A presentation delivered at the 2010 Indianapolis Startup Weekend. Designing a Startup covers the elements of a startup that must be considered and ultimately intentionally design for success, including: passion, co-founders, product development, design, marketing, customers, revenue, pivoting, and funding.

1. DESIGNING
A STARTUP.

2. A Bit About Me
Day Jobs:
• President of Kristian Andersen + Associates
• Co-founder of Pathagility
• Co-founder of TinderBox
• Co-founder of Gravity Ventures
Investments:
• Apparel Media Group • Healthx
• Compendium Blogware • Last Piece Software
• Dos Banderas • Patronpath
• Formspring.me • TinderBox
• Formstack • Valor Medical
• Gravity Labs • Vontoo

3. "Design creates culture. Culture
shapes values. Values determine the
future."
Robert L. Peters

4. PASSION

5. "Do what you want to be famous for,
because you’re famous for
what you do."
Me, Kristian Andersen + Associates

6. CO-FOUNDERS

7. Co-Founders
• Founders are authors
• Beware of “Idea Guys”
• Someone needs to be a domain expert
• Someone needs to be able to build the product
• Everyone needs to be able to sell
• Make sure they pass the “O’Hare test”
• Be picky - Don’t settle

8. THE PRODUCT

9. The Product
• Focus – Solve one problem really well
• Beware of shadow beliefs
• 1 Great developer = 10 good developers
• Speed kills... the competition
• Launching is the best market research
• Partner w/ customers (& prospects)
• Let design lead engineering
• NEVER outsource product development

10. "A prototype is worth a 1,000
business plans."
Me, Kristian Andersen + Associates

11. DESIGN &
MARKETING

12. “Design and marketing aren't just as
important as engineering – they are
more important”
Addictive User Experience (Design) and Scalable Distribution Methods
(Marketing) are the most critical components of success in consumer
Internet startups, not Pure Engineering Talent.
Dave McClure
Angel Investor, Founders Fund

13. UX Design Is Branding
A customers’ perception of a brand is driven,
in large part, by the experience manifest in all
customer touch points.
The brand is represented by all customer touch points –
retail, sales, product, interfaces, support, etc.
The experience is comprised of all customer touch points –
retail, sales, product, interfaces, support, etc.

14. "The product is the brand. You build
brand in our industry through the
product and the experience."
—Jim Wicks, Motorola

15. "The interface is the product is the
experience, is brand."
Me, Kristian Andersen + Associates

16. Design & Marketing
• The business of design is business
• Overspend on design
• Underspend on marketing
• The best marketing is a great product
• Publicity is a tool, not a goal
• Communicate what matters
• Outsource as much as necessary
• Outsource as little as possible

17. CUSTOMERS

18. Customers
• Find out where they live
• Get to them ASAP
• Make them pay something
• Provide instant value
• Customers and no product = business
• Product and no customers = hobby
• Don’t be afraid to say no... or goodbye

19. $ BILLS
Y’ALL

20. “A startup is the organization used to
search for a scalable business model”
Steve Blank

21. Revenue
• Know how you’ll make money
• Know how you’ll make sales
• Have revenue goals from day one
• Focus every activity on moving toward those goals

22. PREPARE
TO
PIVOT

23. Prepare To Pivot
• Flickr started out as a game
• eBay was going to sell auction software
• Twitter (Odeo) was a podcasting directory
• PayPal was going to beam $ to Palm Pilots
• YouTube was originally a dating site

24. FUNDING

25. Funding Sources
• Consulting
• Customer partnerships
• Blood Money
• Angel Investors
• Seed Funds
• Venture Capital

26. Funding
• 100K is the new 1MM
• Keep valuations low
• Find investors with expertise
• 10 angels are better than 1 VC
• Become fluent in the language of suits
• Understand the size of the (addressable) market
• Learn how to pitch

27. Q&A

28. Twitter: kristianindy
eMail: kristian@kaplusa.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kandersen1
Crunchbase: crunchbase.com/person/kristian-andersen
Web: kaplusa.com