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“Help mid-career professionals, like I was,
successfully launch their first startups.”
- Aug 26, 2017
dave@startupguides.io

Wait, let me write
a book instead...
dave@startupguides.io

“Plan on it taking
1-2 years from
start to getting it
in print.”
dave@startupguides.io

“You will only get
5%-10% in
royalties from
publishers.”
dave@startupguides.io

“A publisher will
never let you put
that photo of a
Cobra on your
cover.”
dave@startupguides.io

“Using a
publisher
wouldn’t be very
entrepreneurial of
you, would it?”
dave@startupguides.io

Aug 26, 2017
Nov 10, 2017
dave@startupguides.io

Source: Kauffman National Growth Index, 2016

Source: Kauffman Index Activity State Report, 2015

Average age of a first time entrepreneur….40
(Vivek Wadha - Duke University)
dave@startupguides.io

12 Critical
Steps for the
“Corporate
Refugee”
Entreprenuer
Step 1 - Assessing your True Motivations
Step 2 - Validating your Startup Idea & Building Your Business Model
Step 3 - Preparing your Family for the Journey
Step 4 - Transitioning from Corporate to your Startup
Step 5 - Branding and Marketing Your Startup
Step 6 - Law School for Your Startup
Step 7 - Raising Capital for Your Startup
Step 8 - Pitching Your Startup
Step 9 - Building Your Startup Team
Step 10 - Creating Your Launch Plan & Pilot
Step 11 - Cash Flowing Your Startup
Step 12 - Preparing to Pivot again and againdave@startupguides.io

Featured Startup Secrets from the Experts….
dave@startupguides.io

Step 1
Assessing Your
True Motivations
“I learned a long time ago that there is a huge difference
between the need for achievement (getting something done)
and the need for independence (being your own boss). I first
heard this from Ed Roberts at MIT in the early 1990s. My own
experience is that entrepreneurs who have a need for
achievement end up being much more successful in general
than those who have a need for independence.
- Brad Feld, co-founder Techstars and Foundry Group

Step 2
Validating Your
Startup Idea &
Building Your
Business Model
“One of the traps I see first-time entrepreneurs fall into with great
frequency is being afraid to talk about their idea. There are 7.4
billion people in the world. You are naïve to think that you are the
only one that has ever had this idea. First-time entrepreneurs
coming from a corporate environment are frequently accustomed to
not openly sharing ideas, but this is the opposite of the behavior
needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.”
- Troy Vosseller, gener8tor

Step 2
Validating Your
Startup Idea &
Building Your
Business Model
“You can’t handle the truth.” - Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men
Get out from behind your desk, get out of the office, leave your
home, and jump out of your chair at your coffee shop to go talk to
people. You will find out that this is actually quite fun if you take it as
an opportunity to learn, to meet new people and perhaps even to
find future customers. Don’t talk to just anyone. Talk to those people
that you think will pay you for your product or service(not friends and
family).

Step 3
Preparing Your
Family
“The notion of work/life balance has always been a little strange to me.
I've only been known to operate one way—with high energy and
passion around things I love. This means that while I'm working, I try
to be dedicated to spending time on what matters most to the business
at that very moment. And, while at home, I try to be dedicated to what
matters most at that time—my family.”
-Aaron Everson, Co-Founder of Jellyfish and Shoutlet

Step 4
Transitioning
from Corporate
to Startup
“Taking employees with you is generally a bad idea. First order of
business is don’t do anything illegal... You need to remember that
you are taking not just four individuals, but many times, four
families with you. In my 34 years in this business I rarely see it
work out. The exception is salespeople; then it can work.
- Howard Tullman, CEO of 1871

Step 4
Transitioning
from Corporate
to Startup
“In Corporate America you have an incentive not to rock the boat.
You try to stay in line. If things don’t work, the easiest thing to do is
to blame others. In the startup world you are rewarded by stirring
things up…Going out and launching a company is the opposite.
You have to break the status quo in order to succeed as a startup.
…Some people simply can’t make that change.”
-Troy Henikoff, MATH Venture Partners

Step 5
Branding and
Marketing Your
Startup

Step 6
Law School for
Your Startup
One of the common issues I see with co-founders is that they have
not worked out their internal roles—who is expected to do what—
employee, director, company officer. Often they have not talked
through who is going to receive what amount of equity. These are
sometimes tough conversations, but essential.
-Hank Barry, Sidley Austin’s Emerging Companies and Venture
Capital Office and former CEO of Napster

Step 6
Law School for
Your Startup
“In the employment context, many states will not enforce non-
compete provisions, and those states that do enforce them, only do
so when very narrowly defined…I suggest that they instead use
agreements that contain non-solicitation (e.g. no poach) provisions
for employees and customers.
- Chris Cain, Foley & Lardner

Step 7
Raising Capital
For your Startup
“We must have been spending 50 percent of our time on the
Kickstarter campaign up to two months before the campaign. Here is
what people need to understand—60 percent of Kickstarter
campaigns never get funded and the average one that does get
funded raises $5,000. In order to really knock it out of the park, you
need to commit significant capital and/or time up front.”
- Rob Kowalik, CMO of CA7CH, Raised over $250k on Kickstarter

Step 7
Raising Capital
For your Startup
They [corporate employees] tend to think that the product or
service needs to be polished, just like when they were in
corporate. They just want to keep adding whistles and bells.
They come with over-engineered products. They don’t
understand the concept of an MVP (minimum viable product).
- Peter Wilkins, Managing Director, Hyde Park Angels

Step 8
Pitching Your
Startup
“Your job is to learn ahead of time about the rules of pitching, who your
audience will be and the criteria that the audience will use to judge
quality.”
- Professor William Dougan, Faculty, University of Wisconsin-
Whitewater

Step 9
Building Your
Startup Team
“I find that some of the most common mistakes in hiring the initial team
members are:
1. Not understanding their company’s needs (and their weaknesses).
2. Underestimating the importance of sales and the people required to
market.
3. Giving away too much equity to people early, before understanding if
those people are key success drivers.
4. Keeping friends on the team, even when they are no longer adding
value.
- Peter Layton, CEO & Co-Founder, Blackthorne Capital Management

Step 10
Creating Your
Launch Plan
Tips on selecting your beta target market:
1. Ensure that the market is representative of your target market
2. Select a sample size that is large enough to gather necessary
feedback
3. Provide enough time to gather feedback
4. Choose a market that cannot be easily impacted (positively or
negatively) by outside sources
5. Select a target market that you can rely on to provide you timely
feedback

Step 11
Cash Flowing
Your Startup
Critical Cash Flow Questions…
1. How will I fund my new business?
2. Is your startup funding sufficient?
3. Is your startup funding too much?
4. Will your cash flow support your business?
5. Are my sales estimates right?
6. Are accounts receivable & accounts payable causing my cash crunch?
- Tim Carr, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, former Director at
Robert W. Baird

Step 12
Preparing to
Pivot, Again
and Again
Developing a minimal viable product (MVP) and ensuring that your
product is built to be scalable, highly functional and a solution for the
customer pain point is the most important job you have as a founder.
-Brian Jensen, CEO & Co-Founder, Fishidy

Questions for Dave?
dave@startupguides.io
262-949-4969
davidrgee
startupguides.io
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