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Creating, Launching & Growing a Successful Technology Start-Up
Key Concepts & Best Practices for Entrepreneurs
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
Presentated to the Business & Technology Group
Rotman School of Business
at the University of Toronto
December 1, 2011
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Creating, Launching & Growing a Successful Technology Start-Up
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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About me…
Seasoned technology entrepreneur, investor, biz consultant & advisor
75+ Fortune 1000 projects
25+ Start-ups
Noted expert in tech- enabled biz innovation
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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So, what is a start-up anyway?
A start-up is an idea
in search of a business model
“
” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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The entrepreneur’s task is to find a successful business model as quickly & effectively as possible
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value
w/thx to Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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In traditional business, we create value by delivering products or services to customers
… But in a startup, the product and customer are unknowns
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Priority #1 is to discover who is the customer and validate the product or service offering with them
w/thx to Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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More start-ups fail from a lack of
customers than a lack of
product development
“
” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Focus on customers for whom the need to solve a problem outweighs the risks of taking on a new product or vendor
w/thx to Geoffrey Moore
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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All my life, I wanted to be a somebody
- now I realize I needed to be more specific
“
” Lily Tomlin
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Segment your target market into clusters of users who share common needs and interests, who have access to each other, and who reference one another *
HINT: a segment IS NOT a customer persona or industry vertical – think in terms of use cases *
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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The difference is in
the details
“ ”
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Seek to position your product or service as “top of mind” with targeted audiences by uniquely tailoring the value and benefits of your offering to the needs of each segment
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Product/market fit is the Holy Grail
of start-up success
“ ”
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Aim for strong demand from a sizeable group of passionate users representing a viable market…
Real customers willing to pay you
Cost of acquiring those customers less than what customers will pay
Enough market potential to support your business objectives © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Nail it before you
scale it
“ ” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Produce only “the smallest feature set that customers will pay for” in your first release (aka “minimum viable product”)
w/thx to Steve Blank © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Combine iterative product development with customer development to maximize learning with the least effort and expense
w/thx to Steve Blank, Eric Reis, Brant Cooper, and Patrick Vlaskovits © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Keep the venture as a project for as long as you can before turning it into a business … you’re aiming for a “low burn”
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Nothing is a complete failure
- it can always be used as a bad example
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Quickly “pivot” one or more parts of your customer-problem-solution hypothesis when failure strikes
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Get out of the building “ ” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Speak with as many living, breathing customers as possible to test the validity of your assumptions
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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If youth is wasted on the young,
wisdom is wasted on the old
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Where youth sees only chaos, experience can see pattern and meaning
find a mentor
set up a panel of advisors
expand your industry contacts
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Capital is scarce and expensive, so look for creative ways to bootstrap your venture
= Capital
Sweat Equity
+ Revenues
+ Financing
+ Investment
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Chaos is just order to which
we haven’t been properly introduced
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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The path forward is the one you lay down as you walk
Mobilize… Understand... Design... Implement... Manage...
w/thx to Alex Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur , and Damien Newman © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Questions?
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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Future Research Directions
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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We need a “start-up friendly” definition of value that recognizes validated learning about customers 1 2 3 4
opportunity /
objectives
fit
problem /
solution
fit
product /
market
fit
enterprise /
industry
fit
? ? ? ?
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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[email protected] http://www.slideshare.net/arnold01 416-899-4620
© Arnold Wytenburg & others