Are you ready to start your own company? - ZT

Checklist for founders before jumping on a startup idea

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Are you getting into the right field
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A1. Are you doing something "You are good at and you love to do",
Will you be proud of what you are doing ?
Will you be proud of talking about your business before friends and public media.

A2. Will you be comfortable to associate with the players in the same food chain.
Do you like your customers and suppliers ?

A3. Who can be your role model ?
Find out the successful founders in the same industry segment. Are you similar to your role model ? Do you have similar background and strength as your role model ?
Try to analyze your role model and find out the key factors contributing to their success.

Are they successful because of:
a. Strong technologies
b. Strong marketing abilities
c. Strong sales skills
d. Enormous resources (networking, etc)

(In other words, do you drink same type of beers, listen to same type of music, ware same color shirts as your role model ?

A few examples for people who are familiar with China companies.
Baidu is strong at technology,
Alibaba is strong at marketing,
Giant Interactive(GA) is strong at sales,
Kongzhong is strong at resources.

Companies founded by Chinese in US:
Netscreen, strong at technologies
WebEx, strong technologies plus marketing
Telenav, strong technologies

A4. Are you the right person to do this business ?
Basically, you need to answer the question, “Why is me ?”
What will be your sustaining competitive edge ?
Will the business requires the background, training and experience you have ?
Can a high school kid do your business ?
Can a college dropout do your business ?
Can someone without advanced engineering degree do your business ?

As we all know, college dropout are the most formidable players in any market. If they can do your business, then you are on wrong business.

A5. Is the problem hard ?
Are you tackling a hard problem or an easy problem ?
If it is an easy problem, it will not be an opportunity for you.
Try to pick something harder.

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Know your potential customers
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B1. Have you made friends with some potential customers ?
Do you know their first names ?
Can you have beer or party with them ?
Your early customers will be your friends and your partners, you need to grow with them.

B2. Have you done your market validations ?
How many potential customers have you called or visited ?
How many of them will buy your products and services ?
How much are they willing to pay for your products and services ?
When will they buy ? Next quarter ? Next year ?
What will be the process of their purchase decisions ?

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How much do you know the field ?
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C1: In Chinese, we say, “不熟不做.”
A simple test of knowing the field is that knowing the people in the field.
Do you know the names of players in the market ?
Do you have their cell phone number ?
Are you well known in this field ?

C2. Do you know who might acquire your business ?
Who can be the buyers for you business ?

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How do you plan to build your marketing Channel ?
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D1. What will be your marketing channels ?
How do you plan to get your names out ?
How will you get free public media coverage ?
(International Standard meeting is one place for marketing).

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How do you plan to build your sales channel ?
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E1. Who are your customers ? and how to reach them ?
E2. What will be the cost effective ways to sell your products ?

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Will you be able to attract some seed funding ?
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F1. Can you identify a few potential angel investors who might be interested in your ideas ?
(Forget about VCs. You will not talk to them until much later.)

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Will you be able to find founding partners for your ideas ?
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G1. For your business ideas, will you be able to find founding partners
who will be interested in the same ideas ?

If the role model business you have identified has more than one founders, then your business will require more than one founders.
Try to learn the background of founders of the role model business, and emulate their team.

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Attitude check
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H1. Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win ?
Do not do a startup just for the sake of doing it or bored with your daily work.

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Have you thought about what if your venture fail ?
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I1: ”未思成, 先思败”
Will your startup experience help your next career movement ?
Help you broaden networking ?

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Where is the money ?
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J1: Do you know where the money is in your food chain ? and how far are you from the money. (Customer money and founding money).