I’m looking at The Startup Lifecycle by Gregory Shepard today. I gave this a read and look, I think there are some real nuggets in here that are obviously solid, but I really struggle with major aspects.

Positives

First, I found that the author had some real insight into the generalized phases of a startup:

  1. Vision (and finding your North Star)
  2. Product
  3. Go-to-Market
  4. Standardization
  5. Optimization
  6. Growth
  7. Exit

These are actually useful even to think about building a new product at an existing company, and after reviewing the GTM section, I can see that we didn’t hit what we needed to have as successful of a launch as possible. I also see that lack of emphasis on standardization and optimization give rise to the possibility of becoming a fire station where people move from one fire to another.

Timeline wise, the goal is to get through these in 3-5 years. I am sure there is leeway depending on the size of the effort and/or valuation underlying, but it seems reasonable.

Second, I really enjoyed the concept of idealized profiles (primarily for customers but also for acquirers). I am not sure exactly how you go about validating some of this, but the idea is to imagine who exactly is purchasing your product, for what direct reasons, learned through which methodology, and your specific product as it relates to competitiveness. This makes quite a bit of sense to me once you add on the agile concept of user stories. Maybe it clicked for everyone else already, but user stories extending from the idealized customer/user you are targeting should make it trivial to understand where you need to prioritize and focus.

In addition, I did appreciate his insight into the failure modes for startups with the big two being wrong management team and targeting the wrong customers. There really is insight here - that startups are failing for reasons that are far more controllable than luck alone. The author is also very optimistic about startups (which is great!) while acknowledging the challenges. Something in all this is that he is pragmatic and recognized how different and rare it is to hit the unicorn level startup. For most people, non-unicorn is probably just fine.

Last, I did get the sense that startups should not be operating in voids and that their ideas should be validated and revalidated fairly often. This seems critical, but it wasn’t clear to me as an outsider if there was anyone else.

Negatives

Ok, first, the mindless criticisms:

  • This man’s mother had 5 somehow very memorable quotes on hand:
    • “Part of being a teacher is understanding your power and limitations.”
    • “If you think because you’re small you don’t matter, then you have never spent a night in a tent with a mosquito.”
    • “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
    • “The people mining for gold are not the winners. It’s those who sell them the Levi’s who win.”
    • “Failure is another word for progress.”
  • How many stories do I have to read about his hiking, camping, or other activities? Electric skateboard, climb El Capitan, 3 month overland trip, doing the John Muir trail by himself at night in a state of delirium? I’m not sure what I should take more from the book - this guy’s record of businesses or that he really likes his outdoor activities and safety is a distant secondary concern?
  • How many times do I need to read that the author’s brain is special? Did Einstein let everyone know how different his brain was when redefining the heart of physics?

More fair criticisms:

  • The North Star section only had one example for his current company. If it’s so critical to do a North Star, why not offer at least a few to showcase the challenges of it?
  • Get an Industry Advisory Board as well as a User Advisory Board? I can kinda understand how to arrive at a UAB after making some inroads with potential customers, but an IAB? The folks you would want on your board don’t have infinite time for you, and I doubt these intelligent folks are eager to spend much free time on you.
  • Book is entirely mum on the mechanics of finding investors, connecting with them, incubators, etc. I get that you can’t say “Alright now, when you are ready to trade equity for cash, here’s the website where you register your startup.” But could I at least have a hint of where I can take my perfectly fleshed out North Star and ask for $100-$500k USD?
  • Talking about folder structures on 192? I would much rather hear more about how to find, interact, and successfully navigate relationships with true capitalists vs. reading about how messy folder structures are going to slow me down. I haven’t almost fallen out of the bag while climbing El Capitan, so perhaps I am unqualified.
  • Talks about how important it is to do market research but then will cite arbitrary websites like IBISWorld, Statista, and Crunchbase. Will these (sometimes pricy) solutions actually get me any meaningful data? What does it actually look like? I guess it’s up to the reader to figure that out.
  • I feel there was just not enough deliberation spent on the value of a non-exiting business. Maybe, just maybe, the issue with wealth inequality in this world is less to do with people not making their own startup and more to do with the fact that private equity is being sold as the best way to go about tackling it.

Conclusion

Overall, a reasonable read to educate on a way of looking at a startup from the lens of start to finish (with finish being selling out to someone else). No doubt, it’s missing details which may or may not have been done on purpose, but I feel for an overview, it was good.

Each chapter had links:

  1. Introduction
  2. Problem with SV Thinking
  3. How Startups Fail
  4. 7 Phases
  5. Vision and North Star
  6. End Game
  7. Product
  8. GTM
  9. Standardizing
  10. Optimizing
  11. Growth
  12. Exit