Founder and founding team: The unfair advantage in business – becoming self-employed Part 2

At the beginning of the company foundation the focus is on you or the founding team. You run the company every day. Who the fuck are you? That’s what it’s all about today, advantages and disadvantages of different foundation constellations. We take a look at the foundation alone and the foundation with others.

Founder and founding team

On the whole, it is about these three central questions that you answer for the reader:

  1. Do you bring the necessary personal requirements with you?
  2. Do you bring the necessary technical requirements with you?
  3. Do you bring the necessary entrepreneurial prerequisites with you?

In particular, it is about professional qualifications, sector knowledge and the whole analysis of opportunities and risks arising from the qualifications brought along or lacking.

  1. What qualifications/professional experience and possibly approvals do you have?
  2. What industry knowledge do you have?

The unfair advantage – making strategic success plannable

On the question “What industry knowledge do you have?”, a tip from an interview with Frank Thelen, one of the experts on the subject of startups and investments. Frank Thelen once spoke of the so-called “unfair advantage”, which he considers to be an extremely positive aspect in start-ups. The “unfair advantages” means, for example, that you already have 15 years of experience in sales. However, the “unfair advantage” can also mean that you have a lot of knowledge in development, so you can independently create a software without further experts. The “unfair advantage” can also mean that you come from an advertising agency and therefore have a lot of knowledge and a very good network for public relations and marketing. What do you call an “unfair advantage”?

  1. What commercial knowledge do you have?
  2. What are the special strengths?
  3. What deficits are there? How are they balanced?
  4. Which product/what service do you want to manufacture or sell?
  1. Founder team (caution: long-term commitment!)

Risk Analysis and Risk Assessment

Risk analysis and risk assessment always plays along, as you have already seen. Here, too, potential investors and bankers are faced with volatile business models.

Whoever presents a founding team must accordingly show that no differences can arise in the cooperation. What unites you are synergies. Startups often fail because of the founding team. In most cases even before the product is even on the market – nobody hears about it, they are also not statistically recorded, before the company is founded.

A common idea is quickly found, the daily cooperation is something else. As soon as there are the first financial differences, even small amounts can lead to a dispute.

differences in effectiveness and labor

Even more serious is the intensity of the work. When founder A describes how 80 hours a week works on the project and founder B usually only 15 hours, there are differences. If founder A, founder B, responds to the deficit, there is a justification, for example, that work cannot necessarily be measured in time: “It depends on the results. If I (Founder B) can do so many important things in such a short time, that’s perfectly okay!” It also happens very often that founder A notices that founder B does not have the expertise that one would have expected. Suddenly the much talking “sales genius” is not the prodigy and sells far too little. Even though founder A has designed an absolutely great product, sales do not increase as desired. Fighting is inevitable.

Disadvantages and questions to your co-founders

  1. Long-term binding
  2. Test possible cooperation partners for long time > binding for long time.
  3. Ahead: Letter of Intent or Joint Venture
  4. Is your partner investing the same time?
  5. What productivity / quality does it deliver / them?
  6. When money flows, desires come

Guideline: Setting up your own business & business plan

You want to start your own business as a real estate agent or with another business idea? We support you with tips on your business plan and concept. Whether self-employed full-time or part-time self-employed: If you want to set up your own company, you have to think about a lot, in advance and in the operative business. From the right idea to health insurance – what needs to be considered if you want to become self-employed?

There is no training or further education for entrepreneurs. Managing director is you or not. Your own ambition is always important, because this is the only way to improve, every day.

The topics at a glance: