Entrepreneurial Management

“Startups that succeed are those that manage to iterate enough times before running out of resources.” — Eric Ries, The Lean Startup
What exactly is entrepreneurial management?
This can simple answered in each case, just by answering the following questions for Startup Company.
• What is this venture about? (mission and values)
• Where should it go? (milestones and objectives)
• How will it get there? (scaling strategy)
• What does it need to get there? (resources)
• What structure is best? (organizational capabilities)
• How much money does it need and when? (financing strategy)
• How will it recognize the final destination? (vision of success)

These are some of the vital management issues, managing which can be defined as entrepreneurial management.
Mostly, it is observed that in a startup, entrepreneurs take a different managerial approach instead of the general approach. They generally avoid all forms of management, discipline and processes. “Just do it” is what the approach is as they derive that general management is what everyone does and if they have to be unlike others they need a different kind of management.
The difference between being unique in the business is not concluded by the type of management but by the nature of business. Thus business and management are two different aspects which early stage startup entrepreneur’s needs to understand. There is an abundance of material on general forms of management which have been proved successful over decades and are the best ones to refer and implement to your business.
A reliable entrepreneurial measurement instrument would make it much easier for organizations to
assess their degree of entrepreneurial management. Further, it could help to develop more effective strategies to enhance the entrepreneurial behavior.

The table below shows the different aspects of entrepreneurial management in different roles as put up by Stevenson’s conceptualization of entrepreneurial management.

Team Building - Who do you need to start up a successful business?
The first thing that we should understand is that a great idea and a great product will not work on its own, we need a great team to make any idea and a product create wonders. My list of the first five you should have on board is a team that comprises of the following people;

1. A CEO
   A person who has the time, enthusiasm and determination to make the business a success is the first person to bring on board. A CEO not only is a strong leader but also has the following extraordinary qualities; a great people manager, a motivator, a fund raiser, a great decision maker, a great analyst and many more critical roles. A better CEO keeps your team focused and determined towards achieving the goals of the company.
2. Chief Technical Officer
   I am just against the idea to outsource the technical part of a startup. In today’s time, every business is driven by technology. How correct is it to outsource the core of your business? Firstly, outsourcing will exhaust your initial funds very quickly and still you don’t get a desired product as building a great product requires a lot of efforts and iterations which obviously an outsourced company will not make free of cost. This also will divert the CEO’s attention more towards the building of technology platform.
   My views to avoid this is, appoint a CTO and let him handle the technology part. Invest in someone who’s either led tech before or can learn fast and knows how code works. It’s not really necessary for this person to code himself, but he/she needs to understand the essentials or you’ll be taken for a ride by everyone offering you solutions.
   Alternatively, pitch your idea to a tech company and offer them equity in your company and make them your technology partners, this way you can get your work done for some equity and also gain a responsible team involved in the core.
   Remember, if you don’t know the technology behind your product and business, you are just a sales person of the product.
3. Supply chain and sales head
   Not much expertise is required in this role as this is the administrative part of the business. But a person with very strong determination and willingness to get things done will create wonders. This person will also act as a sales head for the company and may handle a team of sales executives and generate sales for the company’s products. A critical aspect of the company which requires a great determination and continuous efforts. An additional responsibility of product decisions can also be given to this person to decide on what to sell.
4. Marketing head
   For any successful idea and a product to succeed, a marketing team is required who will create a buzz for you. Authors; Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares have defined the marketing channels in their book “Traction”
   The channels are:
   Viral Marketing, PR, Unconventional PR, SEM, Social & Display Ads, Offline Ads, SEO, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Engineering as Marketing, Targeting Blogs, Business Development, Sales, Affiliate Programs, Existing Platforms, Trade Shows, Offline Events, Speaking Engagements and Community Building
   Your lead marketing person needs to figure out which of those channels are relevant to you right now and which ones to spend on, pay attention to or ignore. For early stage startups, focus on PR, SEO, Tapping into your social channels and SEM are important. However, the most important attributes of quality marketing people is their ability to create communities. Creating communities is really hard, but pays off in the long run.