My New Favorite Game: How to Build a Startup
Posted on Tue, Jun 28, 2011
By Erin
Those in the PR industry often discuss what works and what doesn’t when it comes to building a startup. But really, what do we know? Half is luck; the other half is the idea, right? Well, according to these really smart dudes from Silicon Valley, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann and Max Marmer, the world of entrepreneurship can be turned into a science.
They recently released “
Startup Genome Report,” which aims to lay the foundation for a new paradigm of assessing startups and understanding the drivers of entrepreneurial performance. The pair interviewed and surveyed more than 1,000 startups and concluded -- well, a lot -- but here are some of the key takeaways I found interesting.
- Learning makes you successful. Startups that turned to mentors, tracked metrics and learned from other startups raised 7 times more money and have 3.5 times better user growth.
- Change is a good thing. Startups that pivot once or twice raise 2.5 times more money than those that don’t.
- Success requires balance. Teams with a technical and business founder raise 30 percent more money and have 2.9 times more user growth.
- Avoid common mistakes. Premature scaling is the most common reason for failure.
- Beware over-estimation. Startups that haven’t raised money over-estimate their market size by 100 times and often misinterpret their market as new.
- Team work can be lucrative. Solo founders take 3.6 times longer to reach scale stage than startups that have two or more founders.
- Invest in the idea. Investors are 3 times more likely to invest in startups that haven’t yet reach a solution fit.
Before you play the startup game, read the
directions. It takes more than a great idea, money and connections.
What elements do you see in successful startups?