Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. While the reward of building a business can be incredible, the path to success is fraught with challenges and pitfalls. Building a profitable organization from the ground up is something that takes an intrinsic drive and motivation to build teams, identify and solve problems, and, ultimately, create positive change.
An entrepreneur will invest time, emotion and whatever they can get their hands on to bring an idea to life. For the most successful founders, this pursuit is about much more than glory and cannot be done alone. It takes the help and support of mentors, deep market and buyer persona research, and lots of trial and error to be successful.
I have been tremendously lucky to have launched, nurtured and sold two technology companies with an amazing set of cofounders. Our most recent startup raised $60.3 million and secured venture backing from several leading investors.
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While I have had a share of well-turned wins, I’ve also faced challenges that have helped me learn a lot along the way. With that in mind, here is the advice I would offer to my fellow entrepreneurs who are starting companies or bouncing back from attempts that did not quite take off.
Build a strong, supportive network, and do it early.
Throughout my journey as an entrepreneur, one of my biggest priorities was building a community of trustworthy colleagues and mentors who I could turn to for advice and assistance. Once that network is established, it is important to meet regularly with each person to seek advice and report on your company’s milestones and growth. Each of these meetings should be treated as an opportunity to learn something, so be sure to come prepared with an agenda to maximize the time you have. Most importantly, remember to always be yourself and be authentic.
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In addition to a strong professional network, as you build your company, it’s critical to surround yourself with cofounders and colleagues who complement your strengths rather than mirror your skill sets. Building a business takes a diverse team composed of a variety of different backgrounds and experiences. This helps to ensure someone is in charge of — and held accountable for — every single aspect of the business. For example, if you’re excellent at building a product, find a partner who can run operations. Most importantly, as you assemble a formidable team, make sure that self-motivation and passion are traits you all share.
Validate before you build.
The number of times I have met a founder who has a compelling idea but does not have a solidified use case or clearly identified target market is overwhelming. Before launching Scout RFP, before writing a single line of code, we went out and listened to over 200 industry professionals about their top pain points. As an entrepreneur, you need to validate the market before you seek the funding to build a new solution for it. This validation enables you to prove that a viable market exists for your solution and uncovers the niche it can fill.
The surveyed professionals will likely have many thoughts, both positive and negative, about your product. While your company is growing, use this collaborative time as your chance to gather feedback and make necessary changes. Focus on deploying a minimum viable solution, and test and iterate on it based on feedback from professionals, early customers and the market you are selling to.
Identify your competitive differentiator.
Equally important to determining the audience is identifying your competitive differentiator. What sets your product apart from similar offerings, and why should someone purchase something new from you over something they might already have? These are critical questions to ask yourself as an entrepreneur and ones investors will repeatedly ask you to clearly define.
These are also important questions to ask your mentors, investors and others who are using your product. In the case of Scout RFP, early interviews with prospects uncovered that while most companies had an expensive software solution in place, it was often going unused. There were a variety of reasons for this, including the fact that available solutions were overly complicated and lacking when it came to user experience.
To address these industrywide concerns, we invited feedback from customers early on in the process to learn more about the user experience from actual users. From there, we made specific changes to the features and functionality based on their needs.
Stay motivated.
With all of the challenges of launching a startup, one of the questions I am asked most often is how to stay motivated in the face of stress and challenges. My advice: Love what you are doing, and do not worry about public success. Focus on learning, building and the joy of the small successes along the way.
A small success may look like your first paying customer, the first acknowledgement from the outside world that you exist, or the first time you make payroll to an actual staff with families living off of employment by your company. These are all remarkable achievements, even if they don’t represent the public’s definition of success.
Set high goals, and aim to exceed them. Enjoy every bit of the process. Your first company is always your best learning experience, as it gives you the foundation and knowledge to build your next one.
The path to building a startup is never a straight line, and for every achievement, there is a setback or two. The most important things to remember are to keep your eyes on the horizon and that failure is a normal course of action in business.
Many of the companies you hear about today were not always successful and experienced moments where they almost failed. If your first startup comes up short, try again. Remember to always believe in your passion, work hard, keep an eye to the future and surround yourself with hard-working colleagues.
Stan Garber is the President at Scout RFP and sets the marketing and growth strategy.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com