Overheard at a startup...
Overheard at a startup… is a series launched in 2020 by Startups Magazine, inspired by real conversations overheard among early-stage founders and aspiring entrepreneurs — particularly those transitioning from corporate employment to building their own businesses. The series uses candid, relatable questions as a springboard to deliver practical guidance, covering the full arc of the startup journey from initial ideation and market research through to growth, funding, and navigating crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Each article draws lessons from both the questions and the answers overheard, reflecting the everyday concerns of entrepreneurs entering uncharted waters.
Over the years that I have been working with startups and early-stage businesses I have overheard many different things. The majority of these follow the normal concerns of any entrepreneur that is entering into uncharted waters for themselves but there have also been some comments that I have overheard that have been unique to the individual’s concerns or the setting in which it was said.
There are many reasons why living in the UK makes life so much easier than living in most other countries. This is in our personal lives and wellbeing but also in our working lives, especially as an entrepreneur.
One of the very common themes that I come across with entrepreneurs and founders is that they are generally over confident. About everything! That goes from the valuation of their business to how quick and easy it will be to raise funding.
As a Mentor, one of the things that I am often asked about is how to find reliable partners, and indeed who those partners should be. I recently overheard that very point when a lady was asking “who should I ask to help me and what exactly are the best roles for them to play?”
Of all the questions that I overhear or am asked, the one with the most variants is without doubt ‘how long will it take? The simple reason that it has the most variants is because ‘it’ can apply to almost anything and everything in a startup or a business at any other stage.
When anyone is considering doing anything important and potentially life changing in their lives it always pays to think hard, do as much research and gather as much information as you can, and also to speak to as many people as possible.
For anyone starting a business there is that delicious and intoxicating mixture of excitement tinged with fear. That is partly the fear of the unknown but it is also very much the fear of failure.
Some questions in life are more fundamental than others and some are more specific or technical, and so it is in the world of early stage businesses. But for the person asking the question, each carries the same weight, and each is of the same importance because at the time of asking it is that point that is not understood.
Whatever any of us care to call it – funding, finance, getting investors, or any other variation on the theme – obtaining finance remains one of the biggest areas of both concern, and lack of detailed knowledge, for many startups.
Some people are afraid of networking and others love it! It is true. We have all come across people that love nothing more than going to networking events and chatting to as many people as possible – some of these really get the benefits that good networking can bring to them and their business, and others simply love networking because it fits their outgoing personality.
Any business at any stage of its life must be able to adapt and change to changing circumstances. One of the very real benefits that early stage businesses have is that they are small and fast on their feet and are therefore perfectly structured to be able to react swiftly to changing circumstances.
These are strange times, unsettling times, and if I am honest this is not a normal question that I overhear much in more normal times, but recently THE question that I keep hearing is ‘do I have to work remotely and what does that mean for my customers?’ or, put another way, ‘does remote working have to mean working remotely?’
In any business, at any time, cash is king and cashflow is much more important than turnover, and in the short term it can often even be more important than profit. If turnover is vanity and profit is sanity, then cash flow should be regarded as stark reality.
Coronavirus is on everyone’s lips, not literally but figuratively. And for very good reason. It seems so long ago already that the only thing in the news was all things Brexit, and how companies will need to adapt in order to survive, and now that has been brushed aside by a much bigger and more urgent threat – coronavirus.
Any business at any time has to constantly be considering how best to trade in the present, and how best to trade in the future. This is equally true in the good times as it is in the difficult times. For many, this strange period where the world is caught up in the coronavirus pandemic is certainly one of the much more difficult times, but for some lucky businesses it is actually a period of rapid growth and great opportunity.
The longer the coronavirus lockdown goes on, the more my conversations with startups have varied from the norm. Just another example of ‘the new normal’ maybe, but recently I keep overhearing conversations comparing being in lockdown as being similar to being under siege.
Money most certainly does not buy happiness, but it does make the world go round. And the lack of money can lead to hardship in many ways. A question that I keep overhearing recently is about whether it is still possible to raise finance during the coronavirus pandemic. The simple answer is yes… maybe!
As we emerge blinking into the light post lockdown, what will the ‘new normal’ look like? The questions that I am overhearing have changed very recently, from those covering how to survive during lockdown, to those focused around how to get back to normal working? In truth, the questions vary from the theoretical to the practical, but in essence they all ask, ‘how will we adapt to the ‘new normal’?
As we are all starting to hope that the end, or at least a temporary reprieve, is in sight, thoughts are starting to turn to how we and our businesses can bounce back. In fact, another week and another acronym.
Many businesses ask me many questions but one of the questions that has become more common over the last few months is whether their business should pivot. Regular readers will know that many of the answers to questions I overhear are often prefaced with ‘well it depends’ but this question can in many ways be easier to answer than that.
