How Much Business Knowledge Do You Actually Need To Launch A Startup?

We often think of startups as clever enterprises launched with nothing more than the desire to compete, to grow, and address certain problems or gaps in the market. This conjures imagery of a team of young professionals, perhaps recent graduates, looking to subvert the conventional employment pathway and define their own space.

But of course, a startup can be launched by anyone, of any age, and of any experience. But those who may have experienced solid careers thus far, capable education, or industry insight might not be general business practitioners. You may be hyper-specialized in marketing, or the beverage industry, or have worked for record labels pursuing talent and signing artists, but does that give you the wider business knowledge you need to launch a startup?

How much business knowledge do you need to launch that plucky firm, anyway? In this post, we’ll discuss a few basic knowledge sets worth curating before you bring your startup to the market, ensuring you avoid making rookie mistakes or trying to run before you can walk:

General Accounting Capability

Of course, understanding the basics of cash flow management, asset ownership, and how to manage business finances is key. This is not only essential for practices like implementing payroll but also in very basic tax measures such as filing an EIN application. Taking a basic course can give you the starting skills necessary for baseline accounting capability and literacy, even if you outsource or hire someone full-time for this specialization.

General Management Techniques

Being able to designate tasks, delegate authority, trust those you work with, and assign different roles is an essential skill to learn, but it also means you can plug skill gaps as and when you need to. General management techniques take a little time to get right, and it’s easy to make mistakes, but if you’re patient you’ll learn to properly a wide variety of personality types, skillsets and more. It’s one of those skills you learn with the right priorities and enough experience.

General Technical Knowledge

You don’t have to be an IT professional, or know how to write code, or have technical expertise if it’s not directly related to your field… but it’s important to have something. That might involve understanding all aspects of your customer management suite, your internal document sharing and security systems, how and where your system is hosted, how to update your system, and how to work with remote professionals.

Deep Understanding Of Your Chosen Field

Of course, if you can’t understand the product you sell, what makes it different, what distinguishes it from the competition in your market, well, odds are you shouldn’t be in that kind of business. That might sound harsh, but it’s relatively true that this is the one area where you should be laser-focused on. Otherwise, you may find more benefit working for others in that space, learning the market and industry, and seeking more responsibility through that role.

This is a contributed post.