Attention African Startup Founders

Are you a Startup Founder or someone who wants to solve a problem in Africa? If this is you then I want to grab your attention. We are living in the 21st Century and therefore it is important that you take this into account when starting up your venture. Organisations in the 21st century need to use Exponential attributes to ensure success.

I have written about these attributes before and have included a diagram of the elements below for a refresher.

It is vital that you have an MTP as this will ensure that you are working towards a purpose that moves you and is inspiring. If you want to determine what that purpose is you can use the Ikigai to help you.

I highly recommend that you follow these steps when creating a new business:

Step 1: Create an MTP (Massive Transformative Purpose)

Here is a tool to help you do this

Step 2: Create or Join a Community

Physical/Virtual, look at what is out there on Meetup / Eventbrite or others. Remember that you need to offer value before pushing your agenda. Read Jab Jab Jab Right Hook to understand this. BTW check out DIY Drones it is a great example of a community.

Step 3: Build a Team

Most successful startups are 3-4 people in the beginning. The team needs the Visionary/Dreamer; Finance/Business; Programmer/Engineer; User Experience/Design. What is vital is that you all agree on the MTP

Step 4: Create the Breakthrough Idea

Be bold, ask the community, make a difference

Step 5: Build a Business Model Canvas

Here is a tool to help you do this

Step 6: Find a Business Model

Read Kevin Kelly’s Article better than free 8 ways to make money when the base service is free to give you some ideas

Step 7: Build an MVP

Remember that your minimum viable product is just the basics that will solve the problem

Step 8: Validate Marketing and Sales

Use Design thinking and Agile Methodology

Step 9: Implement External Attributes

These are the SCALE Attributes

Step 10: Establish the Culture

It is important to do this when you are small. You can go with an Idea Meritocracy, Holocracy, or your own hybrid but create principles about how you want to run the organisation, this ensures implementation of IDEAS and SCALE.

Step 11: Ask Key Questions Periodically

This is to check you are following the Exponential Organisational method and building what you want to.

Step 12: Build and Maintain a Platform

This will allow for the best use of all the data you collect and build and use the network effect.

I will go into more detail with regards to these steps over time, I highly recommend that you read Exponential Organizations as well as Bold. These are two books that will ignite your mind to the many possibilities and the opportunities when solving massive problems and then how to go about doing that. The framework described here is straight out of Exponential Organizations.

If you find this helpful then share it and comment.