Nolsen Bedon, Ltd.

Founders: Start with a group of at least three or four founders

The larger the group of founders you can put together, the better. This broadens your new company’s skill sets and access to capital. To further enhance your chances of success, put together a team of people who have already worked together on other projects and share power broadly.

In startup companies, nothing much happens at all unless you have great people involved in the management. Pure and simple, great companies are built by great teams. A strong management team can turn an average idea into a genuine winner but an average management team can kill even great ideas. This is why venture capitalists evaluate the quality of the management team first and foremost and walk away from the deal if the team isn’t strong and first rate.

This means that the more experienced your management team is, the greater your chances become of succeeding. You need a balanced team of founders, each of whom will contribute something worthwhile to the running of the startup company. Venture capital providers always bet on fantastic teams rather than on fantastic products. A founding team that has a diverse set of skills will always be a more attractive proposition than a founder working alone. If the members of the team have worked together previously either at another corporation or on a different project, then investor confidence will increase.

There is one other key point that deserves attention. Smart business leaders know when it’s time to bring in professional management. They know intuitively when it’s time to go against conventional wisdom and when it’s time to have in place the people who can add professionalism and systems expertise to the enterprise. If an investor can feel confident that the founders are willing to step aside when the time is right, they will see that as a very positive endorsement.

Startups That Work

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