The Art of the Start Summary
We hear it all the time, the beginning of every journey is the start of a journey. All too often, we get stuck before we even start, and sometimes giving up before we even embark on the journey of a lifetime.
In the book, The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki teaches you all the planning you need to do to build a successful company.
The three biggest lessons from the book is:
- Your first goal as an entrepreneur must be to create meaning, not make money.
- Prepare your Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks to have direction and purpose right from the start.
- Set yourself up for success by creating a business plan.
Lesson 1: Your first goal as an entrepreneur must be to create meaning, not make money.
Before I began my entrepreneurial journey, I came with a selfish perspective. I thought entrepreneurship was all about creating a better life for myself. The reason it was selfish because it goes against what a business should be. A successful business is built upon creating a better life for your customers. Only then, do you get your reward.
I’m sure you have heard of the saying, leaders always eat last. In business, it’s the same. A winning company focuses on making a difference before cash, and you do so by creating a product a service that makes the world a better place. The more you improve the lives of your customers, the more successful your company will be.
Lesson 2: Prepare your Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks to have direction and purpose right from the start.
Have you ever worked at a place that feels stagnant — no improvements, ambitions, mission, or goals? You feel that you are just there to clock in and clock out and get a paycheck every two weeks. This is an environment you want to avoid for your employees. To get some direction, use the MAT framework: Milestones, Assumptions, Tasks.
The first step is to identify milestones so that on your path to success, you are clear on the direction you are headed. It’s much like taking on a road trip, you know your final destination but you cannot control what the traffic is like on the way to your final destination.
Next is to identify assumptions, the things that you think are true but are not entirely sure. These are the thoughts that don’t have any data to back up.
Lastly, are the tasks you need to complete in order to achieve the milestones.
Lesson 3: Set yourself up for success by creating a business plan.
A business plan gives a clearer picture of the objectives and goals of a business. Although it might sound useless for a startup with lots of unknowns, it is a crucial first step to help you see a clearer picture.
Having one is great, but the steps you’ll take to make it are also helpful for many reasons. The process of writing gives your team a chance to work together more efficiently. It might even tell you the people you don’t want to work with — you are saving their time and your time.
Most people might not ask for your business plan, but it comes in handy when someone asks for one or it might even help you with your elevator pitch.
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Personal Reflection
Under the MAT framework, I like to keep the tasks as open-ended as possible, because it allows room to expect things you don’t expect. It’s like going on a road trip, you know which highway to take, but you don’t calculate the time it takes to travel by the second. One accident on the road will ruin your entire travel plans.
When making a business plan, be careful not to over plan. Running a business has no fit for perfection. Perfection is subjective from person to person, and following the path of perfection means that you will take longer before your customers see a test product. I’m guilty of it myself.
Ever since I discovered the world of entrepreneurship, I found it hard for myself to go past the perfection stage. I wanted to make sure everything was in place before I let the world know what I’m up to. When I finally took the first step to get friends and acquaintances to test my first iteration of products, even if they didn’t like it, it felt much better than not getting comments and sitting and planning.
After all, a successful business is all about solving problems.
