There have been men and women who successfully managed established businesses and brands, and yet when they decided to start up a business, they did not go far. There are also people who have started up a business from zero and grown it perhaps to $500,000 in revenue per annum but could not take it beyond that level.
Do you want to know why this is? Simple. It requires a completely different skill set to start up a business and takes it from zero revenue to hundreds of thousands in revenues. It also takes another set of skills to take it from that stage to a multi-million dollar revenue company. This is why you see some founders grow the business to a point and then step aside to let some other people take the business to the next level as CEO.
At the very beginning of the business, from the pre-launch stage, you need entrepreneurial leadership to move the business up to the point where it could be generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. At the next stage, it requires managerial leadership to move the business to a multi-million dollar company, and if the business has to get to the point of being listed in an exchange, it requires corporate leadership for that stage. Of course, intensive personal development could lead one person to have all of them, but it is not often we find such people.
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In subsequent posts, I will talk about the skills needed for the growth stage of a startup but today, let’s look at two critical skills a startup entrepreneur needs to have.
Creating the product
At the very start of the business, all you have is an idea, and maybe a strong conviction that it can solve a problem or series of problems. The onus is on you to build or create a product from that idea, and you need to have the skillset for it. You should be able to create, modify, and continuously tweak the product until you get what the market needs.
This is a skill that not everyone may have. Some persons may be good at driving growth in sales, but not so good at creating it. Some others may spend months on the drawing board planning and replanning but unable to create an acceptable product. As a startup entrepreneur, product development is a key skill for you to possess. The presence of a product/solution is equivalent to an official announcement that the business has started.
Engaging and on-boarding initial adopters
Another skill that is critical for the entrepreneur at the startup stage is the ability to engage and onboard early adopters of your idea or product. This could include partners, investors, friends, and family, your first 100 or more customers, etc. This skill is different from that of moving the products into the hands of hundreds of thousands of customers.
At this stage, you are dealing with a small customer base. This is more like the point where you have to convince the first set of persons that the product is worth trying out. You may not have a huge capital to fund massive marketing at this point, so a lot of it will depend on your personal communication, networking, and marketing skills.
Once you have gone past this stage, the next skill set needed is for the growth stage of the business. We will talk about that in a subsequent post.