CHICAGO–One person who has launched several start-up businesses has some lessons learned in that process that also offer guidance to credit union leaders.
“Having done it before, I can say that it's incredibly difficult to start a business from scratch,” wrote Toby Russell, co-CEO of Shift, on Inc.com. “It's even harder if you think about that in the meta sense of all the work that will go into building this thing. So the secret is, don't focus on the building of the business itself. Instead, think about the mission or goal of that business.
“If you know who your customers are and what they need, focus on creating it for them, and the starting of the business falls out of that,” continued Russell. “Everything will come out of what you need to do to solve problems for customers. Everyone has a need, everyone has something you solve for them, and if you use that as your fixation point, starting the business will happen naturally.”
For example, Russell said, with one of his start-ups, Taxi Magic, the focus was on the customer and clear on the need that they had -- to be able to get access to taxis and pay for them easily on a mobile device using a credit card.
Not Jumping in Headfirst
‘From that, starting the business was fairly straightforward because everything we needed to do worked back from what it took to deliver for that customer. For example, it meant we needed a team that could build java apps for Blackberry (the dominant consumer device at the time), we needed partnerships with taxi companies (the dominant infrastructure at the time) and we began working back from that customer need. Rather than starting a business in abstract, you identify your business and goal and you work on achieving that goal.’
For credit union leaders, Russell clarified “that doesn't mean you need to jump in headfirst from the start.
“Often, you can talk to customers to learn what they need and do simple tests to see how well your solution meets that need, well before you incorporate or go full-time with your business,” wrote Russell. “At Shift, we started talking to potential users and working on providing inspection reports for customers buying and selling on Craigslist, all as a prototype concept long before there was a business to be started. That research phase allowed us to learn about customers and their needs, and test some ideas before we made it official and inked anything. That ensured that we were focused and aware of what the real needs for the customers were from the first day we became incorporated, and were able to start building and optimizing for that from the get-go.”