How do we become startup founders?

All new human activity starts with curiosity. These days, many people are startup curious. That's great news because there have never been as many opportunities for new startups as there are now. Not only are startups an opportunity for our civilization, they are a necessity. Let's get going!

Are you dreaming? Dreaming is an essential skill of startup founders. Dreaming helps us see possibilities others are not seeing, entertaining multiple alternative scenarios without committing to any one of them yet. It lets us strategize and test out things hypothetically. Dreaming can be done with our bodies physically active or while resting. To feed our dreams, we seek new knowledge and insight. We are learning.

Dreaming also brings the risk of delusion. Many startup founders believe in impossible things. Some of those impossible things later turn out NOT to have been impossible at all. It took a founder dreaming big to show it was possible. But many other impossible things are truly impossible and the founders who delusionally believe in them will not be successful. Dream fully, but validate your dreams as you put them into practice.

Before becoming a startup founder, make sure it really is what you want to do. You don't have to be a fully developed founder at this point. You can initially be a delusional, amateurish and confused startup founder and still make it. But you must possess certain foundational powers.

You need built-in creativity that allows you to navigate the difficult landscape of a startup. You must be a person who does not settle for less. If you are OK with a mediocre outcome or if you lack creativity, you will not find fulfillment as a founder. There is nothing convenient in the startup world. Better to redirect your efforts to something else where you can flourish and succeed as the one you are.

When you are ready to get going with a startup, you typically fall into one of two broad categories. Some founders-to-be have developed a determination to start a company and are looking for the specific business idea. Others have developed deep domain skill and are looking for the impetus to actually start a company. Many times, these two types meet and form the founding team together.?

Even if you find your own complement in a co-founder, you must both develop the side that wasn't your initial strength. If you are a domain expert, you must build determination, drive, a sense of urgency, and an ability to make business decisions. If you are the business person with determination to start a company, you must become deeply knowledgeable about the product domain. As founders, you are determining in what direction the startup will be going. These are decisions you cannot delegate, outsource or leave to the co-founder alone.

It has been shown that the most successful startup founders have adaptability in common. Whatever skills and knowledge they started with, they will acquire more. When they realize they have a weakness, they will figure out a way of mitigating it.? They see what works and pivot when needed. Charles Darwin might have spoken about startups when he said "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

You are now at a stage where you have determination and domain skill, and perhaps a co-founder or a few. It is time to create a product vision that serves a target market. This is a highly iterative process. You may not need more than a weekend to create a first version. Then you will spend weeks and months testing, learning, modifying and re-writing the product vision. This is a wonderful time in the life of a startup. Everything seems possible and you have hit no obstacles or disasters yet.

As you do this, you should work not just on the business plan but also on yourself. In order to grow your startup, you’re going to have to grow as a person. Perhaps you know what skills you need to develop and what weaknesses you should try to diminish. But more likely you don't. You are in new territory and things are not what they look like. What worked earlier in your life may not work this time. Your self-perception might be incorrect.

There are three fundamental (and fixable) founder weaknesses that show up at the early stage of startup life:

• Delusion, meaning believing in impossible things and hoping things will play out well.
• Amateurishness, meaning insufficient skills and not setting the bar high enough.
• Confusion, meaning an inability to see what's essential and what isn't.

These three weaknesses sound like terrible human flaws, but they are not. They exist for a reason. Startup founders must believe in things others are not seeing, so having overconfidence is not a bad thing. But delusion is. You must learn to moderate this optimism of yours. It's good to believe in great outcomes, but you better be a paranoid optimist - one who can confront the possibility of being wrong.?

Amateurishness goes with the territory. Most startup founders are young. They haven't had time to learn all the tricks yet. Fortunately they learn fast. As long as you can admit to yourself how little you know, you will learn fast and soon be a pro. Remember to ask for brutally honest feedback. Ask everyone how you can improve your game. Read a lot and listen to podcasts and audiobooks. Make written plans for your actions, and practice retrospective reviews to figure out what you could have done better. Practice makes perfect.

Confusion is something that follows us throughout our lives. We try to know what's essential, but we can never be fully sure. If we occasionally are fully sure, we might be delusional which would be worse. And even if we are right, the next day the situation may have changed.

Every day, we must ask ourselves what's most important and then focus on that. It is so tempting to put our attention on shiny new objects or things in our comfort zone. But if we want to succeed with our startup, we must focus on what's most important, whether that's our most enjoyable task or not. To do that, we must figure out and agree on what it is.?

Question your assumptions. Invite scrutiny and dissent from others. Never become defensive. Just take the input and be grateful for it. Imagine a really smart person who you look up to and ask yourself what they would think is most essential right now for your startup. Then run to that job. Start your morning by focusing on it. If it is a task you don't find pleasant, you will be proud and happy when you have accomplished it.?

There is so much work in creating a startup. On this journey, we have not even arrived at product-market fit yet! We'll come back to that in a later text and look at the opportunities and founder weaknesses that present themselves at that stage. In the meantime, work on your startup and sharpen your skills.

Marten Mickos