January 2018
Beginner to intermediate
200 pages
3h 48m
English
Before we can analyse startup failure we need a common understanding of what a startup is. In his book The Startup Owner’s Manual, the respected educator and entrepreneur Steve Blank defines a startup as ‘a temporary organisation in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model’. Once a startup finds and successfully demonstrates a business model it transforms into a more structured corporation, and sadly loses some of its startup DNA.
What is the DNA of a startup? In its simplest form, a startup is a business that occupies a space at the intersection of three elements: founders, funding and business model (figure 2.1, overleaf):