How to open a technology company?

When you see So-and-so made what things, many people tend to have this feeling: this thing I had thought of.

You think about it, others do it.

But you seem to have a good reason: I have ideas, but I do not understand the technology, two and no money, how to do? The 4-Step guide provided by Alumnify Inc. 's founder, AJ Agrawal, is available for reference.

Step one: Do everything you can to advance

Start with a vision in your head and write your thoughts on paper. Fill in the Lean canvas (3 reference Links: The business model canvas, how to create lean canvas and its simple version), and then know the value position. After you've done this, start interviewing 100 potential customers.

Then, write down their responses and look for patterns. (If you need help, take a look at Steve Blank's free course at udacity.) ）。 After each interview a group of people will be adjusted to the canvas. The canvas has been changed more than 30 times before Agrawal began writing the first line of code for alumnify.

Then there is the schematic (UI design). Agrawal is Balsamiq, this thing is free to try. Then you can show your design prototypes to as many customers as possible to get feedback. Get feedback from at least 100 people. In this way, we have a certain understanding of who our clients are, and we know what we need to do to develop a product that will feed us at least. At this point, the customer discovery phase of the work is done without cost or development experience.

Step two: basic knowledge of Learning point development

Learn to program a lot of places, Codecademy, Treehouse, code.org, 2 hours a day, adhere to one months. This effort won't make you a CTO, but it's enough to know the basics of programming. Even a little understanding of what developers do is helpful to a better co-founder of technology. After learning the basics, go to the Internet to find a free web template (you can use freewebtemplates.com, find it difficult to use WordPress).

Next, change the text, the company is doing what write down, and show to the customer, see how much money can be collected. After a while we can figure out the price of the first edition of the product.

Step three: Recruit, keep hiring

Now you know what customers want, how much to price, and what kind of people they need.

Publish a page to AngelList and start looking for developers. At the same time, use LinkedIn, your relationship, or go to college.

Since you do not contribute, the equity you sell is important. It's hard to find the right developer if you don't show enough generosity. In addition to the benefits, this article will tell you what kind of co-founder to look for. As for developers, it doesn't matter if they only have business hours to do it. Time is not enough to make a decision about what really matters.

There is also the need not to let interested developers screw things up and not allow them to provide input to the product. As a leader, your goal is to map the final destination, but how to reach your destination requires the help of the person you recruit. Recruiting technology founders would be easier if both sides had a better relationship.

Fourth step: On sale

This step is to roll up the sleeves of the crazy sales rhythm. It's about getting people to believe in your vision. To keep people is to win the respect of the team. If the product is not your development, the best way to do this is to personally go into the sales, mining new business, to promote revenue growth. In startups, it's impossible to win their trust by yelling at the players on the sidelines. Your hands must be dirty, you have to sweat, you have to go to the front. Find your expansion model and there is hope in the future.