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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
An inspiring and impactful compilation of the most important lessons of entrepreneurship
The tools of a digital age make it easier than ever to start a new business. And with billion-dollar IPOs and acquisitions making weekly headlines, the potential rewards are enormous. But even with all of the advantages and resources that today's entrepreneurs have access to, the likelihood of any one business succeeding is slim. That's why you need the simple, clear lessons found in The Agile Startup.
Engaging and informative, The Agile Startup doesn't offer step-by-step instructions on how to build a better mousetrap. Instead, it shows you how to build companies that continually adapt to the "real" world. Along the way, you'll discover you're not alone in your entrepreneurial endeavors, and that almost every challenge a startup can face has already been faced, and overcome, by someone in the past.
- Contains lessons culled from decades of creating successful companies, which includes possessing a flexible mindset
- Provides valuable insights, based on a market-driven philosophy, regarding launching and managing products, businesses, and brands
- Written by two authors who have a combined sixty-plus years of startup experience and understand the reasons behind their successes and failures
- A companion Website contains supplementary material that allows you to learn in a hands-on fashion long after closing the book
The journey of a startup is daunting. Think about everything that has to be overcome and you'll quickly see that the odds are stacked heavily against you. But with The Agile Startup as your guide, you'll learn exactly what it takes to succeed in your entrepreneurial endeavors.
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Seitenzahl: 239
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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Contents
Why You Should Read This Book
The Entrepreneur’s Life Cycle
Chapter 1: Agile Philosophy
Rule #1
What’s Your Why?
You Are Wrong
Heaven . . . and Hell
You Get Only 15,000 Days
The Entrepreneurial Method
Focus on Problems, Not Solutions
Three Requirements for Success
Dreamers versus Doers
Get Out of the Building
Business Plans Are Worthless
Let Them Steal It
Embarrass Yourself
Fail Fast—and Often
Contain Risk as Early as Possible
First, Decide What Not to Do
Rules? What Rules?
Focus—Follow One Course Until Successful
Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid
Get in over Your Head
There Is No Silver Bullet
It Ain’t a Problem ’Til It’s a Problem
Launch to Learn
Resourcefulness, Not Resources
Chapter 2: Make It Feasible
Is It Feasible?
ASS Out of U and Me
Three Questions You Must Answer
Double Your Worst Case
Five Risk Factors
Product 1.0—A Brochure
Good Ideas, Bad Businesses
Wrong Questions → Wrong Answers
Vitamin, Painkiller, or Cure?
Create Massive Value
Why Won’t It Work?
Show Me the Money
Does It Pencil?
Play Dumb
Take a Haircut
If You Build It, Will They Come?
Buying Customers
CLV >= 2 × CAC
Cash Is More Important than Your Mother
Think Like a VC
Chapter 3: Customers and Competition
Break It Down
Ride the Wave
Know Thy Market
WII.FM—Your Favorite Radio Station
Tell Me What Sucks
You Can’t Boil the Ocean
Reframe the Competition
Make a Competitive Matrix
Differentiate or Die
Competition Is a Good Thing
Follow the Leader
Fast Followers Finish First
10× Better
You Need a Moat
Zero Degrees of Separation
Chapter 4: Making Money
What’s Your Business Model?
The Best Source of Capital
How Do You Make Money?
Gross Profit Margins
Prefer Variable to Fixed
Go Bootstrap Yourself
The First Rule to Making Money
The First Dollar Is the Hardest
Bottoms Up!
Build a (Bad) Financial Model
How Much Runway?
Know Your Do-or-Die Numbers
Chapter 5: Marketing
Luck Is Not a Plan
What’s Your Positioning?
Hold the Presses
Old Meets New
Sell Wants, But Deliver Needs
How Can I Help You?
Turn $1 into $2+
Do It Twice
Perception Is Reality
Be a Guerrilla Marketer
The Secret to Writing Copy That Sells
Promise . . . Then Overdeliver
Your Brand Talks
Chapter 6: Team
Not So Fast, Partner
Get a Pre-Nup
ABCs of Hiring
Your Startup Is a Boat
The Build/Sell Team
Make Sure You’re Aligned
How to Get the Best People
Fire Yourself
You Are Not Scalable
Mess with the Vest, Die Like the Rest
Delegate, Don’t Abdicate
Form an Advisory Board
Who’s the Boss?
The Right Partner Formula
Hire Slow, Fire Fast
Sharing a Submarine
Chapter 7: Pitching Your Startup
Get Your Story Straight
Get to the Next Step
Half as Long Is Twice as Good
First Rule of Elevator Pitches
Get Used to Rejection
Use the Use Case
Make It Stick
Name It and Frame It
Find the Hot Buttons
Fake It ’Til You Make It
Be Simple, Not Simplistic
Don’t Bury the Lead
Back of a Business Card
Chapter 8: Investors
You Are the First Investor
Got Traction?
Passionate Obsessed
Pigs Get Slaughtered
Investors Are Not Created Equal
Do You Want to Be Rich or Be King?
When No Leads to Yes
The Train Is Leaving the Station
Calling All Angels
The Lemmings Need a Leader
Don’t Expect to Hear “No”
Save the Best for Last
Get to Your Next Milestone
Fuel to the Fire
A Demo Is Worth 1,000 Words
Money Only Buys Time
If You Want Money, Ask for Advice
The Investor Triad
The Day You Take an Investor’s Money
What’s the Business Worth?
Valuation Isn’t Everything
Friends, Family, and Fools
Chapter 9: Building the Business
Nail It Before You Scale It
Tipping Point
Think on Paper
The First Question to Ask
Make Meetings Matter
Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst
Expect the Unexpected
Be Your Own Customer
Think Big, Execute Small
Forget the Mission Statement
Metrics Matter
Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Who’s the Bad Guy?
Your Reputation Precedes You
Build It Like You’re Going to Sell It
Be Frugal, Not Cheap
When the S#!t Hits the Fan (and It Will)
Know When to Fold ’Em
Chapter 10: What to Know Before You Go
Startups Are Boring
Young at Heart
Your Three Hats
You Are on Your Own
Dangers in the Moonlight
The Part-Time Entrepreneur
A Family Affair
Congratulations, It’s a Boy!
Ten Things You Should Never Do Before Starting
The Five-Year Overnight Success
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Recommended Reading
About the Authors
Online Course Offer
Bonus Material for eBook Readers
Index
Cover Design: C. WallaceCover Image: Titamium © iStockphoto.com/ranplettCover Illustration: Łukasz Zarba and Magdalena Busłowska
Copyright © 2013 by Jeff Scheinrock and Matt Richter-Sand. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
Special thanks to the illustrators Łukasz Zaręba and Magdalena Busłowska.
Thanks to Craig Finster, Matthew Pierce, and Matt Levin for helping with illustration revisions.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
ISBN 978-1-118-54826-4 (Hardcover); ISBN 9781-1-11874448-2 (ebk);ISBN 978-1-118-74472-7 (ebk)
Why You Should Read This Book
Despite the advantages today’s entrepreneurs have, getting a company off the ground remains remarkably challenging. To be successful, you have to give it everything you’ve got—your heart and soul, your focus, and your life savings. Even then, the likelihood that you’ll succeed is frighteningly low. But if you’re one of the lucky few who manage to get your startup off the runway, building and running your own company will be one of your most rewarding and memorable experiences. Entrepreneurs live unique and fulfilling lives. In exchange for unreal and untold sacrifices, they get to live their passion every day and make a tangible difference in the world. If you are destined to become an entrepreneur, this book is for you. The Agile Startup will show you how to dodge painful, common, and avoidable mistakes and get your startup down the runway and in the air. Through the 170 startup strategies, you’ll be exposed to the latest ideas, philosophies, frameworks, and best practices for entrepreneurship in today’s fast-paced, hypercompetitive world.
The Agile Startup is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of how to start a business. Instead, it’s filled with quick, actionable, timeless lessons from the trenches for soon-to-be founders or existing entrepreneurs. The lessons show you how to bob and weave with the market, get vital feedback, and build blockbuster products. The book will show you how bad assumptions kill companies, and why the most important thing you should do as an entrepreneur is to turn assumptions into facts as quickly as possible.
Most of the time-tested strategies have risen from the ashes of failed businesses, often the best (and hardest) way to learn. If heeded, they will increase your likelihood of success and reduce the time required to get off the ground. If ignored, you’ll learn the hard way that history repeats itself. In the end, you’ll have over 170 actionable strategies to help you navigate the startup minefield and start living your entrepreneurial dream.
The Agile Startup is for every kind of entrepreneur, from the aspiring entrepreneur just starting out, to the established early-stage CEO. You can read the book cover to cover, or focus on the strategies that apply directly to your current situation.
The hope is that The Agile Startup will be something you reference and learn from for many years to come. It was written to help you succeed on what will inevitably be one of the hardest and most rewarding journeys of your life.
Come join our community at www.agilestartup.com, and keep us updated on your journey!
The Entrepreneur’s Life Cycle
From pre-idea to scale, there are six distinct stages that every entrepreneur goes through. In an effort to maximize the value you get from this book, we’ve stamped every lesson with one or more of the six stages. Referencing the icons would be a good way to get through the book quickly if you’re strapped for time (like most entrepreneurs) and want to focus on your current situation.
1. Pre-Idea
In the Pre-Idea stage, you know that you want to start your own business one day soon, but you aren’t working on any specific ideas yet. This is an exploratory stage, in which you scan broadly for opportunities. Your first ah-ha! moment when an idea starts to take hold will graduate you to the next stage.
2. Idea(s)
Idea is the second stage of an entrepreneur’s life cycle. You move past Pre-Idea when you start to dig into one or more ideas because you think they have potential. Rather than committing to any one idea at this stage, you’re still very much in an exploratory mode and trying to ascertain the feasibility of an idea through interviews and conversations.
3. Some Work Done
It is in the third stage, Some Work Done, that you transition from an exploratory mode into a deep dive of a single idea. It’s in this stage that you begin to commit resources by building a prototype (or brochure) to test the idea and get meaningful feedback.
4. Business Launched
In the Business Launched stage, as you might have guessed, you launch your business! This is when your activities transition from feasibility to building. You’re still learning along the way, of course, but your learning efforts are much more focused on business-building activities. This is where you put all of your weight behind the business, and sink all of your resources into it.
5. Customers and Revenue
For most companies, there’s a gap between officially launching the business and generating revenue. The Customers and Revenue stage represents the milestone of landing initial customers and revenue. This is a great step forward, but you’re not out of the woods yet.
6. Scale
The sixth and final stage is Scale. This is when you’ve finally found product—market fit, and you’re having a hard time keeping up with customer orders. While this stage is no less frantic than the others, most of the venture has been de-risked. The final test is one of execution—can you scale the company quickly enough to ride the wave, or will it wash over you?
Chapter 1
Agile Philosophy
From idea to sales, a startup’s launch path is invariably convoluted and confusing. Regardless of industry or idea, successful entrepreneurs share a common philosophy that helps them navigate the tempestuous sea and build thriving businesses. The lessons in this chapter capture the philosophy of the Agile Entrepreneur and create a solid foundation to build upon. It will help you frame your thinking and maximize your discovery process.
There are two overriding themes that emerge in this chapter. First, the best entrepreneurs realize that they don’t have all of the answers. They’re able to walk the fine line between being focused yet agile, and visionary yet reactive. This crucial theme is carried throughout the book, especially in the next section on feasibility.
Second, founders understand that starting a company is not about dreaming, it’s about doing. This is the biggest factor that differentiates the winners from the losers. Some people plan, others act. The best founders are quick to make decisions and then act immediately. They realize that few decisions are final, which means it’s almost always better to act first and plan later.
As you read through this chapter, look for these themes and apply what you can to your startup immediately.
Rule #1
What’s Your Why?
You Are Wrong
Heaven . . . and Hell
You Get Only 15,000 Days
The Entrepreneurial Method
Focus on Problems, Not Solutions
Three Requirements for Success
Dreamers versus Doers
Get Out of the Building
Business Plans Are Worthless
Let Them Steal It
Embarrass Yourself
Fail Fast—and Often
Contain Risk as Early as Possible
First, Decide What Not to Do
Rules? What Rules?
Focus—Follow One Course Until Successful
Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid
Get in over Your Head
There Is No Silver Bullet
It Ain’t a Problem ’Til It’s a Problem
Launch to Learn
Resourcefulness, Not Resources
Rule #1
Rule #1 in entrepreneurship is to have fun. As Dale Carnegie said, “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” If you’re having fun, it’s immediately obvious to everyone around you. You spring out of bed in the morning instead of snoozing for an hour. You are constantly smiling, and grateful for even the smallest things. More importantly, having fun actually makes you a better entrepreneur. Enjoying the process makes it easier to commit wholeheartedly, and fully immerse yourself, both prerequisites to success. This will allow you to push through the hard days, fly past the boring days, and overcome the obstacles that every founder experiences. If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?
Chapter Contents | Next
What’s Your Why?
Without a doubt, starting a company is one of the hardest things that you’ll do in your life. In fact, most entrepreneurs looking back say that they wouldn’t do it again if they knew how hard the road would be. Getting a company off the ground takes years of discipline, dedication, faith, and follow through. There will be months (or years) of total uncertainty, causing you to doubt that you can even pull it off. If you want to succeed, you have to keep moving the ball forward. All entrepreneurs encounter this backbreaking resistance to one degree or another, and most quit on the five-yard line. To make sure you see it through, you better have one hell of a reason as to why you’re starting this business, and it needs to be more than just money. Perhaps you’re trying to make the world a better place. Or maybe it’s that the old way of doing things is too painful. Possibly you want to be in charge of your own destiny. Whatever your reason, you need to have an inspiring vision that will get you through the dark times and help you live by Rule #1.
What’s your why?
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You Are Wrong
It’s pretty much guaranteed that whatever solution you have in mind today, you are wrong and it will change. Only by going through a process of learning and discovery with potential customers, industry experts, suppliers, and partners will you arrive at the right solution. In battle, this is known as the fog of war. In business, it’s the fog of startups. Just as no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, no business plan ever survives contact with the customer. The landscapes and minefields—in both—are constantly changing and evolving.
The process of cutting through the fog is called customer development, which helps you approach your market with an open mind. The key here is to be honest with yourself. It’s all too easy to tell little white lies that allow you to ignore reality and stay in your comfort zone. What separates naïve dreamers from great entrepreneurs is an eagerness to grapple with reality and react accordingly. Of course, you have to start with what you believe to be the best solution, but your vision will undoubtedly change as you move forward—probably drastically.
When you admit that you won’t get it right the first time, you immediately open yourself up to a process of learning and discovery. You seek input and feedback as you go through the customer development process. While the feedback won’t always be what you want to hear, it is absolutely essential to finding product-market fit and building a thriving company.
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Heaven . . . and Hell
Building a successful business from scratch is nothing short of amazing. Think about everything that needs to happen to start a business in today’s hypercompetitive world. Entrepreneurs have to do pretty much everything themselves—design logos, understand the law, find partners and employees, figure out the right product/service offering, analyze the market and competition, pray that there’s actually a need, convince their families that the years of sacrifice will be worth it, cobble together a plan, find a location, assemble marketing materials, and on . . . and on . . . and on. It never ends. Founders take on unproven ideas that will require them to devote years of their lives, on the hope and prayer that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. But you never know what will happen, and over half of all new businesses fail within the first five years. There’s only one thing that you can be certain of—your startup journey will be full of incredible highs and devastating lows. Land your first customer and life couldn’t be better, or miss payroll and it couldn’t be worse. All of this could happen in the same week. Being an entrepreneur is both heaven and hell. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s an amazing life if it’s the life for you.
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You Get Only 15,000 Days
Startups are riddled with momentous, dream-crushing risk. It’s inescapable. It’s the unfathomable risk that forces you to commit and put everything on the line when you start a business. Despite all of this, there’s one risk that’s in a league of its own—that you let the years of your life slip away and spend your time not doing what you love. Your working life is roughly 15,000 days long. The average entrepreneur is 37 years old, which means there are roughly 10,000 days of “work life” left. Most of your waking hours are spent not with your family, but at work. The hours you spend working are meaningful, yet most people slog away the best years of their lives at jobs that don’t give them meaning. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, defy convention and seize the day. They find something that inspires them and gives their lives meaning. While there’s a minefield of risks and pitfalls in front of them, they never have to worry about the most important risk in life. Whether you’re new to the startup game or a long-time veteran, congratulations for chasing your dreams and doing what you love.
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The Entrepreneurial Method
There’s only one thing you can be certain of in a startup—nothing is certain. You don’t know the right answer, and neither does anyone else. To be successful, you must become a scientist and look at your startup as a science experiment. The process of turning your uncertainties (assumptions) into certainties (facts) is remarkably similar to the scientific method. Startups are all about trial and error, and experimentation. Once your experiments are underway, stay open-minded, expect change, and react based on your findings.
There are five steps to the Entrepreneurial Method:
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Focus on Problems, Not Solutions
At the most fundamental level, new products or services succeed because they solve problems in customers’ minds. PCs helped eliminate tedious, time-consuming paperwork. Smartphones gave people an Internet connection anywhere in the world. Entrepreneurs are natural problem solvers—you started your company because you recognized a problem worth solving. You were fed up with the way things were done, and so you created a solution that would make peoples’ lives easier. A common fatal startup pitfall to avoid is to focus exclusively on your proposed solution after launching. You must maintain your focus on the problem, not your current solution, because your solution will undoubtedly change in the coming months. As good as your idea may be, there are hundreds of reasons why it will change. You have to be adaptive, and the best way to do this is to focus on the problem rather than the solution. Write the problem down. Explore it with potential customers and partners. Resolve never to lose sight of the fact that you’re focused on solving a problem, not forcing your solution on the market. By maintaining this focus, it will be only natural that you adapt and pivot toward the solution that has the best chance of being accepted by the market.
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Three Requirements for Success
We always hear about the unequaled abilities of superstar entrepreneurs. Stories like these are juicy—the public and scoop-seeking reporters alike love them. This skewed media coverage makes it tempting to think some people succeed because they’re blessed with special abilities. Talk to enough successful founders, however, and a different picture emerges. Their personalities are all over the map. Some are in-your-face outgoing, for example, and others are shy and reserved.
There are a handful of attributes that contribute to a founder’s success, and they’re what you would expect—vision, leadership, design skills, risk tolerance, and interpersonal skills, to name a few. While these traits may be necessary, they’re not sufficient. At the end of the day, getting a company off the ground comes down to three indispensable attributes: passion, sales, and follow-through. If you’re not passionate about your new venture, you won’t be willing to walk through walls to make it work. Entrepreneurs are always selling—to prospective customers, partners, employees, suppliers, and investors. Finally, it’s all about the execution and follow-through. It’s about executing the plan and pushing through the boring, menial tasks to create something amazing. If you excel in these three areas, the rest will fall into line.
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Dreamers versus Doers
Too many would-be entrepreneurs are stuck in the land of fairy tales. Dreamers, blinded by the supposed genius of their ideas, fantasize about how marvelous life will be when they’re running the show. As a result of misplaced motivation, they usually bounce from idea to idea, or focus on all the wrong things. They’ll spend months writing a business plan (prematurely), perfecting website colors, printing fancy business cards, and so on. Of course you should dream, just make sure both feet are planted firmly on the ground. Dream where you’ll be in a decade, and plan where you’ll be next year. Knowledge alone isn’t power; it’s potential power. Knowledge combined with action is power. Take massive action in the direction of your dreams. Create a plan that outlines how to get from where you are now to where you ultimately want to be. Be honest with yourself, and determine as quickly as you can whether this is a viable business opportunity or a fantasy. If it turns out the idea won’t work, c’est la vie. Get mad, get over it, and change your business model to make it work. If you’re serious about building a business, be a doer, not a dreamer.
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Get Out of the Building
Like all entrepreneurs, you think that you have all the answers. No, you know that you have the answers. You are wrong. What you have are assumptions, not answers. You have fiction, not fact. At the end of the day, feasibility is all about turning your assumptions into facts before you run out of cash. Only when you have the facts can you evaluate whether your business can actually make it. And, unbelievably, there is only one way to convert fiction to fact in a startup—get out of the building and listen to customers. You are on a search for facts, and learning should be your top priority. Unfortunately, you will never arrive at the truth by thinking harder. Google will never be able to give you what you’re looking for. Staying inside the office and building more features will not sell more units. Through these customer conversations you’ll get clues about the business, everything from right business model, to the customer pain points, to how and where to sell. But the only way to get this knowledge is to get out of the building and ask.
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Business Plans Are Worthless
Your business plan is worth less than the paper (or bytes) it’s written on. Especially in the beginning, things are so fluid that it would be too time consuming to maintain any semblance of a professional, written plan. However, it’s not about the plan; it’s about the process of planning. By using a business plan as a framework to focus your efforts, you can collect answers to important questions that should help illuminate the path forward. As Dwight Eisenhower said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” You identify and plug the holes in your strategies and on your team, so don’t think of your business plan as the final say on your business; think of it as a lighthouse, guiding your go-to-market strategy.
Using the business planning process in this way forces you to focus on the key issues, brings to light important dynamics, and helps uncover central questions that must be answered. Only after you have turned most of your key assumptions into facts, and your team rallies around a singular vision, does it make sense to spend time polishing your plan.
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Let Them Steal It
Some entrepreneurs refuse to share their ideas with others. A wide variety of excuses are offered to justify “stealth” mode, but the undertone is almost always that the entrepreneur was the first to think of the idea, and sharing it might jeopardize that advantage. There are so few genuinely new ideas that you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to think of an original idea.
