Leading a Startup in Mobile Business
Save time by avoiding mistakes
No magic formulas
to become millionaire
The Mission
- Be a better Startup Founder
- What it means to be an entrepreneur
- Goals definition
- Step by step solutions
- Resources and Priorities
Bonus lectures
- Building a technical team
- The importance of mentors and advisors
The most important resource is TIME
Thank you!
About the IDEA
"Every good business starts with a good idea.
This is one of the basic rule of success."
Common reasons for failure
A good idea is not enough
"Don't marry your idea, date it. Fall in love with your passions."
- Be passionate
- Be yourself
- Enjoy
- Be Happy
Like love, an idea needs validation.
Is it worth all your life?
Why good ideas fail?
- Competitors
- Wrong timing
- External factors
- Business execution
Nobody pays for it!
Who are we?
Thank you!
Being a Startup Entrepreneur
What does it mean?
Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?
No right answers
Wrong reasons
I want to be my own boss
- you are the worst boss
- you cannot lie or escape
- there will always be boring stuff
- who's responsible?
Because I don't want to do boring stuff
I want to make a lot of money
- years before breakeven
- risks vs benefits
- working tons of hours per day
I want more free time
- FORGET IT
- No more personal life
- Once again: who's responsible?
I lost my job
- Economic issues
- Money (eventually) is only the last step
...more an more...
- Hard job
- Mistakes
- Depression
Requires passion
- Reaching goals
- Winning challenges
- Continuous learning
- Be Happy!
Thank you!
The long journey
The mission of an entrepreneur
Some Literature
"the first priority of a founder of a company is to find Product/Market Fit"
Marc Andreessen:
"Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market."
Sean Ellis: "Product/market fit is precondition for effectively scaling marketing for a company"
Steve Blank:
"Product/market fit is a step in between customer validation and customer creation"
Alexander Osterwalder:
"Product/market fit is when the entire business canvas is fixed without requiring additional pivots"
My personal position
- The market wants our product
- (enough) customers pay for it
- clear value proposition
- clear process from production to distribution
- advantages against competitors
- well defined revenue formula
We found the Product/Market fit when:
Learning in every step
Let's make it simpler
Stages of a Startup
1st mission: Problem / Solution fit
Problem / Solution fit
- Talk to people
- A problem worths solving
- Viable solution
- Someone willing to pay for it
Before running out of resources
Sources
- Literature sources
- Compare theory with real scenarios
Thank you!
Resources optimization
Where to put the most of my money/effort/resources?
Foreword
Our 1st mission is to find Problem / Solution fit
before running out of resources
- I have THIS PRODUCT idea
- I have THIS amount of MONEY
- I want to build it in THIS TIME
"How can I use my resources?"
Step 1: Define your victory
I want 1000 users of my product before 6 months
Step 2: Define the worst case
I'll give up if I have less than 300 users in the next 9 months
Step 3: Make it measurable
Track results at any time
Reference APP Idea
2-sided Marketplace for wellness services
Concrete example
- Common scenario
- Most common topics from discovery to MVP
- Reference case study
Thank you!
How to spend money in a reasonable way?
Numerical example
- 30k dollars
- Victory: 1000 users in 6 months
- Give up point: < 300 users in 9 months
Test case: Wellness Marketplace App
Development and Marketing
Finding the right balance
Common mistakes
- invest the most in product development
- go to market
- not enough money to promote
- run out of money before validate
Fail
Development 1:2 Marketing/Sales
- Development budget: 10k $
- Marketing/Sales budget: 20k $
Assumption: spend at least twice the amount of product development in marketing
Thank you!
The most important resource:
TIME
Section summary
- Idea
- who we are
- our mission
- our GOALS
- our Budget
Find our GOAL,
BEFORE running out of money.
- validate our assumptions
- shortest time possible
- minimize our problems
- find a valid solution
Run Forrest, run!
- make mistakes
- fail fast
- learn
- change
- succeed
Thank you!
How to build a tech team for a startup?
without technical knowledge
The answer is: it depends.
Where we are?
Main approaches
- find a tech co-founder
- find an external team
Pros
- help in technical decisions
- guide the development
- investors
- cost
- hard to find
- oversizing complexity
Cons
Tech expert co-founder
Second stage after validating proposition
Focus 100%
Pros
- Cost
- On demand
- No maintenance
- No in-house knowledge
- hard lock-in
- unknown results
- hard to make changes
Cons
External team
Very early stage
Reduce the time to go to market
Thank you!
The importance of a mentor / advisor
Save your TIME
Foreword
Problem / Solution fit
- Find a problem worths solving
- Discover a viable solution
- Validate before running out of resources
Prototype
- Where the customer is?
- What he or she is paying?
Customer Discovery
we still don't know what the product is
Expert's Advantages
- Right solution at current stage
- Help to take tech decision
- On demand
Bonus: in a later stage can be a right co-founder
Benefits
- different point of view
- learning faster
Once again: the most important resource you have is TIME.
Thank you!
Driving a Mobile Startup Business
By Paolo Mosca
