Three, a magical number. Third time’s the charm, 3 lives in Mario, 3… blind mice? Three is super important in startups. Let me present to you, the essential triangle behind a successful startup:
Granted, that's a large way to say three words, but the space and connections between them are useful.
Basically, these are the three core strengths the people in a startup should collectively have. Now, I am not saying that if you are running a “knitting kit as a service” company you need to hire mechanical engineers. I am saying, you need to have someone that knows how to get different lengths of yarn and the necessary components into the box (I know a lot about knitting right?).
In other words:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe
I come from a largely technical background, and… I admit it, I have a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering before I got my masters in Industrial Design, so this explanation is mostly focused on companies that are very much engineering focused. And while engineering driven startups have the coolest technology, they are often neglecting the other aspects.
So, what can design and business add to these companies specifically.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like it should be a tool
Engineers love to capture new technology, make it usable… for other engineers, and create a wonderful tool. Now this is nice and all, but unless you can directly get it into the hands of other engineers, you’re not going anywhere. People who are not the engineer users (so, their managers, the people in the company that can make more decisions) often fail to see the usability and impact of the tool.
Make it a product
Designers love products. They breath products. Adding design skills to your engineering startup will help shape your tool into a product, with a clear use case and benefits to the user. Products have a better product-market fit, and isn’t that what we all really want?
Make money, get segments
Business people (for lack of a better term) love to sell things to people. This also takes a good product-market fit, but business people excel at finding different takes on the market itself. This pairs beautifully with the skill set of designers, and builds off of all the engineering work. One of the main ways you can find a different take on the market is to find different customer segments, basically, bundle up groups of users by needs and then tailor products to those groups.
Getting something out of it
Okay, let’s assume I have you 100% convinced. How can you use this information to better your startup?
Self reflection
Print out that triangle (or draw it on some paper) and mark where you think the strengths of your startup is! Are you to the left? are you to the right? or are you where you need to be? Remember, the best balance of these attributes changes over time and depends on the market and product of you startup. Mark where you should be now and see what skills you need to add on to get there!
Self self reflect
Take that same triangle and fill it out for yourself. Are you where you want to be? Do you want to move towards any point specifically? How do you want to get there? What skills do you have that you associate with each point?
Disagree with me
Really, find out what you don’t like about this model and find your own. Send me a message on LinkedIn and tell me why I am wrong (or right ;) ) and we can discuss your experience. It is through sharing thoughts with others that we can make our own thoughts clear.
