Creating Your Startup – Part 1 We talked about the technicalities of incorporating a startup. Let’s now talk about what happens once you have incorporated your dream company. Now that you’ve decided that a startup is indeed for you and that you have the attitude, temperament and ability to deal with the ambiguities and tensions, you need to figure out how to go about the whole process of creating your startup. Gurukul will walk you through the process over the next few weeks. Startups are usually created in either or both of these ways: you get THE BIG IDEA and then decide to talk to some friends and colleagues to get them to join or you together with some friends decide that its high time you “did something” and then figure out what to do. Sometimes, both of these happen in parallel. But whichever way the startup happens, the thing to remember what, according to Arthur Rock, are the 3 most important factors in a startup: “people, people, and people”! Well, he should know considering he was the VC who backed Intel and Apple. The legendary John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins says that above all he looks for a quality team and that most of his time goes towards recruiting quality people. So, in this psot, let’s talk about people. Remember, startup valuations will be dependent on the management team’s completeness and experience. VCs will fund companies with nothing more than an approximate business plan purely on the strength of the management team and the opportunity. Read more: Building a Business Model For example, Mindtree Consulting which raised $9m or so essentially on the strength of the team and the opportunity in E-Commerce & Telecom services. However, most startups don’t start with all-star teams. The founders usually have ambition, good ideas, persistence, an ability to work with and motivate people and may have financial savvy. Founders who want to retain all control, give poor direction, make business decisions for nonbusiness reasons, bring in ineffective relatives and don’t take corrective actions in time are unlikely to be funded by VCs. So how can a quality team be put together? This team will need to be together through thick and thin and must share a common vision. Look for people who thrive on risk, are optimists, have integrity, have dogged persistence, have energy and enthusiasm, and make sure they pass the “chemistry test” with you – can you crack jokes together, go out for a drink together…? A single poor member can ruin a company – the road to startup heaven is littered with startups destroyed by tensions within the management team.
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