20 Questions for Startup Success

Ever since I graduated from college, I have been fired from every job I ever had. Each time, I decided that the timing was right for me to start my own company. In retrospect, I failed whenever I focused entirely on my "vision" and succeeded when I learned to rely on my "peripheral" vision. This is a tough time to be an entrepreneur. It is too easy to think of the current downturn as just another economic setback. Instead, we need to think of this as the end of a 60-year cycle. Since 1949, the Chinese have been lifting themselves by their bootstraps, initially with their communist ideology but eventually by manufacturing low-cost consumer products and by reinvesting their earnings in foreign debts to keep interest rate artificially low (sort of like the Opium War in reverse). Now there are two World powers competing for markets and resources, fundamentally changing the long-term prospect of the American middle class. But for every crisis, there is an opportunity. Going forward I encourage all bootstrapping entrepreneurs to be patient, to keep an eye on the peripherals and to maintain discipline by consistently ask ourselves these really tough 20 questions (I find the YouTube video to be inspiring). This is not a race. When my son and I climbed Kilimanjaro last year, the porters would constantly sing in Swahili, "Haraka haraka haina baraka, Pole pole ndio mwendo", meaning "hurry hurry has no blessing, slowly slowly the world moves." Sounds about right. I also hope that you enjoy the following which is Part I of my two-part trip report. Good luck, everyone.

http://www.startupforless.org/2009/09/startup-lessons-learne...

It's a long video, here's the 20 questions.

1. What problem does this product solve?

2. How does it solve that problem?

3. How are the end user?

4. Who is your revenue-supplying customer?

5. Does the product solve a problem that end-users/revenue supplying customers actually have?

6. Are you sure it is a product and not just a "feature"?

7. Does your stuff easily fit into the way that people already work?

8. Are you too involved in HOW you are building your product rather than WHAT you are building?

9. Who are the potential partners? Who are the required partners?

10. What is the go-to-market strategy?

11. What is your sustainable competitive advantage?

12. Do you have a time-to-market/first mover advantage?

13. Can you be number 1 or number 2 in this space? Who is the competition?

14. Is there a team formed/identified with a record of successful ventures?

15. Is there a 'soul' of the team that knows where this product AND business is going for the next few years?

16. Is anyone on the team insane?

17. Are there product/technology/operations barriers to success?

18. Are there marketing/sales barriers to success?

19. Are there legal barriers to success?

20. Is there an exit strategy?