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    Everything You Should Know About Startup: 121 Foundational Concepts for Every Entrepreneur
    Everything You Should Know About Startup: 121 Foundational Concepts for Every Entrepreneur
    Everything You Should Know About Startup: 121 Foundational Concepts for Every Entrepreneur
    Ebook184 pages2 hours

    Everything You Should Know About Startup: 121 Foundational Concepts for Every Entrepreneur

    By Joe Procopio

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    About this ebook

    I'm going to answer all of the stupid (and not so stupid) questions about startup so that you don't have to ask them. Everything You Should Know About Startup is a no-BS guide aimed at both new and existing entrepreneurs.

    What kind of business should I start?
    Everything You Should Know About Startup walks you through product, service, retail, digital, and all the various types of companies you can build.

    What roles do I need to fill?
    Everything You Should Know About Startup goes beyond boss and employee. You'll need leaders, makers, salespeople, and folks that handle operations and growth. We'll talk about which roles you should fill and how to find the ones you can't fill.

    What should my timeline look like?
    Everything You Should Know About Startup covers the basic five stages of startup, from the very beginning through growth and to the end. You'll learn what each stage looks like and how to navigate it.

    How do I get funded?
    Everything You Should Know About Startup talks about funding in simple terms. We'll cover customer-first funding, bootstrapping, Friends and Family, and angel and venture capital investing.

    How Do I Stay Motivated?
    Everything You Should Know About Startup opens with a high-level explanation of why people become entrepreneurs, the valid and not-so-valid reasons, as well as how to stay plugged in for the long haul.

    Everything You Should Know About Startup isn't for get-rich-quick schemers or dorm-room dreamers. It's for anyone who wants more independence in their life and realizes that taking control of their career is the first step.

    Joe Procopio is a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur who has been through 11 startups and has been a key player in the rise of the Raleigh/Durham startup ecosystem over the last 20 years. Most recently, he built and sold a startup (ExitEvent) while building and selling another startup (Automated Insights). He's just like you, probably a little louder. You can find out more about his experience, his motivation, and his vibe at joeprocopio.com

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoe Procopio
    Release dateJan 21, 2018
    ISBN9781370315536
    Everything You Should Know About Startup: 121 Foundational Concepts for Every Entrepreneur
    Author

    Joe Procopio

    Joe Procopio is a serial entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and writer. Everything you need to know about him can be found at http://joeprocopio.com or by following him at @jproco.

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      Everything You Should Know About Startup - Joe Procopio

      Five Reasons Why You Should Be an Entrepreneur

      Independence

      Do What You Love, Do What You Want, Be Your Own Boss, Unlimited Possibilities, Fulfillment

      I'm going to level with you right out of the gate. No matter what your reasons are for getting into startup, I can assure you that those reasons are valid.

      There's no judgment here, there's no list of right and wrong reasons for becoming an entrepreneur, despite what you will hear from people, including me, about phony entrepreneurism (known as wantrepreneurism), greed, or even whether or not your idea is particularly good. Let the haters hate.

      I will tell you this though: The primary reason you SHOULD be getting into startup is Independence. 

      Independence

      Independence is the driving factor for why I'm an entrepreneur, nothing else. For me, the monetary rewards would likely be better elsewhere, I'm not necessarily a person who has to make this world a better place through my work, and I can thrive in both the entrepreneurial and corporate environments.

      No, the reason I'm an entrepreneur is because I treasure my independence. I want to go to work every morning feeling excited about what I'm going to do that day, and I want to come home every night feeling satisfaction in a job well done.

      That doesn't happen every day, mind you, but for me, it happens more often being an entrepreneur than not. It may not happen for you. It definitely won't happen every day. But at some point on your startup journey, you'll feel the rush of independence, and you might get addicted to it.

      Being an entrepreneur is not a lifestyle choice or a hobby, it's a career. There are just as many responsibilities, headaches, heartaches, and pitfalls as a corporate career. There are, however, a plethora of reasons why everyone should try startup at least once in their life. Here are some of those reasons, and yours might be totally different.

      Do What You Love and the money will follow. It's one of the oldest clichés in the book but also one of the most ignored. It gets drilled into our heads pretty early that the pathway to success is hard work, good grades, the right college, a steady job, and then the cycle of sacrifice and promotion until retirement at age 65.

      I fall victim to this too. I embarked on that path, and I pretty much derailed when I realized that that wasn't what I wanted out my life. But then it became a moment of truth when I realized that I'd be OK without the trappings that come with that path -- the money, the house, the cars, the sort of respect that comes when people hear you're a VP of Something at Somewhere.

      Do What You Love and the money will follow is true. I can state that emphatically. The money will follow -- but understand that how much and when aren't ever guaranteed. If you're planning on buying your first house at 25, joining the local country club at 30, and making your first million at any point on your timeline, be prepared for those expectations to be trashed.

      Success, the monetary and respect kind, comes when it comes, not just for entrepreneurs, but for anyone truly chasing what they love. It's why musicians and artists and actors and athletes stay in the game even when they're not at the top level. Are you prepared to spend your career in the minor leagues? You will if you love the game.

      Do What You Want is like Do What You Love, but… snottier.

      I have a lot of Do What You Want in me. Now, I've got my good points, people say I'm generally a good person, but one of my biggest flaws is I'm not motivated to do the things I'm not motivated to do. My saving grace is an inherited work ethic. Now, on the flip side, I'm pretty amazing at doing things I'm motivated to do. And you probably are too.

      Do What You Want is a perfectly legit reason to pursue startup, and it took me a few tries to realize that it's also perfectly OK to follow your passion. There's another cliché you hear all the time, and people talk about wanting to hire people who are passionate about what they do. That's a little true, people want to hire people who are passionate about what they want them to do.

      Now, there's a huge difference between Do What You Want and being selfish. Or lazy. But in all cases, much like chasing Do What You Love, you have to be prepared to live with the consequences. Sacrifice is easy. Sacrifice for something you don't believe in is sad and nearly impossible. That's not selfish. That's not lazy. It's just how we're wired.

      Look, as long as you look out for other people and compensate for this flaw, you're going to end up on the right side of being a good person. Just don't expect the rewards to come to you if you don't do the things you don't want to do every so often.

      Be Your Own Boss is generally the reason most people give for WANTING to start their own company. But I'll warn you, it's usually not the reason people give for why they LOVE RUNNING their own company.

      Because being your own boss can suck. A lot.

      Much like working from home, it's a concept that sounds great on paper, but in practice it's not what it's cracked up to be. Working from home is not the answer, it's actually much better to work in a really cool office that you like coming to every day.

      It's kind of the same with startup and Be Your Own Boss. You want to work for a company you love being a part of, and work for a boss who is really awesome and not a jerk. But it's a lot harder than it sounds to stay really awesome and not be a jerk when you're the boss, especially to yourself.

      I'll tell you this too. Being the boss of other people, that's no fun either.

      With that out of the way, being your own boss is pretty incredible, once you get the hang of it. If anything, you have to learn to give yourself a break, you have to have a lot of patience, and you have to make sacrifices that all bosses make, even the jerks.

      Unlimited Possibilities are the real American Dream. But let's go back for a second to the conventional definition of the American Dream seen in retrospect with 70-or-so years of history since the end of World War II.

      Work your butt off for 40 years making a living and staying loyal and then retiring and getting by for the next 25 years and then you're dead.

      Dark.

      So one of the big draws of startup is that there are no limits almost anywhere. No one from corporate is going to put a cap on how much money you can make, or how much responsibility and authority you are given, or how high you climb in your field.

      That's pretty awesome. But it works both ways.

      Remember, with a job, you (almost) always have a paycheck. They can (almost) never pay you less than they promised. There's a (relative) security that you'll have a job now and in the (foreseeable) future. You (probably) won't show up one day and hear that the business won't make it.

      My point is that even though there are few guarantees in the corporate world, and there are even fewer in startup. The kicker is that the corporate job is nothing like what it used to be, and the additional risk you take on with startup is, technically, mathematically, less than the possible unlimited reward.

      In startup, there are amazing highs and terrible lows. If you can live with the terrible lows, the sky really is the limit.

      Fulfillment is one of the softer motivational factors for startup. One of the things people tell me about what changed when they got into startup is that they felt like they realized they had a headache their entire life that they didn't notice and then suddenly once they got into startup it was gone.

      One of the big reasons our jobs can suck it because they lack Fulfillment. And a lot of that time, they lack fulfillment because we spend too much time chasing things that are ultimately unfulfilling.

      That's on us. Not them.

      Money is not fulfilling. What you do with it can be fulfilling, but it's usually hard to connect the work we do to the good that comes out of where that paycheck goes. Titles aren't fulfilling. Titles are bull. Titles are scrip in place of more money. A career isn't fulfilling in and of itself. But what you make of it can be, should be, and would be -- if you had the opportunity to forge it on your terms.

      If you can get this in your job, awesome, stay right there.

      But ultimately, Fulfillment is what startup is. It's not doing what you love or what you want to do. The best days in startup come from waking up every day and doing what you SHOULD be doing. You'll feel it. And if you don't, it's time to change things up.

      Wealth

      The Lottery, Your Career, Investment vs. Revenue, Foundation First, Don't Blow It

      Let's talk about money. A lot of money. Big money. The root of all evil.

      So you want to get into startup for the money. I get it. I'm not going to waste your time debating the merits of capitalism, morality, ethics, or throw a bunch of biblical tales at you. I actually admire your ambition. But there are some things you need to know.

      Wealth

      Wealth is a legitimate reason for becoming an entrepreneur. As I discussed in the last chapter, startup is full of unlimited possibilities, and in a lot of ways, startup makes it easier to get to where you want to be financially, once you throw out the conventional timetables and status symbols of the traditional American dream.

      On the other hand, it's never easy to make money with startup, especially at first. Because unlike the corporate path, your mistakes won't get covered, you can't coast, and there's no large organization to get your back when your own personal results flag or you hit a slump.

      And it's expensive to get your business to a

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