Me? I want to sell you strategic consulting and be able to brag about the startups I’ve worked with (not because they raised a crapload of money, but because they achieved sustainability and delivered on their innovation promise). Who do you listen to then?Īs a disclaimer before we jump into it, remember that anyone giving you advice has a vested interest. Any day an entrepreneur needs advice, s/he will have three to five conflicting opinions. There are just too many structures trying to “help.” Too many clusters, incubators, accelerators, hubs, networks, BAs, VCs, meetups, events, and contests. I think most of the problem is coming from the innovation ecosystems themselves.
Now, of course, it’s usually difficult for entrepreneurs to “just listen.” They have an ego as they should, plus the advice they are given conflicts with everything they learned in regular companies (or worse, in research facilities)… Then, ‘startups’ have been a trendy thing for a few years now, and everyone is now a bloody expert on tech ventures because they got a keynote on design thinking. They are even pretty forward.Īre we still learning anything new about startups, or are we just pretending from now on? The fundamentals of running a startup are not shrouded in secrecy anymore. I will vent off a little bit skip that part if you want to get to the five principles directly : )