Practical entrepreneurship training part 3 Building team and product/service
- 1. Building Team, Product & IP Practical Entrepreneurship Training – Part 3 Kieran Moynihan ( kieran.moynihan@cit.ie ) Entrepreneur-in-residence, Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland October, 2012
- 2. Building the team, product and Intellectual Property (IP) Building team, products, Services, IP Spo$ng the opportunity Financing your business Sales & marke8ng
- 3. Composition of founders Group Individual Larry Page, Sergey Brin - Google Ciara Crossan, Weddingdates
- 4. Dynamics of founding group • Usually – Friends, Class mates – Work colleagues – Business acquaintances • Important to get along J • Key to define roles and leader early on • Several shoulders can help spread the pressure of a start-up environment
- 5. Dynamics of single founder • Can be lonely but works for some people • Stress levels can be greater than founding team • Important to build a team around you early on – Particularly important in start-ups building out a team for the founder to find trusted lieutenant
- 6. Which works better in practice ? Source : Ron Conway, US Angel Investor, May 2011 My own belief is that in most cases, co-founders have a greater chance of success
- 7. Be prepared for a tough journey • 99% of entrepreneurs have a tough journey to eventual success or failure • Important not to get “too up or too down” • Celebrate successes • Expect set-backs
- 8. Building out a team • Need to cover as best you can different roles ( commercial, technical, finance …) • Require clear definition of who is responsible for what • Hire and attract people smarter than you • Use equity to attract strong people
- 9. Key characteristics of successful start-up team • Absolute trust & teamwork • Integrity • Work-ethic • Passion to deliver for your customer • Adaptible & flexible • Gets the job done – whatever it takes
- 10. Absolute trust & teamwork • Would you trust your team member to pack your parachute ? • The start-up companies that do make it do so on the back of incredible trust in each other and going the extra mile to help each other • Dis-harmony in a start-up team needs to be dealt with quickly or it corrodes ….
- 11. Integrity • Integrity in a founding team is critical to attracting – New team members – Customers – Partners – Investors • This defines the value-system in a company • Doing the right thing is critical to building your reputation in business
- 12. Work ethic • Starting a business takes an incredible effort and to make your business successful takes even more effort ! • There is no such thing as 9 am – 5:30 pm in a business start-up • Any valuable reward in life demands a lot of effort – building a valuable business is a wonderful example of this • Every team member needs to embrace this to the best of their capabilities
- 13. Passion to deliver for your customer • The first customers usually make or break a young business • By going the extra mile for your customer, you are laying the foundation for your next sales on the back of a happy customer reference • Delivering for your first customers usually takes a lot longer and is a lot harder than what you plan for • Don’t forget … – You took their money – Teams in a customer have taken a chance on going with a start-up !
- 14. Adaptable and flexible • The start-up journey is full of twists and turns, good and bad • You need a clear head to understand the significance of developments – Particularly setbacks – This is precisely where a team’s strength shines through to take it on the chin and respond effectively to the crisis • My experience has been that how a team handles setbacks ultimately defines whether they will be a success or not
- 15. Getting it done – whatever it takes At critical moments, successful teams simply do whatever it takes to win
- 16. Key role of the leader • Sets the tone for the business • Huge influence on attracting investment, support and people to the business • Works harder than anyone else • Has to make the hard decisions • Huge influence on success of company • The buck stops with you J
- 17. True leadership inspires !!
- 18. Key role of a team mentor • A mentor who has a lot of experience in business and in start-ups brings huge value to a start-up team • Provide a sounding board to test strategy and get advice on major decisions • Help the team avoid some of the mistakes all entrepreneurs make ! • A strong mentor can bring the tough love needed to a team to help them be successful – Kick them up the ass if needed – But always constructively helping by telling it as it is and getting stuck in to help
- 19. Building your product/service Defining the product/service Involving the customer Shaping product to customer priorities Developing & Implementing a plan Getting partners to help build your product Quality & Delighting customer Driving customer feedback back into product Intellectual Property (IP)
- 20. Defining the product/service • Write down the specification ! – If it isn’t written down, how do you know what you will end up with ? • Specification will change but you need a reference point of a properly managed specification to drive everything around this
- 21. Involving the customer • Modern approach to building products is to – Identify key trial customers at the outset and involve them from day 1 – Build early versions and test them as best as possible with the trial customers – Challenge to get right balance between stability of early product versions and waiting too long to get customer validation • Early adopter customers like getting involved in helping start-ups provided – The product addresses a compelling need for them – They get a great deal on the commercial product !
- 22. Shaping the product to key priorities for customer • Every start-up is faced with the challenge of wanting to put far more into the product than you have resources for • Many start-ups do not focus enough at the outset in understanding the customer priorities and aligning the product features and development schedule to those priorities • Start-ups often over-engineer a product with “bells and whistles” instead of ensuring the product does a few of the important things very well ! • Matching your early product versions to the sweet-spot of the customer’s problems is the best way to support early sales momentum – Help the early customers first time => drives follow-on reference sales
- 23. Developing and implementing a plan • Developing and implementing a proper plan to build/ provide a product/service is critical to the success of a start-up – Many start-ups do not have project management experience and varying levels of chaos ensues resulting in • Failure to meet the planned schedules • Poor utilisation of resources • Business runs out of money before product is ready • Key approaches to avoiding this – Allow for sensible levels of contingency – Monitor progress of plan on a weekly basis
- 24. Getting partners to help build your product • In today’s start-up environment, many companies look to external partners to – Help design and prototype their product – Manufacture their product – Develop components of the product • E.g. hiring software teams in India and low-cost countries • These partnerships are critical and need a lot of management – Identify a range of partners and carry out a disciplined assessment of their capabilities and track record – Talk to other start-ups who have dealt with them – Seek advice from mentors, Enterprise Ireland etc.
- 25. Quality & Delighting the customer • Poor quality product is the kiss of death for a start-up • It is far better to have just two things working well and stable than 8 features half-working • Put in the effort it takes to test the product properly • Respond to customer problems quickly ! • Do whatever it takes to get it working
- 26. Driving customer feedback back into product • There is nothing like having your product used in a real customer environment for the first time ! • Most customers are similar so it’s important to capture the key feedback early on and feed this back into the product team
- 27. Intellectual property • When you have developed a new invention, it is important to assess should you protect the invention with a patent • As patenting is expensive it is important to assess the value in progressing a patent process – Patents are very common in medical and various technology areas – Very difficult to patent in software and e- commerce areas