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6 råd fra Thor Angelo & feedback 12. juni

Som Business Angel og generel rådgiver i danske startups i mange år, har Thor Angelo sagt det samme til rigtig mange early-stage iværksættere. Derfor har han nu samlet 6 generelle råd, som du kan læse her.

Thor Angelo har en fortid som co-founder af Languagewire gennem næsten 14 år med internationalisering, produktudvikling og et exit. Lige nu, er Thor blandt andet involveret i Jobwalk, Tutee, CodersTrust og Shoptagr som aktiv investor, men rådgiver også early-stage iværksætteren i et samarbejde indgået med Trendsonline.dk.

Få en kop og en snak med Thor Angelo på Rocket Labs

Du kan møde ham på Rocket Labs i København den 12. juni, hvor du har mulighed for at fremlægge din idé og din vision, og få kyndig feedback, der kan give dit startup ny retning og dig mere mod på at arbejde videre.

Book dig ind til en halv times feedback fra Thor her

De 6 generelle råd til early-stage iværksætteren

”Som Business Angel og som generel rådgiver på startupscenen i danmark igennem mange år, har jeg talt med rigtig mange iværksættere og især på vej-til-at-blive og vil-rigtig-gerne-være iværksættere. Der er nogle råd og noget feedback fra mig, som går igen til de fleste folk og deres ideer, og som det derfor giver mening at give noget generel feedback på.”

1. Seek guidance – Get input – listen!
It’s all about testing your idea on other people.  Share it with a lot of people quickly and seek genuine feedback – this meaning not just from your mother or a close friend. Search guidance with competent people, get input and LISTEN.

If you want to do something in dairy products, seek someone in your network who works at Arla or Thise – and then set up a meeting with them.

2. Start small, start in a niche
Entrepreneurs often have big visions, but also have problems finding out where to start. “I am making a competitor to Netdating.dk” or “I have started making a competitor to Jobindex.dk”.

If anyone has the market for dating or job ads, then start off with a niche dating site for parents with children or job ads directed at foreigners in Denmark. The path to world domination typically starts with a city, then a region, one country – and then one more country.

The niche advantage is the small audience that you can hit better than the giant.

3. Business design
Consider strongly what business you are building. Personally, I see scalability as an important element, but it doesn’t have to be for you.

Ask yourself where you are with your business in 5 years. If you want to sell your hours as a consultant, you will have a direct correlation between time spent and money earned. Is that what you want?

Think instead of scalability especially in delivery. If you sell 100 or 1000 units, then you shouldn’t work proportionally more. Those who sell subscriptions to software such as (SaaS) have a very scalable product, which means that they can make money while they are asleep.

4. Go-to-market – how?
Make sure that you are realistic about how you will find and get customers. Always think in concrete terms: How should it be done? Ask yourself “do I need sellers driving out or can I close the customers over the phone?”, and “can I get customers through adwords and a website?“

Make a simple ‘from budget to activity’ calculus: If your target is a one million dollar turnover, what specific activity will this need?

How much revenue do you get from one customer? How many customer visits, does it take to close one customer? How many customers you need to call to get one meeting?

5. Get proof in the market ASAPDoing an MVP is „the shit“. Make the most simple model of your product, and then go out and test it with your customers.

My MVP could be to build a box of wood, put myself into it with a coffee machine and a paper cup, and then ask people 20 DKK for a cup of coffee. If I succeed in selling this, I would dare to invest in a real coffee machine to replace me.

6. Build your team
Find out where you lack the skills necessary for your startup to succeed and fi ll the seats up with the missing competencies. And get the best people!

You cannot do this alone: Expand your team to 2-4 people, and make sure that you broadly cover especially three areas; Sales, IT/technology and Web/Graphics and social marketing – and perhaps other things that are particularly important for your product.

There should much focus on better match-making skills for startups – because everyone agrees that the team is more important than the idea.