10 Things To Do Before You Start Your Startup

Why should you read this when enough is said by other extremely successful entrepreneurs on the web? We (my co-founders and I) are still not there.

We haven’t tasted success yet, we have not made it to the Bn$ club yet. But we have started. And taking the first step is half the work done, right? So what I wanted to do was to share 10 things which we didn’t do and want you to do before you start your startup.

So if you are still thinking of jumping on the startup bandwagon, then read this and it might just surprise you how helpful you find it.

1. Go through the 20 video series of Starting a Startup by YCombinator on YouTube. It is just amazing! It pumps you up but it tells you about all the challenges which you will have to go through.

2. Save! Save as much as you can, and do all your big expenses at least a year before starting up.

3. Attend startup events: As many as you can, you get to know this mad world of startups at these events. They’re mostly free, but dont mind spending ($100) if you have to.

4. Visit some of these websites every day for T 0–60 at least: TechCrunch, Mashable, Entrepreneur, Bplans.

5. Follow some top startup experts on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media platform: Guy Kawasaki, Peter Theil, Sam Altman.

6. Read up just a little bit about funding, Angel, Seed, VC, pre-money, post money. You’ll hear all this a lot and its better get the lingo down as quickly as possible.

7. Get used to free collaboration tools. Google Drive, Skype, Slack, Trello, etc. are going to be your lifesavers!

8. Exercise regularly and vigorously. Tone up your body, loose 5–10kg if you’re overweight, ’cause you;re gonna gain that much in next 6–8 months.

9. Start early: It’s much better to start early, preferably before you get married or build a family; its a huge commitment and you can only do one big thing at a time.

10. And finally work for a startup if you can. I read this on a T-Shirt:

Got an Idea?
Yes: Start a startup
No: Work in a startup

I have written this assuming that you have an idea, and if not that, you have the co-founder(s). The latter is more important in my opinion.

-Nitin @zipBoard