For Budding Businesses

PONDER - ONE: How many founders should a startup have?

2007-09-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

Our PONDER series will have some points to think over for startups...

What do Microsoft, Infosys, Oracle all have in common?
Well, they all started as a "team" of newbies to biz.
So is a team a necessary condition for a successful venture?

How about reliance(A famous Indian success). Wasn't it started by
a single founder?

I recently read an article that mentioned "single founders" to be a sure shot reason
for startups to fail. In general the notion is,if you are a single founder of your startup, you need to be constantly motivated. You need to do all the work by yourself, may not have colleagues to brainstorm with or give pep talks.

Jeffrey McManus of approver.com fame doesn't quite think so. In one of his interviews
he had mentioned:

One of the guidelines I've seen repeated again and again is that a startup has to have more than one founder. I obsess over this point because, while I've been lucky enough to have a terrific band of helpful volunteers to pitch in with Approver.com, there's only one founder -- me. Does this mean that Approver.com could never attract investor dough? Dunno, but it would be interesting to delve into the rationale for the two-founder rule to get it figured out.

There's something else I find fishy with the multi-founder rule: I've seen other investor commandments that state that the biggest impediment to success isn't having a good idea or being able to wrangle the technology, but your ability to form and manage a team. (This rule is often stated conversely: "the biggest threat to an early-stage start up is when the founders have interpersonal conflicts".) This commandment seems, to me, to be in conflict with the multi-founder rule. I happen to get along great with myself, and I know I will never screw myself out of stock options or get on my own nerves while working to get a feature out the door on deadline.

Bottom line is that investors who require multiple founders are putting entrepreneurs into a chicken/egg scenario -- you can't attract funding without multiple founders, but you can't hire a second or third founder without attracting funding. At least it seems this way to me -- am I missing something here?

Other successful single founders:
Evan Williams of Pyra and he sold Blogger to Google for $50M

So what is the ideal number for a startup? Do VCs invest in single founder startups? Keep watching this space...

Tips for Startups...

2007-09-19T01:38:00.001-07:00

Found this interesting article in centernetworks...

How many of you agree with these? Does diversity really matter? Do things like "putting community first" actually apply to startups?

Tip 1 - Define your own success.
If you're going after a million bucks with your own startup, you've already failed yourself. Instead, do something because it's interesting, challenging, it offers you the chance to learn something new or gives you the chance to work with really interesting people. Most startups that are designed to make money, especially in this environment, don't.

Tip 2 - Pick the right people.
Work with people who you trust, who inspire you, who surprise and challenge you, and who you can count on. Also think about ways of trying out low-risk engagements before going whole-hog into startup mode. Starting up a business is incredibly stressful; you need to know how you and your partners function under pressure -- don't wait for the real deal to experience the weaknesses in your team, instead, work on a smaller scale project under a deadline and see how the fault-lines emerge. It's not about avoiding difficulties; instead to how people handle conflict and how the team stays on target. That should prepare you when issues come up later (and believe me, they will!).

Tip 3 - Diversity is essential.
I've talked about this a bit on my blog, and Tara has really helped open my eyes to this. I've always felt that diversity was important, but never really was aware of how I had my own blind spots where I'd overlook certain people or make assumptions about how they wouldn't work out... but what I've come to see is the value of diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds to really round out and solidify the foundation of any good idea. No matter how much you think you know about the world, there's nothing better than testing it against what people really do. Surrounding yourself with people unlike yourself is a great way to ensure that you don't only cater to folks hip to the latest and greatest geek fads but who also exist outside of your startup bubble.

Tip 4 - Put community first.
This is something that in practice is very hard to do when you have budgets and bills to deal with, but for the long term viability of your project, you really do need to put community in the lead of all your decision. Now, to be sure, that doesn't necessarily mean that you bend to every whim of your community, but that instead, you act as a gatekeeper to what gets in and what experiences your community has. You are your community's first and last line of defense and if you side with anyone *but* your community, you'll shortly thereafter have no community to advocate for.

Tip 5 - Don't reinvent the wheel.
Do find nooks to add real value. There's a lot of infrastructure already out there that people are both using and familiar with. Don't build just another event or photo sharing site ... thinking about how you can leverage open web services and existing platforms to build something of real value... and make it really easy for people to get their data in -- and out. It's just good practice.

Tip 6 - Communicate, communicate, communicate.
If anything, make sure to communicate what you're doing, what you're up to, what's going on and what issues your facing as often as you can -- even if [you think] no one's listening. This serves both as a log of your activities and a personal record that you can refer to later but also opens the possibility that someone might just come along and be able to help you in some unexpected but totally necessary way!

Courtesy: http://www.centernetworks.com/startup-tips-tara-hunt-chris-messina-from-citizen-agency

This blog is for...

2007-09-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

This blog is for all those budding entrepreneurs or people who want to start a venture. You can share your problems, ideas, thoughts, worries etc that you face in your startup or plan-to-startup. To publish your artilce mail the article to thebulblit@gmail.com.

Lets all be friends and help each other to make our dreams come true...

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Fellow to-be-entrepreneur