Week 1 - MBA 6101 - Ascend Your Start-Up

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 Hello,

Helen Yu in the first chapter of her book, Ascend Your Start Up, uses the analogy of climbing a mountain to describe beginning a start up company. Both activities are daunting due to the complexity, involvement, and risk. Yet, both activities yield great reward. Both journeys begin with the first question of why. Why to undertake this journey, what will keep the fire to succeed burning in tough time? This must be understood first.

Helen Yu started her climb of Everest to lay her grandmother’s ashes at rest on the tallest mountain (Yu, 2021).  Why should one start a venture? The answer cannot be money alone, nor allowing money to be the end all be all. If the why is answered solely with money, there will be a point where a challenge will appear and the decision to not push through will be based on the thought that it is just not worth the money. Instead, the why should be answered by what can the money do. What is the money buying? Financial security and stability for one’s family, or maybe helping a social cause.

With an answer to the why, then the entrepreneur can begin the ascent. The next question is what problem is this start-up solving (Yu, 2021). There can be overlap for the why and what problems are being solved, but the two can be distinct. This means what value can the start-up bring to the customer. For what is the customer willing to exchange their hard-earned cash for? A lawyer shared with me advice he received from the billionaire Henry Crown. It was “don’t think like a lawyer, think about what your customer wants” (Weber, personal communication, 2014). The message conveyed is the entrepreneur cannot assume the customer wants the same as what they want. Instead the entrepreneur needs to adapt their offering to match the customer’s needs. Once the foundation is built for the why and what of a start-up, the company can be developed.

 

Citation:

Yu, H. (2021). Ascend Your Start-Up: Conquer the 5 Disconnects to Accelerate Growth. Made for Success                 Publishing.


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