The Guide to Becoming a First Time Founder - Prologue

I am not an expert. I have not yet launched a billion dollar company, and you won't find me on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. I did not get a small loan of a million dollars from my dad to help get me started, and I didn't have a powerful secret network that I could tap into to help me succeed. In fact when I launched my company I had just moved to Copenhagen with a basic grasp of the language and less than 1,000 USD in my bank account. I am just an average guy with big dreams who decided to leap into entrepreneurship.

This, however, is what makes me uniquely qualified to write this guide from a perspective that is, in my opinion, more real and relatable. While I may not be a billionaire yet, I am one of the rare people to obtain the Start-up Denmark Visa, I have built a team of 5+ people who have worked on my project for over a year, and we have together raised a round of angel and VC funding to help us bring our creation to life. 

I am just like you and thousands of others who wake up every morning with an itch to start their own project. The only difference is, I have already decided to take the leap of faith and begin my entrepreneur journey, giving me first-hand experience in things I think I did right, things I wish I did, areas where I got lucky, and things I learned along the way.

My focus in this guide will not be on how to help you find product-market fit, or how to determine what your business should be, (that, believe it or not, is the easy part) but rather to share my reflections from the past 2 years as a founder on how to go through the necessary steps to build something, from nothing.

My theory is that there is no such thing as a bad idea, only bad founders. It is not the fault of the founders. The simple fact is that there are certain things you are just expected to know as a founder, that no one has forced you to learn. How to determine your weaknesses, making your first hire, opening up a company, how corporate taxes work, what is equity, and how to structure a cap table to name a few. You know the stuff the government, real investors, and even your first employees will expect you to have a firm understanding of right out of the gate.

With this small but concise guide, I hope to combine the knowledge and advice that helped me go from nothing to raising my first round of VC capital, and help others like me become better first-time founders. Not so that you can, as the cliche goes, learn from my mistakes, but so that you may feel more prepared and confident in the first steps you are taking on the long road ahead.

It is important to remember there is no one size fits all to entrepreneurship, and I am not going to pretend to be an expert, please feel free to add advice along the way, comment and share your thoughts, and enjoy the journey which is an essential part of launching any startup. 

I am Tegan Spinner, the founder of Lokalist, and this Guide to Being a First Time Founder is my way of giving back and connecting to the startup community that I thoroughly enjoy being a part of, I hope that you enjoy it, and find it helpful.

NOTE: I will attempt to post at least one chapter a week and once finished combine all of the short articles into a small book, If you are interested in following along, please take the time to like, follow, and share this article with your own personal network, I would greatly appreciate it. 

Next Chapter: Step 1: Love your motivations.