{"id":2075,"date":"2016-02-06T15:02:36","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T09:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/?p=2075"},"modified":"2023-05-02T12:12:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T06:42:34","slug":"startup-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/2016\/02\/startup-dna\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u00a0does the DNA of a startup look like? While almost\u00a0every startup believes that it is building something entirely unique, there are some defining characteristics that\u00a0dramatically increase the probability of startup success.<\/p>\n<p>Shane Snow &#8211; the Chief Creative Officer of Contently &#8211; lists\u00a0some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/today\/post\/article\/20130624121912-7374576-9-startup-habits-that-will-transform-your-work?trk=mp-author-card\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">excellent points<\/a> in his post. Here are a few of my favorites&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Rather Than Planning, Doing<\/li>\n<li>Looking For 80\/20s<\/li>\n<li>Split Testing And Iterating<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Bias for Action<\/strong> has got to feature among the top of any list you see on this subject, since a startup is essentially about getting <em>started<\/em> with the idea, and not just making elaborate plans on paper (or on a spreadsheet!).<\/p>\n<p>If you are\u00a0planning to launch a startup soon, be wary of collaborations with key stakeholders (partners, vendors or even senior staff) that do not exhibit this trait. You will\u00a0regret it if you don&#8217;t, and waste precious time in the bargain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pareto&#8217;s Principle of 80\/20<\/strong>\u00a0will definitely\u00a0apply\u00a0to your ToDo list, once\u00a0you start your journey on the road to entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, the list of things to do will be long, and every item on it will <em>seem<\/em> important. But, every entrepreneur has limited resources and limited time at his\/her disposal.\u00a0And, in the end, what\u00a0will matter is that you did the things that mattered most &#8211; and ignored the ones that didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, <strong>Testing and Iteration<\/strong> will get you further than most, and also ensure that you get bang for the buck.<\/p>\n<p>Should you advertise on Facebook or Google? Should you use subject line A or B in your introductory email? Should you go with logo option 1 or 2? Very often, we don&#8217;t know what will work in a particular context, but can ascertain our course of action based on\u00a0data, as long as we are willing to learn from the experiment, and iterate as needed.<\/p>\n<p>If budget is a constraint &#8211; as it often is &#8211; you need to run carefully though-through experiments to see what works better. Discard what doesn&#8217;t, and scale up what works by putting more resources behind it. If budgets are generous, run even more experiments!<\/p>\n<p>May the force be with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u00a0does the DNA of a startup look like? While almost\u00a0every startup believes that it is building something entirely unique, there are some defining characteristics that\u00a0dramatically<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,26,14],"class_list":["post-2075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-resources","tag-work"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4490,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions\/4490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}