Top Ten Rules For Start-Up Success

by william castle william castle

What makes only a few percent of startups highly successful?

By Bob Norton, Serial Entrepreneur and CEO Coach

In my experience, few people understand the many different ways that a start-up must be managed as compared to more mature companies. Decisions must be faster, risks must be higher, and the solutions that are developed must be less complete (80% or less) and more narrowly targeted. During the bubble many "big company" executives were recruited to run startups with little more than an idea and a huge VC investment. This, of course, came back to haunt the investors when they realized too late that running a startup is a very different animal than a larger company. Most of these executives, though looking good on paper and in front of a board, were fish out of water in any startup company, no matter how much money they had in the bank.

There are so many unknowns involved with a new product and market that you must ALWAYS iterate towards the best solution in increments – You cannot pretend to know all the answers up front. Odds are, many, many changes will be required along the way. There must be a trial-and-error phase to reduce risk and move from theory to real customer feedback and/or market data. In technology this is an alpha or beta test and it is NOT just for debugging. The sooner you can get here the few resources will be wasted. The best entrepreneurs are flexible and can change on a dime so long as it is not the fundamental principal, or the primary customer value proposition they are building their company on..... https://bit.ly/3GMLt32

Bob Norton is a long-time Serial Entrepreneur and CEO with four exits that returned over $1 billion to investors. He has trained, coached and advised over 1,000 CEOs since 2002. And is Founder of The CEO Boot Camp™ and Entrepreneurship University™. Mr. Norton works with companies to triple their chances of success in launching new companies and products. And helps established companies scale faster using the six AirTight Management™ systems. And helps companies successfully raise capital.

Call (619) SCALE06 or email info@AirTightMgt.com for a complementary strategic consultation.