1) The Team
It it important to have a team of differing abilities. Andrew Carnegie states 'Ideally, every person will contribute different skills to increase the efficiency of the team and develop its unity'. The best start ups usually have a CEO (chief executive officer), CFO (chief financial officer), CMO (chief marketing officer), CPO (chief product officer), CTO (chief technology officer) and other positions so it's vital every member has their own value added component. 5 economists may be in trouble if none of them know domestic law.
2) Research
Research is possibly the most important aspect of a start-up and is something which will occur throughout. This can range from market sizing (knowing who and how large your potential market will be) to researching the quality of any developers you may use. To highlight the importance of research, most of our developers were charging $60,000 to produce our prototype for our app which is a hefty sum. With sufficient research, we realised that most developers were American companies who'd outsource the work to India. We cut out the middle man and went straight to and Indian developer who charged us $10,000 dollars. We knew the company was credible as Deliveroo was a previous client. Extensive research in the start-up scope can quite literally save you thousands of dollars.
3) Funding
Being located in developed nations is a huge advantage for the start-up community as funding options are huge. There are platforms called accelerators (examples are Wayra, Y Combinator, Second Home and Entrepreneur First) who in exchange for equity help 'accelerate your start-up'. They do this via expertise, contacts and funding. Some government incubators take no equity. These programmes are hugely competitive. However the payoff is great as in 2015, 1/3 of start ups who received Series A funding went through an accelerator.
Other funding sources are traditional Venture Capital firms. They invest in return for equity. A great example is the US VC firm Index ventures who invested in Facebook.
Finally, the UK is a great source of government funding. There are many schemes which have existed for a long time to incentivize entrepreneurship and technological innovation. Examples are the SEIS (a tax relief scheme for investors to encourage investment), the Enterprise Investment Scheme, Innovate UK Smart Grants, Innovation Vouchers and Prince's Trust Grants. If your start up provides positive externalities like many health care start ups, it may be considerably easier to receive a grant!
It it important to have a team of differing abilities. Andrew Carnegie states 'Ideally, every person will contribute different skills to increase the efficiency of the team and develop its unity'. The best start ups usually have a CEO (chief executive officer), CFO (chief financial officer), CMO (chief marketing officer), CPO (chief product officer), CTO (chief technology officer) and other positions so it's vital every member has their own value added component. 5 economists may be in trouble if none of them know domestic law.
Research is possibly the most important aspect of a start-up and is something which will occur throughout. This can range from market sizing (knowing who and how large your potential market will be) to researching the quality of any developers you may use. To highlight the importance of research, most of our developers were charging $60,000 to produce our prototype for our app which is a hefty sum. With sufficient research, we realised that most developers were American companies who'd outsource the work to India. We cut out the middle man and went straight to and Indian developer who charged us $10,000 dollars. We knew the company was credible as Deliveroo was a previous client. Extensive research in the start-up scope can quite literally save you thousands of dollars.
3) Funding
Being located in developed nations is a huge advantage for the start-up community as funding options are huge. There are platforms called accelerators (examples are Wayra, Y Combinator, Second Home and Entrepreneur First) who in exchange for equity help 'accelerate your start-up'. They do this via expertise, contacts and funding. Some government incubators take no equity. These programmes are hugely competitive. However the payoff is great as in 2015, 1/3 of start ups who received Series A funding went through an accelerator.
Other funding sources are traditional Venture Capital firms. They invest in return for equity. A great example is the US VC firm Index ventures who invested in Facebook.
Finally, the UK is a great source of government funding. There are many schemes which have existed for a long time to incentivize entrepreneurship and technological innovation. Examples are the SEIS (a tax relief scheme for investors to encourage investment), the Enterprise Investment Scheme, Innovate UK Smart Grants, Innovation Vouchers and Prince's Trust Grants. If your start up provides positive externalities like many health care start ups, it may be considerably easier to receive a grant!
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