Start-Ups: Early Visionary Morphs into COO

Folks who pursue start-ups, enjoy birthing things, like to design/develop-and-toss-over-the-wall -- consumer or tech-focused -- are a unique breed.  They need do-everything flexibility, pit bull-style tenacity, and strategic big picture + laser focused/mission-critical detail breadth.

Been Through It Before?  Process Consistencies Begin to Gel

• There's no business without a product/service, so that focus comes first, before a slick PowerPoint, even an executive summary or business plan
• The bottoms-up business model has to scale, fit current integrated marketing standards, and be attractive to outside investors (if they'll be necessary)
• A team has to be able to name/prove its customers and partners, verify acceptability of price points and feature set roadmap
• "We are ... (already doing xyz and already achieving revenue -- no matter how small)" is an entirely different presentation than "We're going to ..." or "We intend to ..."  Required:  Substance, punch, evidence. 

Understanding and operating on the basis of these foundation elements needs to be second nature.  Which is why team selection is so critical past expertise of skillset, portfolio  or seniority, with careful, iterative discussion to unearth accurate areas of executive or managerial accomplishment and overall familiarity/comfort with thriving in the Do-Everything Zone of Start-Up Land.

Many Hats -- Whatever It Takes

• As Co-Founder/CMO of a virtual worlds venture who wrote the original creative brief to hand-off to the 3D and engineering execution teams, I found myself  voted President filing the entity, writing the plans and presentations, securing counsel and courting prospective investors -- effectively performing the functions of a COO.
• As advisor to a men's Chinese fashion brand favored by Warren Buffett and planning U.S. market entry, I found myself strategizing a reseller coverage model and specifying what was needed in financials.
• As Founder/CEO of my e-commerce fashion brand highlighting Science, Tech, Engineering and Math ("STEM"), I packaged product with a crew and delivered retail boutique launch POS fixtures.
• As CMO of a mobile advertising SaaS venture I found myself walking the inventor through batteries of investor questions and the pitch process in one city, concurrently while I was pitching the venture at tech tradeshow booths in another state -- after writing the Private Placement Memorandum.
• As VP of Marketing for a gourmet retailer I negotiated for A-list technical advisory board members, brought in a five-star Certified Executive Chef and spearheaded both real estate  and design of retail site selection.

Worth It?

Start-ups are about learning, sweating, anticipating, building, gathering, inspiring, understanding, correcting, responding, innovating, risking.  

Definitely not for the faint of heart, they require growing a backbone and nerves of steel, balancing a long view with near-term needs and comfortable with the flow which is part and parcel of in working with a team, product/service and market in perpetual flux.

Worth every bit.  If you're made of Start-Up Stuff.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.