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
Creating, Launching & Growing a Successful Technology Start-Up
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
So, what is a start-up anyway?
A start-up is an idea
in search of a business model
“
” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
The entrepreneur’s task is to find a successful business model as quickly & effectively as possible
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
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
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
More start-ups fail from a lack of
customers than a lack of
product development
“
” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
All my life, I wanted to be a somebody
- now I realize I needed to be more specific
“
” Lily Tomlin
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
The difference is in
the details
“ ”
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
Product/market fit is the Holy Grail
of start-up success
“ ”
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
Nail it before you
scale it
“ ” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
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
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
Nothing is a complete failure
- it can always be used as a bad example
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
Quickly “pivot” one or more parts of your customer-problem-solution hypothesis when failure strikes
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
Get out of the building “ ” Steve Blank
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
Speak with as many living, breathing customers as possible to test the validity of your assumptions
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
If youth is wasted on the young,
wisdom is wasted on the old
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
Capital is scarce and expensive, so look for creative ways to bootstrap your venture
= Capital
Sweat Equity
+ Revenues
+ Financing
+ Investment
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
Chaos is just order to which
we haven’t been properly introduced
“
” © Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
Questions?
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
Future Research Directions
© Arnold Wytenburg & others
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
[email protected] http://www.slideshare.net/arnold01 416-899-4620
© Arnold Wytenburg & others