8 Rules for Startup Success

Photo by Tamara Gak on Unsplash

When people think of startups, most of the time (if not always) they think of the successful ones that made it. The ones that echo in the conversations amongst other startup enthusiasts and potential entrepreneurs who covet that success. But, that is not a recipe for success. And for those bold enough to start building something and pitching in front of investors — the allure of pitching becomes the flawed North Star they seek. Those who do so, forget to build their business first by following their North Star, the mission that kept them up at night, that made them so passionate about it that they could no longer just sit idly by and do nothing about it. Those who forget it, are often part of the 90% failure rate of startup companies.

Here is what we are doing at Advice Analytics, and why we believe we are onto something:

1. North Star — this is something that must be stated very clearly when first thinking of starting something
2. Product Market Fit — We found a product market fit for our product before we committed a single line of code. To understand this better, I recommend you read Ravi Patel’s take on it here.
3. Team — We formed a team that has a proven track record of being able to work together, who are resilient, and are all passionate about the mission — our North Star. Failure to be aligned will give rise to future problems.
4. Focus — Our primary focus has been, and still is to get customers. Customers will prove our business model, it will prove our product has a great fit, and it will prove that any future raise is to simply scale those efforts.
5. Roles — While each of us have clear roles, we do not draw lines on what we do, and what we do not. Doing so will surely ensure failure as something is bound to slip through the cracks. Another way of putting it is that titles mean nothing in an early stage startup as it is all about wearing many hats to accomplish your goal.
6. Documentation — I cannot stress this enough. It is vitally important to document everything, not just code repositories, but also failures in code and how and why it was fixed, or why it was not. Having documents for onboarding new team members in the future so that you do not waste precious time down the road because the original founders have all of the tribal knowledge. You must think in scalable terms so that you can minimize risk.
7. Culture — This is connected to #3 on this list because the founders will set the stage for the type of culture you want to have. And culture can make, or break companies. While this is the last rule on this list, it is perhaps the most important one to bear in mind for building a truly great company.
8. Timelines — Setting goals is not enough. You must have timelines of when you anticipate you will have achieved it. Without timelines, you are adding additional and unnecessary risk, and this is something you cannot afford.

These are 8 rules we try to adhere to at Advice Analytics. By doing so, we are creating a domino effect by having successfully built our first product ahead of schedule. Subsequently, we have signed a contract with a company in the 401(k) industry that has integrated our product into theirs. Our industry has an 18 month sales cycle, but we are now in very deep conversations with three major marquee companies. We were a finalist at Octane OC Launchpad, we are a finalist at SAC, we have achieved incredible organic awareness within our industry, and we have revenues — all before our product has even turned three months.

You can find me on twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Yashar