Running a Startup is Sexy, Building Business is Boring. You Decide

Running a Startup is quite a sexy thing to do, but building a business is boring.

Look at Google.

The amount of boring work that goes in running the money making business – adwords and adsense (two sides of the same coin)

• Purely Operational.
• Need to setup the logistics partnership (even though it’s outsourced, G has to manage vendors relationships).
• Work with publishers – go after high quality ones. Build relationships. Follow up with them.
• Run after advertisers – Chase them, please them. Whatever it is, just get them.
• Build a ‘F**king’ process and ensure that there is no crack in the system (avoid such stupid #fail)
• Support team to handle queries from advertisers/publishers.

How many startups stop at the technology innovation and go the next mile to build a business?

Infact, how much of technology is involved in building a successful business? 20%? 40%? 80%? [Take your pick.]

Building a Business is a lot more than ‘running a startup’.

Startups stop at ‘Product’, while Business starts with ‘Product’.

Some of the ‘boring’ business stuff that one needs to do (generically put):

• Figure out distribution partnerships/mechanism.
• Build channel relationships
• Figure out ‘value prop’ for different customer segments (and train sales/marketing team).
• Take care of customization, especially for large customer accounts.
• Make a mark at various trade shows/industry events.
• Pre-purchase/Post-purchase service
• Design a ‘Process’ (yes! you hate the ‘P’ word, right?)

You decide what you are building. But do not confuse one over the other.

Period.

[And we will be discussing more of these @UnPluggd Event]