Startup ShowCase is a unique platform to showcase, market and raise your business through crowd funding,events, investor, social networking & marketplace

1. How to Start a
Start-Up Company
NASBEER AHAMMED
MANAGING DIRECTOR
STARTUP SHOWCASE VENTURES
Expibotz Technologies Pvt Ltd

2. GETTING STARTED
• People
• Idea
• Plan
• $$
• Turn idea into product
• Manage evolution

3. Building a Team
• Smart, complementary skills
• Meeting around the kitchen table
• Domain expertise
• Investors are wary of non-business types
• Industry is different than University life
• Product development very different than research

4. Hire in Context
• Right person, wrong time
• Right kind of skills and experience
• Strategist vs. scrappy
• Big company vs. little company
• Personality or Culture Fit

5. PROCESS STUFF
• Space
• Legal
• Getting organized

6. Legal Stuff
• Referrals
• Interview for personality fit
• Plain vanilla is always better
• Simple, simple, simple
• IP important, but not panacea

7. Business Plan—Think Like an
Investor
• What’s the problem?
• What is solution?
• Will customers really care?
• Who is competition? Narrow vs. Broad
• Why win?
• Why should I believe these guys?
• Gross characteristics of financial forecast
• What is dream?

8. Depth of Critical Thought
• Basic rules of business
• # of competitors
• Depth of value-add
• What are customer options?
• Know relevant models
• What are competitive models?
• What are historical models?
• Why have predecessor technologies failed?
• Know your own model
• What are you betting on?
• How soon does it have to work?
• What’s important to your success?
• Business plan is test of the people

9. Realism
“When a great executive meets up with a bad
business, it is usually the business whose
reputation remains intact.”
- Warren Buffett

10. Realism
• Hockey sticks are extremely rare outside the NHL
• Even if market is hockey stick, why are you?
• It always takes longer and costs more
• Plan for reality; be prepared to react to the dream
• Know what you are betting on

11. Raising Money
• Angels, Friends, and Family
• Govt grants of various kinds
• Venture Capital
• Many different flavors and tastes
• Tradeoff between dilution and time
• How much do you need to get to the next
milestone?

12. Where Do Ideas Come From?
• Lab--Modumetal
• “There must be a better way”—Housevalues
• Previous job-Azaleos
• Enabling technology—Insitu
• Enabling legislation
• Enabling world events—Insitu

13. From R&D To Product
• Different discipline; often different teams
• Products evolve; but need to be “done” at
different points in time
• “Better is the enemy of Good Enough”
• Completeness; providing real solution
• Customer feedback loop is critical
• V1, V2, V3

14. Get to Market Early
• Get revenue, “traction”, start selling
• Customer satisfaction more important that product
and technology
• Build customer relationships and customer feedback
loop
• Make mistakes early and cheaply

15. Low Hanging Fruit
• Who can make a decision?
• High value, low risk
• Big budget, already approved
• History of trying new stuff
• Other hurdles—Regulation, compatibility, etc.

16. Build domain expertise
• Focus on success of customer—every decision should
be weighed against this
• Listen to customers—Fine line between vision and
passion, and being stubborn
• All startups are in the service business
• More things liable to change than stay constant
• Everyone sells
• Be the voice of the customer

17. Falling in Love with First Plan
• Product is “done”; it’s just a sales/market problem
• “Great technology”
• Customer don’t care; problem doesn’t exist
• Too complicated
• Who’s the customer?
• Agility is critical

18. Sell the Vision, Plan to Struggle
• 2X Rule: Everything takes twice as long and costs
twice as much
• Sales learning curve
• Be realistic about valuation milestones
• Raise more money; relax about valuation

19. Focus
• Rare to fail due to excessive focus
• Companies pulled in many directions
• Lots of unexplored potential
• Lots of ideas; many of them bad
• Well-meaning board members
• Conventional wisdom is frequently inappropriate
• Focus on core value-add to highest priority
customers, then expand

20. Getting Ahead of Yourself
• Do not confuse activity with revenue
• Brother in law sales
• Great meetings
• Pipeline Value
• What would you do if you were the customer?
• Invest FOLLOWING growth

21. Be Cheap
• Good intentions…but it is a slippery slope
• It isn’t supposed to be comfortable
• What culture do you want to establish?
• It is okay to be small for awhile
• What do you really need?
• Minimum now vs. cash crunch
• Growth and progress are not linear

22. Invest in Culture Early
• Values are easier to establish than change
• Frugality, integrity, customer orientation,
accountability, focus
• Invest in “team” values: balance, support,
communication, shared values, collaborative,
flexible job descriptions
• Consistent values + clear priorities simplifies
management

23. Manage the Company, Even When It is Small
• Don’t assume everyone knows
• Communicate goals and objectives
• Share successes and failures
• Enroll people; Encourage debate
• Communicate often; clearly; think about it
• Think about cultural icons

24. Knowing What You are Good At
Or, Why “Founder” Becomes a Dirty Word
• Focus on your strengths
• Aggressively complement yourself
• Focus outward--make everyone else successful
• Ongoing conversation about yourself

25. Knowing What You are Good At
Or, Why “Founder” Becomes a Dirty Word
• Fixated on first vision
• Personal agenda—it’s not your company
• Over-rating your own capabilities
• Failure to delegate and micromanage
• Statistically, you’re eventually the wrong person
• You don’t know if you even want the job

26. Leadership
• Domain experience and customer advocacy
• Recruits great people
• Manageable ego
• Thoughtful about the business
• Thoughtful about company culture, and management

27. “It’s An Execution Play”
• All businesses are execution plays
• Not about patents and secret sauce
• Not about being first
• First strategy is probably wrong
• Winners, especially today, are those who execute the
best, and often changed strategy the best
• Winners are never satisfied

28. Building Great Companies
• Business is a journey of unknown duration and
course
• It takes a fundamentally strong business idea
• More importantly, a talented team that has thought
about and built what it takes to win

29. Get Accelerated by
Startup ShowCase
http://www.startupshowcase.in
http://www.startupshowcase.in/pitch2015
http://www.acceleratekerala.com
http://www.keralavc.com
http://www.expibotz.com
info@startupshowcase.in
Startup ShowCase is a unique platform to showcase, market and
raise your business through crowd funding,events, investor, social
networking & marketplace.
Accelerate your Business – Get Funded or Incubated!!