Role

Startup founder

Identify a core problem. Bet against the consensus and be right. Identify something that is a good idea, but sounds like a bad idea. Acquire product-market fit.

Copy to your organization

Communication

Identify and communicate the stage of the organization 1

The possible stage of the organization:

  • Startup
    • Pre product-market fit
    • Post product-market fit
  • Scaleup
  • Scaler

Varies with stage:

Accumulate and share an understanding of how and for whom the organization produces value

Check out how to use the concept of Profiles and Solutions to communicate how your organization produces value.

Decision-making

Execution

Get new stuff done

[...] this is the one thing we have learned best predicts the success of founders in Y Combinator, is that every time we talk to a team, they've gotten new things done. That's the best predictor we have that the company will go on to be succesful."

- Sam Altman

Feedback

Meet up with and gain the perspectives and insights of other founders

Andrew Wilkinson talks about the advantages of belonging to a founders forum in this video.

From 31:48 - 34:21

Market insight

Develop an intimate understanding of and empathy with the primary buyer personas in our target market 2

Check out how to use the concept of Profiles and Propositions to better understand what your target market cares about, and the concept of Alternatives to better understand how they are currently solving their problems.

Identify and understand the alternate solutions people are already using to solve the problem

Read more about Alternatives.

Be wary of an inability to identify alternatives to your solution. If people aren't using something else to solve the problem that your solution is designed to solve, it may be an indication that people don't sufficiently care about the problem to invest in having it solved.

Identify and speak with people who have recently invested time and money to make progress on the thing I help people do 4

Before we can sell somebody a product, we first need to understand how it will fit into their lives.

If your product has not yet launched, interview someone who bought a competitor's product, used a workaround, or asked for “alternatives to” on Twitter. In other words, find someone who has recently invested time and money to make progress on the thing you help people do.

Strategy and planning

Build an exit-strategy

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exitstrategy.asp

A strategy for closing down the business if it fails.

A strategy for exiting the business if it succeeds.

Plan for success

Success is the last thing that should catch you off guard. Even though success is by no means a given, assume that you will be successful and plan accordingly.

This does not mean doing things that scale prematurely, but rather mapping out a path to success in order to better understand the road ahead and maintain accountability.


Skillsets

Recruitment Scaling up Hiring

Organizational development Startup Organizational resilience Delegation

Outreach Messaging Awareness

Organizational development Organizational health Leadership support and enablement Leadership development Role clarity Delegation Organizational structure Organizational clarity

Networking and partnerships

Communication Improvement Alignment and friction prevention

Surveys

Management Startup Leadership support and enablement Leadership development

Organizational health Organizational clarity Organizational resilience Management

Employee experience Alignment and friction prevention Organizational health Organizational development

Employee experience Organizational clarity Organizational development Organizational health Onboarding Startup Alignment and friction prevention Leadership support and enablement Role clarity Leadership development

Employee experience Organizational development Organizational health Startup Leadership support and enablement Alignment and friction prevention Management Leadership development

Employee experience Ansattopplevelse

Employee experience Organizational health Leadership support and enablement Management Leadership development

Startup Focus Employee experience

Organizational health Organizational development Onboarding Employee experience Leadership support and enablement Management Leadership development

Health checks

Leadership support and enablement Leadership development Employee experience

Management Focus Leadership support and enablement Leadership development Operational management

Organizational health Organizational resilience Organizational development Management Leadership support and enablement Leadership development

Organizational health Performance management