David J. Donovan's Blog

Critical Startup Success Points

Working in a startup environment can be an adrenaline packed rewarding experience  pushing the risk reward envelope to "infinity and beyond". Not without challenges, navigating a startup through the obstacle course of cash burn, risk mitigation, hiring the right employees, staying focused and timely execution are the responsibility of EVERY member of the team.

All  too often in the startup environment there are misaligned expectations, poor accountability, and inconsistent goals that needlessly add additional layers of risk. Large companies, small companies as well as startups suffer from these malignancies.

A toolkit based on first hand learning experiences in this environment is valuable insight into your current or next engagement. To that end I have compiled a set of take-a-ways based on what I have learned over the last 10 years working for technology startups. I use these critical success points as a filtering mechanism and a check and balance in my daily activities. I hope you find them as useful as I do.

Download Critical Success Points.pdf

Kleiner's Laws

Eugene Kleiner was a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and a principal in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

•Make sure the dog wants to eat the dog food. No matter how ground-breaking a new technology, how large a potential market, make certain customers actually want it.

•Build one business at a time. Most business plans are overly ambitious. Concentrate on being successful in one endeavor first.

•The time to take the tarts is when they're being passed. If an environment is right for funding, go for it. Eugene, more than anyone, knew that venture capital goes in cycles.

•The problem with most companies is they don't know what business they're in.

•Even turkeys can fly in a high wind. In times of strong economies, even bad companies can look good.

•It's easier to get a piece of an existing market than to create a new one.

•It's difficult to see the picture when you're inside the frame.

 •After learning some of the tricks of the trade, some people think they know the trade. This reflected some of Eugene's own humility; he recognized that many venture capitalists thought they were experts when they had just a bit of knowledge.

 •Venture capitalists will stop at nothing to copy success.

•Invest in people, not just products. Eugene always respected founding entrepreneurs. He wanted to build companies with them not just with their ideas.

From Kleiners Laws

photo courtesy of Jill Hughes