Startups, Valuations & Validation in Entrepreneurship

Startups, Valuations & Validation in Entrepreneurship

By: Ben Washburn

In recent years, startups have become pretty popular.?From the beginning, people start a business by accessing risk and reward and start or become a founder and owner of a startup, small business or company.?

Entrepreneurship is great, even awesome but certainly not every moment of every day.?

There are challenges, hardships, urgent decisions and managing the day to day where a fast paced business environment and ecosystem dictate one’s time, money and resources in a startup or small business in start-up world.?

Valuations and validation are pretty important items to discuss even vital to the potential future success of a venture that is ready to take off with a solid idea while on the way to solving a problem or pain-point with a solution to be introduced to the marketplace.

1.)??Problem

2.)??Solution

3.)??Market

The popularity of the solution to the problem is key with a focus on forecasting your future plans for future growth and to be able to perform successfully at scale with profitability and purpose towards prosperity.?

Validation can feel great and in my opinion occurs in different formats, versions, styles and stages in the lifecycle of a startup or idea for a startup as one or a team begins to build.?It becomes a positive gut feeling.

Validation begins to feel good, warm and fuzzy when your idea, story and vision are told, written and shared and others begin to take note, notice, talk positively about you and discuss you, your idea(s) and vision for a company, startup or small business.?

If your idea or startup takes off or “has legs”, which is a saying like “look under the hood”, it may request or require venture capital, angel investment or debt instruments that depend on the stage of your venture or validated idea for a business with a valuation.

Valuation is important and there are no set right or wrong ways to begin this process.?In my opinion there are no sets of art or science behind getting a solid valuation that is respectable, realistic, real and reasonable which is a challenge in and of itself.?

Marketing yourself, your vision and your ideas to others while favorably networking towards successful validation and valuation methods is going to help you achieve your goals towards your vision.

How well you tell your story in Entrepreneurship is just as important as how others (people with authority, vision, experience and know-how) tell your story so be precise, to the point and urgent in your communications while honing your soft skills and networking skills.

Who you meet, work with, and when is going to put you on your startup or small business path and journey so make great, wise decisions daily only taking calculated risks and if you do so, these long, hard days are going to start to payoff and pay you back for years of dedication and sweat equity.

Valuations can come from yourself, a pricing team, a potential investor, your idea, and the power of its impact on others and the marketplace.?

Third parties like a technology partner or developer, accelerator group or venture capital group or investor with events, referrals and introductions can become an integral part of your startup or small business success story and your validation and valuation in the market is going to be noticed and spread across networks.?This part of entrepreneurship is fun, exciting and rewarding.?

If you are on the fence about an idea or launching, break down your outline towards success and prosperity as a technology application or a small business and pitch something exciting, validated and compelling focusing on your problems solved, strategy, marketing, sales, branding, use of proceeds, forecasted revenue and exit goals.?

Do you have competition??Where??What is the competitive advantage??

Seek positive and exciting feedback and take criticism constructively to help your validation and valuation on your small business entrepreneurship journey in your community(s).?

A small business has a product and/or service.?A technology company has an application or app and generally software as a service.?They can be both, however, by segmenting and separating in the beginning, it is going to really help you focus on your market segments, marketing, path to liquidity, revenue and positive market penetration where the initial public offering (IPO) market is currently down significantly.?

Entrepreneurship is still alive and well from coast to coast, worldwide and in the Midwest markets.?Is it for you?

Ben Washburn, Founder & CEO of MMI.