HACKER Q&A
📣 vladmk

What to Focus on for Your Startup


Sometimes I ask myself “what’s that next step that would help us grow 10x?” That’s the thing I try to focus on for the day for my startup, other times it’s “what would I be proud of that I accomplished today”. What about you?

  👤 codazoda Accepted Answer ✓
I note the things I need to do, sort them by most valuable, and try to start at the top. But, sometimes passion drives me to complete items out of order.

That usually works for me, although I've got mostly failed business attempts to my name.

How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022293

👤 keyle
I think it's a fair approach.

Basically you're saying, sometimes I look at it top to bottom, sometimes I look at it bottom to top.

👤 alek_m
As someone who grew a startup to a successful innovation consultancy, i can give you few tips.

1.Network as much as u can Networking is the core of every successful career and essential activity for every startup CEO. Your company is probably young and unknown, so every new contact can contribute to spreading the word. There’s no point in leading a company if you don’t have a network of people from the industry.

LinkedIn is probably the most common way to do it. Follow people from your industry, engage with them, and share details about your product. Invite them to give you critics and opinions that will help you lead the business and improve your product.

2.Don’t quit after the first failure Having a startup means taking risks. And taking risks means being prepared to fail. And you’ll fail many times before you finally find the right recipe for success. What’s important is to believe in your product and don’t quit after the first obstacle.

For example, in the beginning, Instagram was nothing like what it is today. It wasn’t even called Instagram, it was called Burbn. Burbn was an app where people could check-in where they were at. However, Foursquare, an app that was doing pretty much the same thing, was pretty popular at the time, so the founders realized this product wasn’t going to work. That’s when they saw that people liked Burbn’s photo-sharing option, so they decided to focus on it, which was the real idea for success.

3.Co-create You might think your product idea is great, but you’re not your customer. Your customers might have different needs than yours. To find out what are their needs, use co-creation. Co-creation is a model that allows companies to engage with their customers in order to create a product that will meet their needs. You could use crowdsourcing techniques, like hackathons and makeathons to collect fresh ideas, or design thinking – a method that solves complex problems by understanding human needs. Using co-creation will result in reduced costs, better market insights, and better product design.