realistic I.e. when is the money really on your account? And remember that not even the reputable ones always pay in time…

Mistake 2. Triple your time and money-related estimates. For some reason, it always takes 3 times longer and costs 3 times more than the estimates startups make. So, triple your estimates and you are usually somewhat close to the reality.

More about this here.

4. Talk about your idea to everyone you meet

Many (if not most) entrepreneurs I see are so so soooo afraid of talking about their idea. But not talking about it is one of the biggest mistakes they can make.

First of all it’s really hard to validate if you require everyone to sign an NDA. And only by talking about your idea, you can get crucial advice and help from others. By talking to others about your idea you are also building your customer base. After all, it is much better to have a bunch of customers eagerly waiting for you to launch than launch and die without anyone knowing you even existed.

More about why talking about your idea is a must here.

5. Learn & be ready to learn

Nobody can know everything. That’s why you have your team, advisors and why you should be prepared to learn constantly.

For some reason, I see startups who ‘already know everything’ entering accelerators. They don’t attend the sessions, and when they do they ’already know everything’. And that really confuses me as isn’t the point to learn? And that also really shows in the results: those are the startups that make the least progress, if even any.

Don’t be cocky and learn as much as you can. When you are ready and willing to learn, people want to work with you, help you (even investors!). And most importantly: you also learn and do much better.

And there you have it: 5 things to remember if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.

What would your top things to remember be? Did I forget something crucial from my list?

— Tiina Haapanen

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