So many entrepreneurs fail to launch due to self-doubt. Please understand, it is normal and it happens to the best of us. You don’t want to be confused. It isn’t necessary to be an expert in everything.
YES, You are qualified!
A founder leading a startup is not as complex as a CEO leading an established company. founders learn a lot of new skills on the job. Most of the famous founder-ceo started without knowing what they know now.
Analyze yourself and make clarity on what you are good at and not. It isn’t necessary to be a technical person to start a business. Even though you are not a techie, many more facilities could help you sort out. For example, find a technical partner to the team or consider a startup incubator. There you will get a group of people with skills that you don’t have. It helps to build your project successfully.
Every venture capitalist seeks out a strong founder. However, the transition from an employee to a founder involves many things and is open for debate. Also, it must keep in mind that on most occasions, investors only have a few hours to interact with founders before initiating an investment decision.
When you move from being an employee to a tech founder, you might focus on why you are doing? what you are doing?
Let’s go through the attitudinal traits that investors most desire in a founder:
Key Traits of Successful Start-up Founders
Operator Or Executioner
The first thing desired in a founder is the quality of a humble operator or business executioner. It implies that you, as a founder, need to be exceptional when it comes to execution. You are expected to be extremely humble but at the same time confident about what you have in mind. In addition, you are expected to be highly resourceful and gritty. Once that is in place, you will not find it challenging to have people follow you and do as you want them to do.
Visionary
The second thing desired in a founder is that of an agile visionary. Since you are just beginning to taste the waters as a founder having a strong desire to do something great, you are expected to possess a unique perspective about the market. Also, investors and your people will appreciate it if you have an intuitive sense of what the consumers desire. Finally, as a founder, you are supposed to have the quality to test and iterate something quickly enough to incorporate the market signals.
Executive
Then, there is the role of a seasoned executive, which would portray you as an experienced professional above all. You are expected to possess adequate management experience and in-depth business domain expertise. Founders will always judge whether you are intrinsically motivated or not to build up a company from scratch.
Nobody expects you to be a superman, but people will desire specific trends that would be obvious in you as a founder. First, you will be judged on your ability to execute work. It is a critical aspect since it would be directly related to day-to-day activities.
Second, your standard of execution will reflect how quickly you and your team can learn something and adapt to change quickly. According to research, more than 90 percent of VCs believe that a founder must run an organization effectively daily, and more than 95 percent expressed that a founder has to be a quick learner.
Result-oriented
Next, while taking a decision under certainty, a successful founder is also supposed to be result-oriented. It implies that you must have the ability to go through as many solutions as you can within a short span and ultimately decide on the best one. In most cases, founders are usually process-driven. However, to be an above-average founder, the founder must be more result-oriented.
Story-teller
The other factor that makes a founder a cut above an average employee is the art of story-telling. According to most industry experts, the most potent founder is the one who is a great storyteller. It is through this story-telling that the agenda and values for an entire generation are set.
Those founders who can come up with compelling stores are the ones who succeed. Such individuals find it much easier to raise funds, recruit the best available talent, and develop exceptional marketing plans.
However, you must be careful enough so that you don’t end up becoming an overconfident storyteller. You have to be cautious enough so that you don’t get enthralled so much that you cannot adapt to the market trends and become unsuccessful at finding the correct product-market fit. It can also help to have grit.
Hard-working
As a founder, people will expect you to be a hard worker coupled with a high degree of perseverance. In 2020, the most successful companies were those that had founders who were humble and hard-working. Apart from being humble, gritty, and scrappy, the founder-market fit factor ultimately decides whether a founder is going to succeed or not ultimately.
It has often been observed that hard work, good founder-market fit, and an initial team or followers are the ones that work best.
Stubbornness
Finally, there is the stubbornness factor as well that most adequately describes a successful founder. Founders need to be stubborn when it comes to vision and perseverance.
You can find experts in different areas to help the startup down the road. It is useful to have a peer group, advisory group, or someone to bounce ideas.
I hope the above is enough for you to understand whether you are qualified enough to be a founder or not. Are you still having questions? – Let’s have a talk and I could help you more than you think.