So, you want to have your own startup?

Article 1:

If the title of this article has already been appealing to you and you have come to this page with a mental spark, be sure to accompany us to the last point of this story.

✅ Read the Persian version of this article here.

This article will be the first issue of a series of articles that help you on the path of establishing your desired startup. All over this article, we have been trying to inform you of the hazards of the different parts of the startup environment. Asterisk mark (*) in this article refers to dangerous and destructive behaviors in the startup environment.

Here’s what you will know at the end of this script:

● What is Startup?

● What is the startup environment?

● What are the conditions to have a startup?

● What is the real hazard of startup environment?

● How successful have startup businesses been?

● What features do you need to get started with?

● What can be understood from the precise statistics of Iranian startups?

Since the early 2010, when the Iranian ecosystem of startups came into existence, this business model was introduced, which was initially very appealing to those who were favorably disposed towards any new ideas and enthusiasts alike.

Over the first decade of its life, this atmosphere changed which was very pleasant for a few, and was highly ambiguous, contemplative and even upsetting for others.

According to the ICT Startups Empowerment and Facilitation Center (ISEFC), the number of Iranian startups rose from 138 in 2014 to more than 40,000 in the second half of 2018.

These statistics include all the active and passive startups, all of whom, with different ideas at the beginning of their journey, have tried to achieve their goals, and a small percentage of them have been able to survive.

There is also a relatively similar situation abroad. It is worth knowing that based on published statistics, nine out of ten startups, established in Silicon Valley, have turned out to be complete failures. But why?

Every success or failure in this field is rooted in precisely understanding the concepts of the vocabulary that comes with the definition of the startup.

In order to properly establish the reader's mental atmosphere, let's look at one of the comprehensive Startup definitions provided by Eric Ries (entrepreneur and the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Lean Startup):

“Startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”

1. Human institution: Note that the human institution aspect is the mainstay of the startups. The human institution, at the beginning of the work, is defined as a team consisting of at least three members, each specialist in the field required by the startup. At the moment, unfortunately, people step down the road with merely a new idea*, without any financial or team support, that is severely fatal for one-person armies*. According to a series of psychological studies in the field of theorizing business, the idea in your mind is also available, on average, in the minds of six others around the world, and this is the ability of managing conditions that determines who will execute the idea as the first person.
2. Creation: If you look at the progress of cell phones, you can see that some features have been created or eliminated in each new generation, which ultimately have distinguished one generation from the preceding one, encouraging people to buy the new product. The problem that many of the existing startups in the country are already struggling with is the observation of a successful style, such as the transportation with intelligent taxis, and attempting to copy* it without adding or diminishing a significant feature. If your startup does not have a new trait to resolve a specific problem or challenge of people *, no other competitive advantage will be able to excel you than any other rivals.
3. New: Success of the foreign business with the idea in line with yours* cannot lead to your success as long as the factor of being new in offering the product by relying on the same foreign product is ignored. It has to be noted that cultural, economic and social conditions of each country have a profound impact on its startup ecosystem.
4. Uncertainty: In the general definition of the startup, there is also a debate on “uncertainty”. You need to make sure not to confuse the two categories ‘risk’ and ‘uncertainty’. When you risk on a particular subject, you are aware of all possible occurrences and the probability of each one; but while uncertain, you know neither about all possible occurrences nor their probability. In this situation, the study of available resources to find a new way to predict different scenarios is recommended. (Book introduced at the end of this article and review of the book in the next articles).

You can enter the startup world if you have all the above features, namely a team and a completed and nurtured idea resulting in the new product. From this point on, you have to strive to stabilize your business and follow it through. It should be indicated that the lack of any of the above definitions will lead to failure.

The most horrendous part:

400 competing startups participated in the Iran International Exhibition of Electronics, Computer & E-commerce (ELECOMP) in 2018. Due to the lively atmosphere of startups and Mentors (people skilled in the particular field and who advise others), students and programmers, without any idea about the costs, sustainable income model, expandability, etc., have established startups with only having technical knowledge * which, unfortunately, after a short period of struggling have been condemned to fail (over 80% of the startups failed in 6 months). This kind of failure is among the most common ones, and the risk of being entangled in it is high.

Moral result:

In order to have a successful business, the first step should be to investigate the target community in detail and the existing needs, and then, by developing a non-fixed business model (startup) as well as gathering reliable human and financial resources, try to find a model to stabilize your business and get away from the startup environment.

The hazardous startup environment is defined for a few thousands of people, some qualified and inexperienced who are captured in startup traps. Knowing and avoiding the circumstances that bring you into the realm of startup risk, you need to have the determination and compiled planning to set up your own startup without any kind of disillusion. In each series of my startup articles, a book will be introduced, which is very important for a thorough understanding of startup environment and how it works.

Book introduction:

The first book, The Lean Startup, is written by Eric Ries. In this book, various experiences of setting up different startups and a comprehensive solution are proposed for acting in the startup’s uncertain environment. The study of this book is one of the first priorities of the Startup Ecosystem Activists.

In the next article of this series, the detailed stages of advancing startups will be outlined.
you can read here.