Building A Long-Lasting Startup
Three Main Components of Startup
It’s an interesting question, How do you build a startup that will last?
What are the key components of a startup that will last? Is it about product, funding, market, growth rate or even distribution? The short answer is all the above. But in reality, startups are about more than just product and funding. A startup is not just about making something that works or getting money to grow.
There are lots of startups that have good products and lots of money to fund them, but they fail because they have other flaws in their strategy. On the other hand, there are also many startups that have good products but no money and no distribution to get them out there. They fail because they don’t have any traction or people are interested in their product.
But I believe that startups are more than just about money and products. There are many startups that do really well in terms of funding and traction, but they fail because they can’t scale or because they don’t have the right people to run them. Or the opposite is true, there are some startups that fail to get traction or funding but succeed in their market.
The way I see it, there are three things that make a startup work. Those are Founders (Management) who are good at running companies, Product (Technology) that are valuable to customers, and Market (Customer) for your product.
It’s all about managing the company well and delivering value to customers. The key here is finding people who can help you deliver on those two things. The tricky part of this is finding the right combination of founders, management and product.
Finding people who will make your company successful without having too much control over it is also key. That’s why I believe the above question should be asked about management, not just about product or funding alone.
There are many companies that fail due to bad management, but there are also many companies that fail because their product wasn’t valuable enough or because they didn’t get enough traction from their market to be successful.
I believe that all of these things are interrelated and that’s why I don’t think you can just choose one of them and succeed. It takes a good combination of good management, good product, and a great market to make a startup work.
Now let’s look at the three components of startups:
Founders (Management) who are good at running companies.
The founder is the CEO of the company. The founder is the person who manages everything in the company. The CEO is usually in charge of product development, funding, marketing, hiring etc. There are some people who like to focus on one thing in particular, but it’s usually better to have people who can handle many things at once.
For example, it’s hard to be a great marketer if you don’t know how to build a product or if you don’t know how to get money for your company. But having someone who knows both of those things is much better than having one person who knows one thing but not the other two.
There are different types of founders. A few people have both product and management skills, but most founders are just good at one or the other areas. So there are some founders that are good at building products but not so much with management.
There are some founders that are good at management but not so much with product. There are also founders who are good at both product and management.
I think that you should look for founders who have both product and management skills. The best thing about these founders is that they can help you in many areas of the company without having to be in charge of everything.
They can do all the tasks that other people in the company can’t do or won’t do. They have good leadership skills, good business sense, good product sense, and they’re also great at making decisions on what to build next.
Product (Technology) that are valuable to customers.
The core of a startup is technology, which means that your products should be something that people will want to use. It’s hard to get traction without having a great product, especially if you don’t have money to pay for marketing or sales people or if you don’t have distribution channels like stores or websites where people can buy your products.
So it’s important to make sure your products are useful and useful enough for customers to want them enough to pay for them. If you can’t get traction for your product, you will have a hard time making money.
The problem is that not all companies are good at making products. Most startups are bad at making products. I think it’s because startups are usually about solving problems that don’t exist in the market yet. So there’s no reason for them to build products yet.
Most startups are not good at building great products, so they don’t have any traction or customers to get them out there. If you’re building a startup that will be successful, you should spend most of your time working on product development instead of building the company itself.
I think that startups should be more focused on products than just building a company. There’s no point in starting a company if you can’t build something that people want to use and if there’s no market for it yet (and even if there is, it might not be big enough).
If you’re trying to build a company that will succeed, then spend most of your time on developing your product and getting it out into the market. You can also spend some time building the management team and setting up all the processes and systems needed to run your company efficiently, but in my opinion, these things are not as important as building a great product.
Market (Customer) for your product.
The market is the people who will buy your product. If you don’t have a big enough market, you won’t be able to make money, and you won’t be able to get traction for your product. The problem is that if you’re building a startup that will succeed, then it’s hard to get traction without having a big enough market.
If you’re not making any money yet, then there’s no point in getting traction because no one will buy your products yet. So the best thing about startups is that they are always focused on the market first, and they make sure that they build something valuable enough for customers to want it enough to pay for it.
Most startups don’t know how to find customers or how to find traction for their products, so they can make money. Most startups are just trying to solve problems that don’t exist in the market yet, so they can’t focus on finding customers or getting traction.
So startups need good marketing and sales people who can help them sell their products to markets before customers will actually want them.
Conclusion
So what makes a startup last? I think it’s all about finding good management, good product and a great market. The problem is that it’s hard to find all three of these things at the same time. I think it’s best to have people who can do all three of these things.
So it’s better to have founders who are good at both product and management than just one or the other. It’s also better to have founders who are good at finding customers for your product than just building a company with no traction.
About the Author
I am the Founder of Cudy Technologies (www.cudy.co), a full-stack EdTech startup helping teachers and students learn better. I am also a mentor and angel investor in other Startups of my other interests (Proptech, Fintech, HRtech, Ride-hailing, C2C marketplaces, and SaaS). You can also find me on Cudy for early-stage Startup Founder mentorship and advice.
You can connect with me on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlhk) and let me know that you are a reader of my Medium posts in your invitation message.
