Most of us today have heard of a startup and possibly thought about doing something in this space. In fact, there’s a good chance that you’ve already downloaded (and used) an app made by a startup. However, for the young or inexperienced, it may be a bit difficult to pinpoint what exactly to do with your interest and enthusiasm in the startup world. Should you become a founder, an investor? Maybe an advisory role would be more suitable for you given your background? Whatever you choose, remember that it’s better to do something you really like. Entrepreneurship can be very tough, so it ought to be something you genuinely want to be involved in on a day-to-day basis. In the following paragraphs we’ll cover several startup roles you can consider to take on now or some time in the future.
Founder
When it comes to startups, one of the first ideas many of us have is to become the founder of our very own venture. Though the path is hard and you will probably have to learn from many failures, it is one of the most active roles you can take on in entrepreneurship. Even though most startups fail within the first three years, the journey of putting a team together, creating an MVP and launching a new product on the market is an extremely valuable experience that many may never acquire. On the flip side however, becoming your own boss is not something everyone would choose to do today. Not everybody is ready to pass on their ‘safe’ job and salary to move into a (sometimes) chaotic work environment with (almost) no salary in the beginning and a ton of workload that doesn’t seem to end no matter how many emails you send or meetings you take. Not only will you have to shoulder the full responsibility of the venture and its success/failure, but you will also be required to lead a team to build a product around a working business model that caters to a market that truly wants what you’re intending to sell. If all goes well you manage to sell something people actually care about and want to buy, however in between that and everything else that might happen there’s a very large trench.
There are a myriad of reasons for startup failure, so it’s not crazy to hear of a founder that’s successful after the 3rd attempt nowadays.
Thus, if you have an idea, see an opportunity and want to take a serious shot at becoming a startup founder then one the best things you can do is to learn from others and their past mistakes, especially if you’re intending to innovate in novel spaces such as VR or AI for example. Reading articles such as these would be a good step to pick up viewpoints and experiences from others — all to frame your thoughts and give you a better idea of what to expect. Afterwards, there’s only one way to truly test the waters and that is to make the jump and dive in!
All images in this article were sourced from unDraw unless otherwise stated. This is an excerpt of a medium article. To stay in touch and receive our blog updates, please follow us on twitter.