As mentioned previously (see posts about people as the key to success and finding the right co-founders), team success can be broken down into the team design, launch, and process. In this post, we’ll focus on the launch - how you kick things off. Think back to an issue you had within a team... Most likely, this issue was a result of a miscommunication or difference in expectations. Each of you had a specific idea about the way things should be and had difficulty seeing each other’s perspective or reaching a resolution efficiently.
This isn’t uncommon. But the root of the issue is almost always the same. Most disagreements come down to a misalignment in expectations, so it’s important to set these clearly up front: know what is important (and not important!) to everyone, how you’ll communicate, when people can make decisions without checking in, whether you’ll work together in the same room or separately, etc.… This may seem like overkill, and many teams agree, but then regret down the line when they didn't have these conversations early on. Here are some suggested tips of discussions to have in the first few meetings that may help reduce misalignment friction:
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Depending on your lens (engineer, designer, innovator, visionary, sales person, etc.), you may THINK you’re focusing on the customer, but going about it all wrong. Making something your customers will LOVE comes down to a few simple things:
This and more available for free at edx.org/course/becoming-entrepreneur-mitx-launch-x. How can you navigate the creative process? A few simple steps...
This and more available for free at edx.org/course/becoming-entrepreneur-mitx-launch-x. I’ve mentioned before the importance of team design and culture, so let’s dig into this intensely complex question: What are the makings of a PERFECT co-founding team? Ultimately, the things that are most important to team success are the ones that take the most effort to uncover. It’s hard to uncover the perfect mix of right things in potential teammates - finding teammates with similar interests seems hard enough. But herein lies the problem – the focus in what you are trying to uncover in teammates. Many entrepreneurs start with finding others who have similar business or industry interests, which is similar to starting your company pitch with an overview of your product instead of the mission or vision of your business. These are both common mistakes of first time entrepreneurs. The answer for both is to start with “why.” Skills can be learned, and interests can change, but values and passion need to be there as a foundation.
It is a known fact that the majority of startups fail, yet most people assume it is external factors of funding or the market that will cause their downfall. In Noam Wasserman’s study of 10,000 VC-backed startups:
I recently had the honor of doing a TEDx talk. It was a humbling, exciting, overwhelming, and exhausting experience. I was among a panel of esteemed speakers including some previous TED global speakers, an Emmy-Award winner, a performance storyteller, and an expert in neurodevelopment. Wow… And I had to kick off the event as the first speaker. And after having spent only a few days preparing my slides since I had just filmed the first half of the Launch online course before flying out a few days earlier. Yikes. I knew my materials, but couldn’t help but be intimidated by the prestige of TED and my colleagues on stage. I’m proud of my talk, though also know how I can improve going forward, and would like to share some advice for any of you who may have the opportunity to have a public speaking engagement.
Running an entrepreneurship program for high school students at MIT, I have faced this question either directly or indirectly from both applicants and students of MIT Launch. Applicants want to know if attending will give them a better chance of getting into MIT, while program alumni are assessing how much of their time to balance on different aspects of college applications versus continuing their companies.
In light of this question, I've spent some time gathering input from admissions directors, in addition to using my own experience reviewing applications, to provide an answer. The short answer: No. Getting into college or putting "Founder" on your resume shouldn't be a factor in deciding whether or not to start a company. But what DO admissions committees care about? And what ARE the reasons to start (or continue) a company? (And do these two overlap? Spoiler alert: they do!) What Admissions Committees Care About... Other than Launch, what other entrepreneurial projects have you worked on?
I’ve had a few entrepreneurial pursuits throughout my life before Launch, but never really knew what entrepreneurship was, and saw myself as too “risk-averse” for that lifestyle. Looking back, though, I started my first “company” in elementary school. My mom had made a purse for my by ironing a Looney Tunes character on a drawstring bag she made. Students at school loved it, so I started having my mom make them for $10 each and sold them to students at school for $20 each. Most recently before Launch, I set aside the summer after business school to start a hobby business. I knew I needed to know the rush of starting a company to be able to leave a secure job for it again someday. The day the website launched and my first sale were the biggest highs of my life at that point until starting Launch. Why did you start Launch? Launch was born from my frustration that adhering to the success metrics of getting 100% grades throughout high school (on tests that one could just google the answer to these days) didn’t prepare me for the real world. Education should develop skills and mindset, and Launch is working to redefine educational success metrics. Where do you see Launch going in the next few years? What is the future of Launch? During the summer program, we allowed students to anonymously submit questions to me, that I then answered during a classroom discussion facilitated by one of my interns. Below are my answers to the first few questions, the latter half of which will be posted soon.
What's the craziest thing you've ever done? Before business school, I had a panicked moment where I thought I needed to get some business or international experience to be able to have anything to contribute when I got to school. I didn’t know anyone who had been to business school before, and when reading books on how to write a good application essay, everyone seemed to have phenomenal business experience or have overcome great odds to be where they are. After being accepted to business school, I sold most everything I owned including my car, motorcycle, and most of my belongings, and worked a volunteer consulting job in South Africa for the summer before school. Once getting to school, I realized my previous experience was more than enough to feel like a valued contributor to the community, though I have no regrets about my decision, since that summer was a blast! Do you like Harvard or MIT more? After the brainstorming (diversion) process, comes the filtering (conversion) process. This can take a few different forms, depending on whether you are doing it as an individual or in a team. The objective is to take your long list of ideas that you came up with and bring it down to 3-7 ideas that would be well suited to you or your team, which also has high market potential.
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