Entrepreneurs, A New Vision and New Executive Team Members can Move Your Company Forward and Create Significant Momentum

Start-up companies often get stifled with an old vision and legacy executive team members that lack of motivation to move the start-up company forward.  This is usually due to the fact that the start-up company has been through multiple incarnations, and as a result, the original vision for the start-up company is old and the associated legacy executive team members lack the desire and motivation to move the company forward due to multiple failed attempts to do such.  With an underlying technology, product or service offering that still has significant merit and associated upside in the market, the founder(s) of the start-up company must significantly change direction to get the company moving forward again.  To do this, the start-up company must come up with a new vision, secure a new executive team that have the motivation to move the company forward, and develop a near term plan to create significant momentum to begin engaging with investors.      

Create a New Company Vision

The vision of a start-up company can be a great motivator.  If this same vision is inappropriate or does not match the needs of the market, a start-up company can get stalled and not have the ability to move forward and secure funding. Sometimes to create a new vision for the company the founders must step back and relook at their target markets to identify new trends and strategic opportunistic needs that are addressable with their underlying technology, product or service offering.  Often the original direction of the company is based on a vision that will not come to fruition in the near term.  This is generally due to the underlying fact that the entrepreneurs and their executive team of the start-up company initially targeting the wrong market and associated customer base. As a result, there are many start-up companies with visions that are fraught problems, including, being too early to market, targeting markets that lack significant market size, or identifying markets that lack the necessary and immediate customer demand for their technology product or services offerings. Consequently, as an entrepreneur you must recognize this and create a new vision based on near term market opportunities that take advantage of your technology, product or service offering.  This is often a difficult task, as changing the vision of your start-up company and how it will ultimately create success in the market requires entrepreneurs to separate themselves from the past “vision and focus” and create a completely new “vision and focus”.  As a result of this separation and re-thinking, a start-up company can often create a new vision that will bring more success as it moves forward.  

Find New Executive Team Members that Buy Your Vision

Often with the change in “vision” for your start-up company, there comes a completely different change in direction.  As such, old, legacy executive team members may not buy into the new vision or focus of the start-up company.  This is not unusual, as restarting an early stage company can often cause nervousness and trepidation with the old, legacy executive team members.  At this point in the development of your start-up company the founding team members must find new executive team members that buy in to the new vision of the start-up company. Unencumbered with the past and legacy issues, these new executive team members can bring new energy and significant motivation to your start-up company and its new vision.  These same new executive team members often bring a new perspective and outlook that will enhance your ability to move forward in the market.  Finally, these same new executive team members often and necessarily bring a whole set of skills that are required for the change in direction and new vision of the start-up company.  So, make the effort to find and secure new executive team members that buy into the new vision of your start-up company as this will necessarily allow your start-up company to move forward toward future success in the market.

Develop a Near Term Plan that Will Create Significant Value and Momentum

With a new vision and new executive team members, the next thing to do is to develop a near term plan that will create significant value and momentum for your start-up company. This plan should fit into the overall long term strategy of the start-up company and at the same time allow you to engage with your targeted customer base. Doing this will provide you with the ability to validate your new vision with “real” customers, create momentum and at the same time create significant value as you move your start-up company’s technology, product or service offering development forward. In developing this near term plan, you will provide an opportunity for the new executive team members to add value to move the start-up company forward with their individual skills and capabilities. This will bring these new executive team members together by contributing to a new term plan and will ultimately provide baseline for success of the new vision of the start-up company and at the same time provide the necessary value and momentum to move forward.                                                                                                     

Start-up companies often get stifled with an old vision and old, legacy executive team members that lack of motivation to move the start-up company forward.  This lack of motivation often comes from multiple incarnations and associated failures that have left this same start-up company standing still with no direction.  To move the company forward, the founders must separate themselves from the old company, vision and focus and create a new company with a new vision and focus. This new vision and focus often necessarily requires a new executive team.  It will also require a new near term plan to help create both value and momentum in moving the start-up company forward.  By doing so, the start-up company will create new opportunity for success in securing funding and ultimately securing success in the market.

This information was taken from Robert’s new book: “Business Planning, Business Plans and Venture Funding – A Definitive Reference Guide for Start-up Companies”.  Available at www.amazon.com.  For more information on the book go to www.carlsbadpublishing.com.