Some of the common aspects of startups and founders usually encountered in media are the hardships of the entrepreneurial journey and the sweet taste of success. Some of the aspects that don’t come up as often are the actual steps that are essential in this journey, the unsuccessful attempts at building an efficient business and the premisses that help you identify the right idea for your foundation.
At Techsylvania, we have witnessed the stories of many founders on a transparent and inspiring note — inspiring a sense that we’re all in this together, and face the same fears and have the same world-conquering feeling as founders.
Have you ever wondered what happens in an internet minute?
Well, Ralph Simon and Yossi Vardi have, when trying to connect the dots in defining a startup’s success. The one thing that they observed to be common in all the activities happening in an internet minute — was that they all had the “connecting people” factor. It comes down to social and staying in touch, Their premise of building a successful application was that it has to include a social thread.
They took another successful platform’s example, trying to identify what made Amazon (in its primer times) better than all the other e-commerce platforms. Ralph and Yossi agreed that the fact that it used the wisdom of the crowd to target you, showing you similar products based on your likes and other similar peers’ likes, was what differentiated Amazon from its competition.
🗣️ Lesson #1: Include the “social factor” in your plan.
“A founder’s journey is a tough journey — it’s full of lessons, but it’s up to you to luck at your lottery ticket and make a difference out of it.” Kaidi Ruusalepp
How much does your environment affect your story?
Kaidi grew up in a small town in Estonia, within what she called “a closed society”, where you can’t have many perspectives. On top of that, the government usually sets the tone for your thinking & opinions, because it defines your way of learning, your learning resources and other matters that directly affect your development. But meanwhile, Estonia has become one of the most entrepreneurial-friendly countries and Kaidi has become the founder of Funderbeam.
She’s a true believer that the new normal is global and technology has opened many boarders. But mostly, she believes that a founder’s story life is a lottery because your environment also has a lot to do with it.
🌐 Lesson #2: Your environment can influence your business, but having the opportunities we have today, you can more easily change it.
The secrets of purpose:
- The interesting thing, which is not only for you as an entrepreneur, it’s also for your company: people will switch to you if you have a great purpose behind your company (60% of millennials have chosen their employer because of the purpose they have)
- If there’s an overarching theme to your life — That’s where you should found your company.
Max Niederhofer has studied more pragmatically the stories of founders & startups and has reached the conclusions from above, plus a more psychological approach to them. These psychological facts, that aren’t usually addressed when talking about startups founders — there are a lot of founders that start their own company because of a misfit situation (they don’t believe they belong in the corporate world and they want to build their own culture), or for proving themselves to somebody (so they start their own business in order to prove how special they and their ideas are). A business shouldn’t be founded on these premises, because its main attributes should be making a change or a difference through its services or products.
“We should start companies from this conscious place, actually knowing what to create in the world.” Max Niederhofer
💯 Lesson #3: “If there’s an overarching theme to your life — That’s where you should found your company.”
It may come as an overwhelming fact, but Sebastian Dobrincu is a 21 years old entrepreneur, who has already had his share of experience with startups, some of them really successful.
Sebastian focuses a lot on enhancing his skills and making out the most of them, and that’s his primary advice for other entrepreneurs. Using your skills, finding other people who can complement your weak points and always be on the look with the latest trends are part of his recipe for success. Also, taking into consideration today’s startup landscape — you have to focus on standing out through your execution. Or having another world-changing, remarkable idea (which is less likely to happen).
“In a crowded market, fitting in is a failure, in a busy market, not standing out is the same thing as being invisible.” Seth Godin
*quote taken from Sebastian’s presentation
🦉 Lesson #4: Skills have no age, you have to focus on your strongest attributes and leave your weak points to those who master them.