Startup Best Practices

What are Startups?

Giving a strict definition of a “startup” is not that easy but one can say that they match at least three different criteria:

1. have skyrocketing sales or/and a fast growing user base with a potential to reach $50m or more in revenue
2. start with a handful of employees and in a few years reach 100 or more employees
3. are on the track to be worth $500 million or more at some point in their existence

This is Alex Wihelm’s 50, 100, 500 rule, which naturally excludes all companies who are either above or never in line to reach such performances.

More on TechCrunch here

Why should you launch a startup?

First, before launching anything, you should have a problem to address. Then, once you sense that there is a real need to address the issue and that your idea can be a first approach to solving it, it is time to think about laying the first bricks. Above all, you need to be convinced that you are capable of solving this problem at some point, and that a certain passion arouses from this. Caution, the startup format may not be adequate for a number of activities and sometimes it is best to start a firm or go out as a freelance.

What do you need to launch a startup?

To launch a startup, a few key things are needed:

1. a problem
2. passion
3. time
4. the skills needed or the ability to acquire/recruit them
5. financial resources
6. exceptional leadership and management skills (people have to be willing to work with and for you).
7. experienced professionals around you or in your team (former startup founders, startup studios, incubators, accelerators, advisors).
8. a series of tools to accomplish all of the above (applications, methodologies, excel files and presentations).

On this last point, the Eloquens Startup Community provides battle-proven tools to help you start, develop and lead your business to success, in the form of excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, methodologies and techniques. Examples: Financial Plan Templates, KPI Dashboards, SaaS, Freemium and E-Commerce Startup Business Models etc.