If there ever was a magical triangle of entrepreneurism, this is it. Opportunity, talent, and money — you need all three for a balanced startup, but can you ever have ‘em all at once?
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Last night I gave a talk about how to build a startup at Silicon Vikings. In my talk I mention a startup triangle. The word guru Alison Withers has turned this into a lovely blogpost which I’d like to share below. She basically describes it much better than I do. Here it is:
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As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably learned that running a startup is a balancing act. Or perhaps on some days it’s managing disaster control. And that’s all because, at any given time, you’re likely lacking one of these three key things.
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It was Tine Thygesen at last night’s event who revealed this, after she realized that a speech listing her first 500 mistakes as an entrepreneur might get a little disorganized. So she came up with this triangle. You need talent, a good team you work well with; you need an opportunity — a gap in the market, a new partnership; and you need some money.
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If you’re missing one of them, you’re probably doing alright (like this is actually pretty normal, according to Tine). It can happen that you’re missing two, but if you’re missing all three…well, as Tine said, then it’s probably worth starting over.
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I think the real lesson here is that it’s okay if you’re not in perfect balance. Actually, that’s perfectly acceptable. You just need to practice handling that and being prepared to live and work in a constant pendulum.
