The ten commandments of founding a startup

It’s easy to take a wrong step in the beginning when founding your startup and you might not be able to fix things later on or loose a lot of valuable time and money.

I’ve learned that the hard way in previous (ad)ventures.

Here are the 10 most important things to think about in the beginning of your journey. No matter if you are starting up in your bedroom or as team at a Fortune 500, the same rules should apply to your startup.

Clear Leadership and Big Vision: A compelling vision attracts talent and investment. Clear leadership aligns the team, navigates challenges, and keeps the startup on course towards realizing this vision.
Validate Before You Create: Always validate your business idea with real-world data before diving into development. Avoid building something nobody wants.
Team Over Idea: A great team with an okay idea is often better than an okay team with a great idea. The team’s execution capabilities make or break the startup.
Know Your Customer: Your startup exists to solve a problem for a particular customer segment. Understand their needs, pain points, and behavior intimately.
Focus on MVP: Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as quickly as possible. Don’t get caught in the trap of endless feature additions before market testing.
Be Lean and Agile: Adopt lean startup principles. Be agile in your development approach to adapt to customer feedback and market changes swiftly.
Master the Art of Pitching: Whether it’s investors, customers, or potential employees, you need to sell your vision effectively. Good storytelling can open doors.
Plan Financial Sustainability: Keep a close eye on cash flow, burn rate, and revenue streams. Runway and profitability are not afterthoughts; they’re vital from day one.
Scale Responsibly: Don’t rush into scaling. Make sure your business model is solid and you’ve achieved product-market fit before you decide to grow.
Adapt or Die: Be prepared to pivot your business model, product, or strategy based on performance metrics and market feedback. Stubbornness can lead to failure.