Insights from Two Years of Startup Life
Teo Gonzalez here! I started working on my startup in 2021 with a mission of making every manager excellent. Over the past two years I've experienced both the small and large pivots that come with startup life, what it takes to go from concept to reality. These experiences have taught me invaluable lessons, and I want to delve into three key insights:
Entrepreneurship is a scientific journey as much as it is a creative one
Before diving into startups, I was under the impression that you just needed to have a great idea to be a success, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is your idea will change more times than you can count. You’ll capture feedback from customers, you’ll see how they interact with your product, and iterate on your product. The power of a successful founder isn’t their ability to come up with an idea from scratch and get it done on the first try, it’s in their ability to put stimulus into the world (in the form of their product/service) and iterate effectively. This means intentionally understanding what worked well, what didn’t, and feeling comfortable with doing new things or changing direction for the sake of progress.
You are your only limit
In every other phase of my career, how far I progressed came down to a combination of variables I could control and variables controlled by my manager or leadership. I could work as hard as I wanted, and my standing in the organization or impact would still be confined within the realms of what was allowed to me by my higher-ups. Within your own startup, it’s all on you to define. That’s a great thing; you have that freedom to engage in what you want. However, it also means you need to be ready to push yourself. You might have felt limited by working under others, but at the same time, they brought additional momentum & credibility to your output. Progress will be the product of you and your team’s contributions and luck, nothing more.
Communication can make or break your startup
When you’re in the initial phase of your startup, a significant part of how you earn respect and business is how well you communicate. This communication needs to encapsulate everything from a grand vision to what is expected in the day-to-day of your team. In a world where your competitive advantage is the speed with which you make and execute decisions, there will be a lot happening at once. Speak often and clearly to your people so everyone knows what is going on and make sure that you are sharing appropriate information with key stakeholders; it might be what prompts them to stick with you.
That’s all from me here. Feel free to reach out, and I wish you the best of luck as you embrace the Startup Life. It's a crazy ride, but its potential for reward is unparalleled.
