Getting your foot in the door — Startup building in 2018

Raven Douglas
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read

2018 has been a turbulent year with a lot of changes and innovation, and a record level of startups trying to do their own thing. How can you join them?

So, let’s start with a little realism first. Bear with me.
Why do you want to start your own business or launch a startup? What goal do you have, what problem do you fix, what of value can you provide?

A startup is a startup because it’s a project starting up. Generally high risk, high work, high dreams, and high stress. This can vary, but I prefer to consider the worst first. You will need to do a lot of work, learn a lot of new things, and potentially end up with a lot of nothing.
Startups don’t all succeed, in fact more of the opposite, but different factors change that outcome.

Let’s start with the basics

Startups need to start somewhere.

A startup is a Business, Brand, Mission/Vision, Team, Value-provider.

These are the basic things that define a startup, so you probably need to develop each of them.

  • Business? What do you sell, do you make money, taxes, etc.
  • Brand? Logo, voice, design, etc.
  • Mission/Vision? What do you want to achieve, do, or prove?
  • Team? Who’s doing what and for what?
  • Value-provider? What do people want this, how does this serve people, can you prove there’s a need/want?

This is fundamental stuff, but you have some time to figure it out… but hopefully you have the vision already.

What’s next, dear dungeon master?

Well, obviously we need an answer to “Why is the skeleton having an
existential crisis?”

Keep in mind that everything past this point is based on my experiences, my methods, and won’t always apply to every situation.

The next on our docket for building your basic startup concept is seeing what people think of your idea and figuring out how to build it.
These two go hand-in-hand because you need to be considering the work it’d take and how you’re going to achieve it while talking to close friends, mentors, supportive adults, and anyone else you want to get feedback from on your idea.
Their input could help you define your target users, things you missed, or help you change what you want to focus on.

Without a proper understanding of what it will take to achieve your goal, it’s easy to misjudge your goal and get frustrated or end up in failure later on because of bad early calls or putting stress/time in the wrong spots.

We all make mistakes, but a proper understanding of your goals requirements for success helps you in the long run.

Another subtitle saying next!?

Yes, yes, we have another step or two left.

After that feedback and figuring out the work your product will take, you need to define your market better and figure out how you’ll want to spread your product to them or how to share value with them.

e.g. if your target users would be women over 22 on Discord, where do they frequent, how do you reach them, why do they want your product, yada yada.

Being able to understand your market intimately is a pretty huge step, and let’s you better validate your idea… although feedback is always more valuable, unless you get a jokester helping.

Keep in mind different social media have different users, different age groups, and different general purposes.

And let’s hit that next button one last time

Almost done talking, let the almost-relief calm your inner samurai.

What’s left to discuss? Putting it all together!
Most people who want to start a startup need somewhere to start, and here’s some tips… but it takes more than just that. You need a good team, good friends, good feedback, and a lot of both realism and dreams to succeed.

Before I let you go, take a few links.

  • A good site for some design ideas and to dream about being that good would be Dribble.
  • And a nice forum for open source projects and posting your own code would obviously be GitHub.
  • To finish it off, a good community to share, get feedback, and engage with people who are doing similar things / have experience with startups would be the /r/Startups discord server. I recommend visiting there for solid feedback, good stories, and a place to just chatter or find resources.

I know you’re probably still not ready to tackle it all, but just remember google is your best friend and your worst critic is probably fairly useful to take input from.

Thanks for reading, feel free to follow me for more startup, bot, and cat-related content!

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +365,945 people.

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Raven Douglas

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Design Advocacy and Startup thoughts. Follow for good content occasionally posted.

The Startup

Medium's largest active publication, followed by +527K people. Follow to join our community.

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