Got a great idea for a new product or service?

Tired of seeing your company evaporate while management rejects your ideas to innovate?

Want to apply your military leadership skills after being discharged?

Or, thinking about building an on-line/e-commerce business?

Whatever the reason, you may have the right idea and makeup to start a new venture, and a way to elevate your life and fulfill your dreams. How to Launch a Successful Startup will turn your ideas into reality.

How to Launch a Successful Startup is a customer centric business development process. You will succeed by overcoming the reason why 90% of startups fail – lack of customers and market.  Your initial efforts will be focused on defining your customer and understanding all market facets; then you will create a business and fund raising plan. Through research and collaboration with prospective customers, industry experts and successful entrepreneurs, you will target and build a loyal customer base vital for a sustainable business.  

How to Launch a Successful Startup participants undertake a six step customer and market centric business development process…

• Step 1 - What's Your Idea!

Once you commit the mental and physical resources – you’ll start as a training camp walk-on. You’ll expand your ideas through a series of exercises to define your product or service[1] concept, customer profile, market trends and competition. The internet will be a major source of information. Exhibit1 illustrates how diesel engine customer, market and competitive information can be accessed via the Internet.

• Step 2 - Does a Market Exist for Your Idea?

You will test your customer, product and market ideas. Using pre-designed questionaires as a framework, you’ll dialogue with prospective customers, market experts and even competitors. With each interview some of your ideas will be validated and others disproved. And as you dig into the market infrastructure, customer’s needs and motivations and market forces will become more apparent.

• Step 3 -  Improving Your Idea

With the wisdom gained from Step 2, you’ll reassess earlier concepts. What will emerge is a realistic definition of your company’s mission, target customer, product, market and a draft revenue and cash flow model

• Step 4 – What do Entrepreneurs in the Industry Think?

Successful entrepreneurs within your industry are prepared to collaborate with you. You will give a presentation on your product/service idea. The collaborators will judge the soundness of your business concept, challenge the validity of your assumptions and provide their view of what it will take to launch the business. You will be either encouraged to proceed and complete a business and funding plan or sent back to the drawing board. 

• Step 5 - Developing Your Business Plan

You will prepare a business plan. A 20 page template is presented but you can utilize any recommended format noted on the How to Launch a Successful Startup web site. The process of preparing a plan, and not the plan itself, will increase your likelihood of success.

• Step 6 – Selling Investors

To raise money, you need an investor sales plan and a highly targeted presentation. It will include the traditional elevator pitch, an appeal to your audience’s greed and your “winning” intangibles.

[1] How to Launch a Successful Startup is designed for both product and service businesses. All product references also apply to services.

Be Clever, Smart and Don’t Be Stupid

We don’t always make the right decisions when building a business. What’s important is identifying and focusing on the parameters and decisions having the greatest impact on success.  There are decisions, especially concerning customer needs, product/service concepts and marketing strategy that need to be beyond smart. You need to be clever and keep a step ahead of the competition.  Being clever requires knowledge and awareness of how customer needs and product usage are evolving. It requires continuous study, discussions with potential customers, suppliers, industry experts and experienced entrepreneurs.

Besides being clever, there are smart decisions and those which can’t be stupid.  Smart decisions focus on building the business infrastructure - selecting an accountant, manufacturing processes, recruiting, etc. Stupid decisions distract attention away from the business and cause inefficiencies.

Let me give you an example of a stupid decision. I had a friend with several successful restaurants. He didn’t file federal taxes for four years. Foolish! It cost him $10,000’s in penalties plus a three month period where more time was spent with his accountant and the IRS, than with his customers and employees. Bottom line - stupid decisions drain attention from growing the business and introduce a higher degree of business risk.

 

How to Launch a Successful Startup is designed as a self-study course and as a structure seminar. Both are based on the How to Launch a Successful Startup book. The structured  seminar includes…

• Fourteen (14) classroom sessions
• A formal process for collaborating with and presenting your business ideas to successful entrepreneurs within your target industry.

 

The self-study course, which is undertaken at your own pace, requires a total investment of from 160 to 200 hours. The structured seminar is held within a classroom and is moderated by an instructor. There are 14 classes, 50 minutes each. The out-of-class time investment is about 200 hours. 

The self-study and the seminar curriculums are presented on theHow to Launch a Successful Startup web site.  If you have any questions, please utilize the forum site at http://www.How to Launch a Successful Startup.com

Passion and Enthusiam

Lastly, participation within How to Launch a Successful Startup requires your candid assessments, primary and secondary research and continual fine tuning of your ideas. You will be pushed to probe further even after you believe that you have all the answers. But throughout the process, your passion and enthusiasm will be supported and hard work acknowledged.