Almost every founder's journey starts with one thing—a great idea.
The journeys can take wildly different paths, and the metrics for success are unique to each founder and startup. The ones that reach their milestones, whether that’s funding or scaling or another type of exit, succeed because they start off doing unscalable things.
They build something to solve a problem, and then they find customers who can’t live without what they’ve built—even if it isn’t perfect. It’s something that Jesse Rodgers has seen happen time and time again.
If you don’t know the name, you probably know something he’s built.
Rodgers a Communitech Growth Coach, the Founding Director of the Creative Destruction Lab, and the co-founder of Eigenspace, an investment company that focuses on building great startups with great people.
Over the last decade, Rodgers said he has seen founders go into accelerator programs and graduate without the momentum they need to do those unscalable things.
“After demo day, the momentum they felt in the weeks of the program evaporates. They aren’t prepared for the experience, or they misunderstood something important, and now they are struggling. Accelerators only accelerate those who know how to use the resources available to convince people they are a sufficiently good bet,” he said.
Another challenge today’s founders are facing is that raising funds and reaching high valuations has become a milestone instead of being the tools it was meant to be.
“Raising money or having a high valuation is not the purpose of a startup. A startup is a company that is designed to grow quickly. The money you raise from investors is a tool to help you grow quickly,” Rodgers said. “How quickly you need to grow is tied to how venture capital works as a business. But, this isn’t talked about and founders are often viewing venture capitalists as a sort of loan officer at a bank that knows stuff about startups.”
Starting on January 17, Rodgers is hosting an eight-week workshop series designed to help founders like you build a strong set of principles to support growth. Each Wednesday, you’ll participate in a variety of instructor-led presentations, open discussions and networking. You’ll develop a deep understanding of what it takes to build a startup and be given the tools to develop and execute a plan specifically targeted to your business.
These workshops will cover:
- What is a start-up? Go back to basics to understand what a startup is, what it isn’t and how to set your company up for success
- Define your opportunity. Learn how to develop your product and define the opportunity ahead of you.
- Have a plan. How to build your first business plan and what you should include.
- Test. Refine. Repeat. How to test your idea in the early days.
- Attract and retain customers. Discover what it means to build something that someone will love.
- How to get funding. You’ll learn what motivates people to invest in startups.
This is in-person, too! Since you’ll be at the Hub, participants can co-work for free for the whole day. This workshop is for Communitech members. Not a member yet, get started for FREE today!