I get a kick out of discussing business ideas with people and even more of a kick seeing some of these ideas grow into viable businesses that employ people or solve real problems. My involvement with Startup Weekend Brussels, Founder Institute, westartup and the MIC Boostcamp have helped feed this interest.
Watching people grow in terms of what they want to achieve, their belief in themselves to do it and the realisation they don’t have all the answers is very rewarding and a key purpose of all the startup programmes in which I’ve participated.
One common factor throughout all these activities has been the presence of Ben Piquard and Pénélope Roux from MIC providing sponsorship, support and often a venue where people can meet.
Startup accelerators play a crucial role in moving businesses forward and can even help potential entrepreneurs decide whether or not they should go down this route. I think any first time startup founder goes through two broad and different phases.
The first is the sponge phase. You arrive, you think you have it all figured out and suddenly people start poking holes in your idea. The market isn’t large enough, you cannot clearly express the core value of the business, you’ve not spoken to any potential customers, the pricing is wrong, you won’t be able to afford the marketing without external funding etc., etc.
For some people this is a shock ( and the first real test ), but they very quickly pick themselves up and get excited about all the new possibilities opening up in front of them. Suddenly people with all the skills they didn’t even know they needed are available to them, deluging them in information. It’s a rush. Your horizon as founder rapidly expands and many more things seem possible.
This is where startup programmes excel for early stage startups. Your idea is pulled in 10 different directions, but you start to see the core of what you want to do. You leave with a viable business idea that you fully understand, you know who your customers are and you can explain your business in any relevant scenario.
Now the second phase kicks in.
You’ve built your network, but it’s no longer the size of the network that matters. You, your team and your customers should now be the core of your decision making. During the “sponge phase” you should have made enough contacts to be able to reach out to some relevant experts that have experience in an area where you need help, be that growth, legal issues or marketing, etc.
Now reduce your bandwidth for mentor input, work with a trusted advisory board and focus on executing your plan rather than just continually developing it.
This is the stage at which your business really takes off, it’s like you choose to commit mentally and make it happen, or at least have a damn good try.
Who knows, as your frenetic startup days settle down and you can remove some of those multiple job hats that you are currently wearing, you may have a little time to give back to new founders at one of the many initiatives that are springing up.
Gilbert West is the founder of Search Cog, a content focussed analytics company based in Brussels. You can usually find him at the BetaGroup Coworking Space or many of the entrepreneur events in Belgium.
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