Will your startup succeed? — a self checklist (part 3)
At Future Branch, we’ve learned a lot about startups. We created a self-checklist to help determine if you’ve got the mettle. Find part 1 here and part 2 here.
The Team
The hardest and most important part of building your startup will be building a team that works well together. There are many, many things that can go wrong here. At first, you might think that you have the perfect team already, but when it comes to matters of money you may have different priorities than your friends.
1. The best idea you’ve never heard of
If you build the perfect app but no one knows about it, then you’ll never survive. One of your team members must be a PR and Marketing expert or work 40+ hours a week to become one. Countless startups go out of business each year with perfectly good products only because they don’t reach their target market. This is a full time job on your team.
2. Ship it! (maybe)
Are you building a tech startup? One of your team members needs to have a long history of shipping products, not just building. You will need to ship week after week after week. The product will never be perfect and having someone comfortable with shipping things that are imperfect is extremely valuable.
“Being depressed makes overcoming these challenges harder.”
3. Real talk time
Are you prone to depression? Going through a tough time in your life? Building a startup takes mental fortitude, and unfortunately this is a topic we don’t see discussed enough. None of your team members should be dealing with depression or be burned out or anything related. This isn’t to say you can’t be successful and be depressed, but there will come a time during your startup journey where you will question everything. You will do everything wrong for a month straight and waste a bunch of money. Being depressed makes overcoming these challenges harder.
4. But you signed a prenup right?
You’ve all heard of the bro culture of startups; right? None of your team members should be alcoholics, addicts, dealing with legal problems, or have any other distractions. Getting a divorce? Probably not the best time to quit your job and do a startup.
“Building a cool app is very different than having passion to solve a specific problem.”
5. In it for the long run
Do you want to build your idea or do you want to solve a specific problem? You and your team should be ready to work on this problem for the next 3 years, regardless of what the solution is. You might find the market changing and you’ll need to pivot away from the ideas you’ve had towards something different. Building a cool app is very different than having passion to solve a specific problem.
6. Be Rich
How long can you live with no income? We suspect this point will be controversial, but your team should be prepared to receive no income for 2 years. Even if you start receiving monthly reoccurring revenue (MRR) at month 9, you will need to reinvest most of that money.
Sure, you can work a day job while building a startup, but this puts you behind other teams.
7. It’s all in the fine print
What do you value? Disagreements naturally arise in any relationship. It’s important that your team share the same core values. When you face unimaginable challenges during your journey, you’ll need to come to compromise, negotiate what to work on, and decide when to throw in the towel. By having the same values, there’s a high chance you’ll remain friends after building your product.
Don’t worry if you don’t have answers to all the questions, but you should think hard about if a startup is for you. Can you answer the hard questions Why this problem? Why this solution? Why this team?
Next
We’ve come to the end of Part 3.
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Oh and don’t forget to take the self-checklist.
