How to Start a Startup: 9 Essential Tips from a Startup Founder

How to Start a Startup: 9 Essential Tips from a Startup Founder

Have a great business idea? It could be the foundation for your very own startup.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, entrepreneurs filed about 1.4 million applications for new startups in 2021, a record for new businesses and potential competition for your idea.

Fortunately, a startup founder with an “oversubscribed crowdfunding” fundraising round recently hosted an “ask me anything” session on the professional social network Blind. The entrepreneur shared some hard-learned essential tips and strategies to start a startup in the informal interview.

Here are the top nine essential tips, strategies and ideas for entrepreneurs launching a startup.

1. It is OK for your startup to have a false start.

You may need more than one attempt to start your startup.

“My platform didn’t work well and our metrics were terrible,” recalled the startup founder. “I decided to rebrand… and then took a couple months learning how to code & fixing all the bugs.”

The entrepreneur had to wait to iron out the technical issues before raising funds to build the business further.

“Once the platform was bug-free, I shifted focus [to] the crowdfunding campaign,” the founder said.

2. Learn from other people’s mistakes.

There is a wealth of resources available to startup founders or others looking to turn their side gig into a new business.

The best resource might be old-fashioned research.

“Consider all the things you do online, both professionally & personally, and then limit the scope to what you think could be done 10x better,” said the hopeful tycoon. “Then, look into startups which tackled this problem and how & why they failed, then assess whether you can do better, and if so, how?”

Better still, look into whether there are any public companies in your industry or doing something similar. Companies whose shares trade on stock exchanges have to file a glut of paperwork with regulators and often outline their plans or lessons in quarterly earnings calls and forms.

3. Recognize that your startup idea might not be as original as you think it is.

“I can guarantee you there’s a couple dozen different people with the exact same idea as you,” warned the startup founder. “Perhaps some have even launched.”

What matters most is the execution and vision, according to the entrepreneur.

“Don’t worry about it being stolen,” the business leader said plainly, referring to your business idea. “Even if the idea doesn’t get stolen, at some point you’d have to launch, and when you do it’s likely others will copy you. Even though it sounds cliche, at the end of the day, execution is all that matters.”

4. Finding a co-founder is not necessary for all startups.

Creating your own business is a lot of work, and it may be easier if you get started with a team of co-founders. However, according to the solo founder, some people can do it alone.

“I did not have a co-founder,” noted the business leader. “You don’t really need one if you’re able to write code.”

Perhaps more importantly, the valuable skill may also be reading code.

5. You do not need a lot of seed money to start.

The startup founder did not have an immediate network for seed capital. Instead of a “friends and family” fundraising round, the entrepreneur crowdfunded his business idea using professional social networks.

The business leader “got the initial $30K by sending out messages to potential investors on LinkedIn.” Then, the startup founder built trust by sending regular updates about the progress.

“People liked how transparent I was, so that with some FOMO mixed in, resulted in the raise being overfunded,” the businessperson explained, adding how they created the “fear of missing out.”

6. Do not spend too much money on marketing.

“We did an initial burst of paid marketing (forum banners, stickied threads) to get our initial set of users,” the startup founder said.

The entrepreneur revealed spending about $1,000 to $2,000 to acquire the first 400 users, primarily focusing on forums and online communities, including Reddit.

“Marketing doesn’t really apply until you launch your MVP, and it’s a whole lot less difficult than potential co-founders make it out to be (at least for the early stage),” the business owner said, referring to a minimum viable product.

A minimum viable product is the version of a new product that is just usable enough for early customers to provide you with helpful feedback. This particular startup’s minimum viable product was “written from scratch” in about four and a half months.

7. The first set of customers will be instrumental in your growth.

It was not until the startup had a cohort of a few hundred users that the business started to grow organically, according to the “ask me anything” host.

“The only hard part is finding communities/forums/channels for the niche your startup serves. From there, you can take the customer feedback and improve your product.”

The startup founder advised that it can pay off to create a community for your customers or users.

“The feedback cycle was fast, as we have a Discord channel on which sellers can request features and report bugs.”

8. You may need to fire people.

The startup founder recalled his first attempt at starting a startup failed when a much-needed $250,000 check from angel investors did not come through.

The now solo founder originally had a co-founder who got “depressed” at the setback. The burnout stalled development and further improvement of the platform for the budding company.

The business leader “made the difficult decision to let [the] co-founder go” to save the company.

The lesson learned? “Be very intentional/relentless about realizing the chunks of your plan.”

9. Your work-life balance could suffer.

In the early days of your startup, you will likely have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

It can be challenging to attract and hire new talent for your startup with little funding. There are many startups, and many engineers and professionals have their pick of which company to join. Worst still, it takes a lot of time to find new professionals to join, let alone interview and hire them.

It is “super hard to find time for yourself (let alone family) until you get to a certain point where you have a team who you can delegate tasks to,” the startup founder cautioned others who might be looking to start their own business.

The bottom line

Being a startup founder is a profession like no other, and while it may require a lot of work, most people have the resources to get started.

A startup founder revealed on the professional social network Blind that you do not need to spend much on market research or marketing to get started. Indeed, most people might have the grit to solve a problem better than others and the firsthand experience to do so.