Startups are Maximal, Not Minimum Viable
Spend big or go home
The romantic image of a startup is two guys in an apartment changing the world. They don’t need a lot of resources like the existing players 1, because they’re better: they have a new perspective, better technology or <insert magical advantage here>. We all want to believe this romantic image because it’s better than reality. Plus there are players like media and professional investors who push that narrative because it benefits them.
Phrases such as minimum viable product, which are valuable when understood and applied correctly, are extremely easy to misunderstand. They often lull us into a comforting illusion that building a small product is enough to succeed. After all, it says minimum right in the name, doesn’t it?
Actually, startups require a lot of people, money, time and stress. Just in terms of team, you need the following skills:
Frontend engineering, to build the web frontend.
Mobile engineering, to build the mobile frontend.
Backend engineering, to build the backend.
DevOps, to run a reliable backend.
UX, to build a polished product of the kind users expect today 1.
Product, to decide whom to build for, what to build, build it, and measure how it’s doing.
Marketing, to generate demand for your product.
Sales, if it’s an enterprise product or service.
Operations, if you’re working with atoms, not just bits.
Fundraising: investors expect so much that meeting their expectations is a job in itself 2.
Each of these areas can have more sub-skills. For example, you may need multiple marketing / sales people with specialisations in different areas like content writing, inbound and outbound.
And with salaries going through the roof, an annual budget of ₹1 crore for the engineering team’s salaries is no longer enough. You need at least 2. Plus more for the business people. And having marketers isn’t enough — they need a marketing budget to make an impact.
If I asked you to buy a jet aircraft, how would you respond? “It’s a far bigger investment than I can afford”. You should think the same thing when considering starting a startup. Startups are maximal, not minimal. Spend big or go home.
Themselves startups earlier, which raises the question, “Are you really better than everyone else?”