what start.up success & football have in common

building a successful start.up is a tough competition. from the early preparations, the foundation, financing and breaking-even it is a ongoing competition. against all the nay sayers, against one´s own doubts, against all the other strong competitors.given these characteristics, creating a successful start.up is no different then competing in the recent european football championship, like turkey did. the match turkey vs. croatia showed how not giving up until the game is over, leads to outstanding results. turkey was behind in terms of goals and they were considered to be inferior to croatia. still, turkey went until the very end with their spirits high and won the match.

overcoming setbacks by well thought fast and tough offensive play - and not defensive resignation made them win in the end.the did not win the championship though, but speaking in terms of start.ups: not everyone will be the next google - but it´s o.k. to on the upcoming top 50 companies of the ict sector! and who says, turkey (respectively a recently founded start.up) will not win the upcoming world championships. therefore the field manual crossover from successful played football to creating successful start.ups is:„the start.up competition is not over, until the final whistle sounds.“

fatfoogoo´s financing success factors

@ the last barcamp vienna martin herdina, ceo of the austrian start.up fatfoogoo named three main success factors for their subsequent funding rounds:

1) use contact networks

they used their existing contacts for angel funding. and kept leveraging the angels contacts to acquire their first vc round. and guess how they are looking for their next investment? by using the network of their first round investors.

2) sell and convince

their contacts with the potential angel investors did not spare them the job to sell them the idea of fatfoogoo. they had to convince them about their visionary idea and the resulting business opportunities.

3) believe in yourself

strong believe in their ideas and abilities were and are necessary to push ahead successfully, not only in terms of financing.

there is nothing to add to that.

start.up company success rates

with a 30% success rate, serial entrepreneurs outperform first-time company founders by 12 percent (18%). founders which failed once before have a slightly higher rate of 20% to make money out of their venture.

this is one of may results of the studies of gompers et al (“skill vs. luck in etrepreneurship and venture capital: evidence from serial entrepreneurs”, 2006).

“soft money” of venture capital investors does not bring real value in terms of higher success rates to serial entrepreneurs.

sun zi, moltke & douglas adams für start ups

sun zi, moltke & douglas adams wurden vermutlich für high tech gründer geschrieben. wieso? dazu eine kleine trilogie. links zu den einzelnen autoren in teil 3.


sun zi, moltke & douglas adams für start ups 1/3

frei nach sun zi:

"gründe nur dann ein start up, wenn du bereits davon überzeugt bist, dass es erfolgreich sein wird."

wenn eine klare positionierung des zukünftigen unternehmens gepaart wird mit auergewöhnlicher technischer, wirtschaftlicher und vertrieblicher kompetenz, hat man die notwendigen grundsteine gelegt.
wenn eines dieser elemente fehlt, dann zurück an den start. wenn man eine technologie hat und ein problem sucht: weitersuchen, nicht gründen.