The 7 Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch

by Dan Norris

“A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” Eric Ries

A business is anything that derives a wage for its founder. By that definition, buying a lawn mowing franchise or opening a corner store is a business. But neither is a startup. A startup is a bit more exciting. It has: 1. High impact potential. 2. High levels of innovation. 3. High levels of uncertainty.

A local business can’t be a startup without ambitions to take it to the world. A franchise restricted by franchise rules can’t be a startup. Neither has the potential for a big impact. Eric Ries defines a startup as “a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” That doesn’t mean you have to risk everything to create a startup. This book is primarily about reducing risk. But with a startup you do lose some of the predictability and certainty that comes with less innovative businesses.

Hustle for an early stage startup is generally about spending your time on the things that are most likely to bring you customers. That could mean “getting out of the building” for some. For you, your skillset, your customers, and your business, it might mean something totally different.

Anti-hustle is what wantrepreneurs do. They do everything other than what needs to be done. They keep coding. They design new features. They optimize their site. They think up new, world-changing ideas. They hang out at startup events discussing their idea. They go to startup weekend and launch a new idea. They do everything other than what they need to do—which, more often than not, is getting more customers.

“The Lean Startup” movement has made people think that business has become a simple scientific experiment. Pre-sell $10,000 worth of your product and there’s a definite need there. Create a landing page, and if you get conversions of over 30%, then you have a great business.

These are unsolicited. I had a lot of friends telling me it was a great idea and also giving me great testimonials. They are bad at predicting their own behavior and even if they think they will buy, it doesn’t mean they will. People don’t want to hurt your feelings.

As Steve Jobs said, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The opposite is also true: People don’t know what they don’t want until they are forced to open their wallets.

If you have a conversation with a friend about your business idea this month, and next month you are having the same conversation, you are a wantrepreneur. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to launch. If you follow the ideas in this book, I believe you can become an entrepreneur by this time next week.

Startup founders should have the ambition to grow their business into a larger company. If you don’t have that ambition, what you are creating is not a startup.

You need to be able to see a point where you can hire in staff or systems to replace you, and still continue to generate a profit. At that point it becomes a real business.

A list of customers that pay you every month is an asset. If you focus on short-term projects you’ll make more money initially. But if you turn down projects and focus on providing recurring value, you build a valuable asset.