As a startup CEO, your life is exciting, chaotic and busy. You wear the proverbial “many hats” and enjoy juggling them. You enjoy that you can do product development, legal, website development, sales and fundraising, all within your 12 hour day. No two days are alike and you enjoy every minute of it.
Often in the hustle of a startup, planning and organization takes a back seat. You created a Gantt chart with your business plan and then got busy executing. Your plan now lives in a folder on your laptop, never to be opened. A year goes by, and suddenly you realize you are not making as much progress as you had hoped. You go back to the drawing board and realize you have strayed far from your initial plan.
Iterating and innovating with product and market development is the name of the startup game. However, in order to be successful, you also have to manage the holy trinity of project management
- Time
- Scope
- Budget
Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping in a startup involves budget, time, and scope. You have to wise about how you execute or you will run out of money (budget) early (time), without meeting your milestones (scope).
Risk Management
Another key aspect of managing a successful startup is Risk Management. You have to be able to anticipate the risks and mitigate them. Without an active risk mitigation plan, you will be constantly putting out fires rather than avoiding/managing the fires. As a result, you will be out of budget, early, without meeting milestones.
Relationship Management
Managing expectations with your team, investors, collaborators and suppliers is imperative for your startup to succeed. Nothing ruins relationships faster than unmet expectations. The best way to manage expectations is to communicate often, clearly and objectively (with data). If you are not transparent with progress, financials or strategy, you will quickly lose credibility. In order to communicate effectively and maintain transparency, you will need information on reason for delays, scope changes or budget requirements.
Often, in my work with clients, I have observed that many issues can be easily managed with effective project management. Planning and organizing is not as sexy as brainstorming about your product or envisioning your strategy, but it will save you time and money in the long run and allow you build a successful company.