Founder's Toolkit; 5 Major Skills You Must Possess As A Startup Founder
Don’t we all love the attention that comes after success? being in the spotlight, the centre of attraction, the praises that come with it, euphoria bursting out from within. This is the kind of feeling everyone covets, be it in a grand manner or just within a close circle of friends and family. Yet some people are not willing to go through the rigorous path that leads to success.
Success, being the accomplishment of a proposed task, comes with a lot of sacrifices, sleepless nights, delayed gratification, seclusion, in-depth thought and hard work. Yet, when efforts are directed toward a task without the right tool it often becomes futile, and most times depressing.
An example is an amateur farmer, who is hyped to plant corn in the rainy season. His plan is to plant corn on an acre of land and its harvest will be given to people in the internally displaced camps (IDP). The amateur farmer has a good plan and purpose, but he lacks the basic tools to carry out the plant. Meaning, that of all the efforts put into the project, without a tractor, mower, etc, it is in vain.
This example applies to a startup too, no matter the effort a visioner puts into the project, without the deliberate implementation through certain tools, the success might not see the light of day.
There are numerous skills one can embrace to be better in each field, in fact, the startup ecosystem requires a lot of skills, but there are a few toolkits of skills that stand and should definitely be embraced.
Founder Toolkit.
Creativity
An actively participating startup founder has to be creative. This means he/she must be able to know how to use his/her imagination to profer solutions, invent new tools or products and remodel designs.
There are many startups springing up every day, and most of them come with ideas that can unseat an already winning and established startup. This is why even if it seems like a startup has already gained a place in the ecosystem, to keep its spot, the founder must be creative, or there has to be a creative department.
Creativity is not as easy as it sounds but to do it effortlessly, one must be inquisitive. Founders must be able to ask disruptive questions, seek problems in working features, and ask if products can be better. These questions and their related develops creativity that scales startups.
Communication
There is no startup that can be run by one man only, there has to be a team. Wherever there is a group of people, communication must take place. Developing positive communications skill is very important needed to accelerate startups.
Every startup founder must know how to communicate with his/her team, motivating and directing them to attain the desired goal.
Positive and intentional communication should not be limited to team members only. Founders should also learn to communicate with Customers, Partners, Investors and others in a manner that is objectively appealing to them.
Via proper communication, credible and correct information is passed to the receiver to react in the desired way, in the case of a founder/ entrepreneur, it could be a purchase, partnership, franchise etc. No matter the medium of communication, the information must be passed in a clear, concise and appealing manner.
Resourceful
A resourceful entrepreneur/founder knows how to go from zero capital to raising pressed, from a one-man team to a team of thirty people. How does this happen?
To be resourceful the founder must at least know how to network, and prioritize human value. Understand are humans are behind everything needed to make a startup grow, whether physically or financially. Knowing how to work with people to solve any challenge a startup might face is the act of being resourceful.
The resourcefulness of every founder lies in the belly of human ties, knowing who has what you need, how to approach them and gaining access to your needs.
Accountability
Being accountable is absolutely important at any stage of a startup, whether it is bootstrapping or it is being a unicorn in the ecosystem. Every founder is obligated to be responsible for the decisions made to grow or pull the business down.
Accountability applies to finances, decisions on business location and employment of staff and many more. For each decision taken in any part of the sector, the founder should be responsible for the outcome.
Patience
Founders should understand that patience is a virtue they must possess. Startups take time, they go through a rigorous process especially if there is little help from external forces.
As a founder, patience and resilience is key to standing strong against rejection, slow traction, debts and other unwanted situations that might arise against the startup.
To reach the end of the tunnel and claim success, patience must be embraced.