Why startup founder must do mistakes and learn the lessons and build a successful company.
By: Emin Aliyev
Tags: Leadership, Startup Life, Entrepreneurship, Startup Marketing, Startup Lessons

https://murmurcars.com

It might sound weird but the startup is like a little baby who needs to grow and get knowledge about how to survive. Like everything, the startup also has a lifetime. In each period or stage, it needs to get data that will help him to move on.

Most startups die because they do not listen and learn new data. Data is equivalent to knowledge which we give to our babies and teach them how to adapt to this world.

As the founder, I did, do, and will do a lot of mistakes. As the founder and human you need to understand that it is okay to do mistakes and learn new lessons, it is a new experience. Mistakes help you to avoid them in the future. If you do not do mistakes, and most importantly do not learn from mistakes then something is from with you or with the world in which you are living.

The most successful people made their fortune by making mistakes.

As a founder, I have a list of mistakes that helped me to build a successful business and live the life which I want.

#1 Ship fast, time is money and does not wait for you.

Most startups became successful because they appeared at the right time. As a founder, you have to feel the time and handle micro, macro influences around the niche on which you are focused. That will help you to present your product on time with the right value proposition.

Before Uber there was Taxi Magic. But the founders of Taxi Magic were early and did not have an appealing value proposition, which followed the bad execution.

I also learned that if you ship fast, early traction will help you to ship an improved version.

#2 Think big, execute small

As the founder i always had the big picture for my company. I visualized my big goal and then draw a roadmap to achieve this goal. Each step I divided into microtasks chained them into one working mechanism.

Remember the human body consists of millions of microorganisms that work together to achieve one super goal.

As the founder, you need to learn micro-management!

#3 Get early sales, Never give it for free.

Most founders give a product for free and feel happy that they got early customers.

Customers are those who pay you and want to get a product that they care about.

People who get a product do not care, they are not interested. I call such people useless users who just littler the server space.

Early sales will teach you where to focus and why people want to buy your product. Their feedback will help you to develop the product, change the business model and market it.

Our early customers basically showed us the way how our product can be used and value proposition.

Always remember that people buy your product to solve their pain. If you can solve the pain then your product will be essential for them.

# 4 Listen to early customers but do not redevelop the product, just change your messaging.

Most founders will redevelop, add new features but in our case, we were carefully listening to all our customers and presenting them with the same product but with different messaging.

We learned that most customers even do not know what they want exactly, they just want to be heard.

As the founder, you need to be able to listen and move forward with your own decision.

#5 No one knows your business better than you.

As a first-time founder, I was advised by investors, serial entrepreneurs in what direction I should build my company, where should i focus first, and what i should not do.

This really depends on your persona, if you like to be followed or be your own and choose your destiny?

I learned that nobody will really help you to build your dream it you do not. As a founder, you will get distracted by useless, not relevant advice a lot. You will need to sort all incoming and outgoing info.

I did not listen to my mentor, investors, and dug my own path to success, and proved to them that they were wrong and I was able to follow my vision and it worked out.

In my path to success, I spent a lot of sleepless nights, damaged my health, was mentally ill, spent $200k, almost all my savings.

And the most important lesson I learned is that a startup founder should be a gambler, more risk involves more success. As a founder you are a warrior, you need to surround yourself with people whom you trust and loyal to you, and ready to start this fight with you.

In my success i very much thankful to my parents who raised me, and my wife who supported and believed me.