Friday, December 18, 2009

Three common startup business types (that you need to avoid)

I promised a series of postings on media trends this week yet it’s Friday and I haven’t got them posted yet… oh well… I’ll get them out next week instead.

Instead I want to write a short note on three business types I see from startups.  Like most entrepreneurs I mix with my peers a lot, get asked for advice regularly and see an awful lot of startup pitches and plans.  I try not to clutter myself with “advisory board” roles or anything like that but I am always happy to help and give advice whenever it’s relevant.  So, free advice:

If your as an entity your startup looks like one of these you have problems


1)  Field of Dreams (see here)

“If you build it they will come”.  Let’s be honest about it we’ve all had ideas that fit this category of business plan.  If your model starts to look a bit Field of Dreams do your homework - Google the terms Lean StartupsCustomer DevelopmentMinimum Viable Product and do yourself a favour.

2) Underpants Gnomes (see here)

Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit

Now, you may have a different step one (perhaps it’s put up a website) rather than collecting underpants, but a lot of the time the entire business plan seems to follow this plan.  If that’s you, then it’s time to focus on go-to-market strategy.  There’s a lot of good ideas out there.  Execution counts, and you need to know what that looks like, who’s doing what, where, when and how.

3) People’s Front of Judea

I’ll try to upload the relevant video clip will probably help clarify this, but for anyone who’s seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian, we’ve all seen the organization that is so inward focused it spends all its time on meetings, quibbling over policies and procedures, and never gets out into the world and gets anything done:



Don’t be Kevin Costner, the Underpants Gnomes or the PFJ, if you want to build a great startup.

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