How to launch a startup: step-by-step instructions. Instructions for implementing a startup! Create a prototype with your own money

Howling entrepreneurs around the world are probably terribly jealous of Nick Di'Aloisio's savvy right now. Last month, the 17-year-old sold his news aggregation app, Summly, to Yahoo for an unprecedented $30 million! Now, when he gets ready (if he gets ready) to launch a new startup, he will definitely have good funding!

Of course, many entrepreneurs do not have access to such capital, and therefore ask the question - How to create a startup from scratch and without investments? It takes an average business years to break through, let alone achieve sustainable profits. In the beginning, before you have investors, it's not unusual for you (and perhaps your employees) to go unpaid for a long time. It is important to do everything possible that would secure your product in the market.

Although some founders are willing to leave themselves without money in the hope of achieving serious turnover and large profits, most hired employees They are unlikely to sign up for this. To motivate employees to work with enthusiasm, it is important for budget-constrained entrepreneurs to use creativity.

Non-monetary incentives

Many startups simply don't have the money to support a traditional salary structure. This is why many entrepreneurs use seed capital. Finding additional co-founders or paying employees equity shares in the company can sometimes help get you on your feet initially, but these methods are not always sustainable.

Fortunately, there are other, more economical or completely free, methods of motivating people to get to work.

StartupDigest, for example, became champions of the Curator Model. The company is looking for talented individuals to manage or “supervise” the digest in their cities. Curators do not receive monetary compensation, and the work is based on enthusiasm. Why? Because the platform allows curators to release digests from own name. Such cooperation is beneficial to both parties, and monetary interaction here is replaced by a mutual helping hand.

If the curator is not a potential competitor to the company, he can promote his name and improve his reputation in exchange for a little work. When an employee or partner is willing to do what you need for you, there is no need for monetary compensation.

Colleges and universities may also provide free labor in the form of interns. You can offer mentorship in exchange for helping your startup, and this can pay big dividends, as college students today are closely connected to social media and technology, allowing them to be more helpful than the person who makes everyone's coffee.

Lifehacks for young startupers

Sometimes startups need to attract real paid specialists. To allow your company to attract talent and interest them with fees allocated on a very limited budget, you can make it interesting and profitable for other people to contribute to your startup.

Sometimes, life hacks can cost nothing at all, but at the same time make working at a startup much more attractive and interesting than a well-paid position in an old-fashioned, entrenched company. Silicon Valley companies like Google and Facebook are now famous for providing their employees with the basic necessities of life, from outsourced chefs in the company kitchen to medical care. Of course, such “quirks” will cost the company a large sum, but there are other options:

• Flexible work hours: A startup is not a 9-to-6 job, so allow your employees to come when it suits them.
• Remote work: If employees are more productive at home, allow them to work from home if they need to.
• Public recognition: Praising employees in front of others will help motivate and motivate others.

Focus on the lower ones wages, but also provide employees with a variety of entertainment and distractions that will ultimately increase productivity and help you identify the talent that will help you get your company back on its feet.

Not every person will be ready to take an oath to work for your company for free, but there are some people for whom contributing to something large-scale and special is much more important than receiving a stable salary.

You will learn what a startup is and what are the stages of its development, as well as how to open your own startup project and where to look for investors for your business

Today we will talk about how to properly organize a startup.

Since we ourselves have repeatedly launched business projects, we will tell you what obstacles may arise in the process. initial stage, and we'll give valuable advice to overcome them effectively.

1. What is Startup in simple words - definition and history

During our short entrepreneurial career, we have opened several businesses and understand that it is not easy. Now our website “HeatherBober.ru” can be classified as a “startup”.

So, first, let's figure out what startup is. Classic definition startup, given by American entrepreneur Steven Blank (who, in fact, coined this term).

Startup is a temporary structure designed to find and implement a scalable business model.

More in simple words A startup can be defined as a new commercial project that is created with the aim of making a profit from a business after its successful development.

The term “Startup” is translated from English as “the beginning of a process”, its “start”. However, not every commercial project that opens can be called a startup. Only a small part of business projects developing from scratch falls under this definition.

Classic startups have one characteristic feature– they have a unique (original, exclusive) idea. A real startup never copies already known commercial projects, but represents something radically new.

Example

At one time, Mark Zuckerberg’s idea to create the social network Facebook was absolutely original and new: there were no analogues of this format on the Internet.

IN last years The word “startup” has become very popular, although a significant part of the population does not use the term entirely correctly.

By this concept, people mean the launch of almost any business, up to the opening of a new stall in the market. Startup is often used exclusively in relation to Internet projects.

In both cases, the definition may be correct: if a retail outlet on the market operates in a fundamentally new format that can be multiplied and used as a profitable business model, then this will indeed be a successful startup.

The same can be said about an online project. If you have launched a fundamentally new network service to serve the public via the Internet, then you have made a successful startup and become a promising network entrepreneur.

Startup- a recently created company or organization (sometimes not even legally registered), building its activities on the basis of innovative ideas or new technologies that have not yet been put into mass use.

TO weaknesses startups can be attributed to a lack of funding and a precarious position in the market. Abroad, such projects are most often created by students: sometimes such companies are called “garage”.

This term was first used in relation to a commercial enterprise in 1939 in the USA. At that time, almost all innovation and high technology companies were based in the San Francisco area.

Several Stanford students creating new business Based on a fundamentally new idea, they called their business a startup. It was this business that over time took shape into a successful and profitable company in the field of information technologies called Hewlett-Packard or HP.

Today the word startup is more often applied to Internet projects. This is partly true, since the World Wide Web is the most promising modern commercial area.

Without even thinking, you can name 5-10 successful Internet startups that have brought millions in profits to their creators with minimal initial costs. Suffice it to recall the already mentioned Facebook, as well as its domestic version - VKontakte and other social networks.

We can mention Wikipedia (the largest and most popular online encyclopedia), the YouTube video database, the Radical service for storing and quickly displaying your personal photos on the Internet, WhatsApp, Skype and other services for online communication.

2. Main stages of startup development

A startup must be successful and in demand in order to attract the target audience, and with it, investor money.

The main indicator of the success of a new endeavor is the willingness of business partners to invest their finances in it. A startup is not always based on pure commerce: it can be informational, humanitarian, scientific, but in any case it is promising.

The initial stage of working on any startup is creation of its prototype . As the prototype turns into a full-fledged product, the startup transforms, develops and scales. Under scaling refers to an increase in the sphere of influence of the project associated with the investment of finances.

The ultimate goal of a successful startup is product sale large corporation or continuation profitable business as an independent company. There is another option - listing the project's shares on the stock exchange and waiting for its sale at the maximum price on the market.

For clarity, we suggest studying the following table, which presents the stages of a startup in more detail:

When the above stages are successfully completed, the product (project) is launched into mass use or production. It is clear that without attracting large third-party capital, large-scale distribution of a startup is impossible.

That is why for any commercial idea the investor is no less important than originality and novelty. Even the most ingenious projects need financial support.

Generating commercial ideas is not so much an innate gift as it is a skill. Anyone can become a successful startuper to a reasonable person with minimal creative inclinations, which, as we know, everyone has.

Experts in the field of profitable startups believe that startup ideas newest projects can be seen in everything that surrounds us. You just need to change your perspective a little and abandon some generally accepted social judgments.

Most “serial entrepreneurs” have a special notebook in which they regularly add fresh thoughts and observations. Over time, they can develop into interesting and profitable business ideas. We advise you to also create such a notepad or open a special file on an electronic device.

For greater business efficiency, you can use and implement TRIZ - the theory of solving inventive problems.

And now - expert advice on creating your own startups

Let's start with a simple example:

Resales Chinese goods with a large markup (300-800%).

You can purchase goods in bulk from China or from a wholesale supplier in big city and start selling them online. Often this scheme is also called “Business with China” - it is very profitable and promising direction in RuNet.

Our site team is personally acquainted with a successful entrepreneur in this topic. Zhenya not only has been running her business successfully for a long time, but also teaches it to others.

If you want to launch your own startup in the near future and start earning 100-200 or even 500 thousand rubles in a few months - contact Evgeniy and he will guide you by the hand on all issues of creation successful business on the sale of Chinese goods.

Be sure to check out the reviews from the married students to get inspired by their success stories:

Stay up to date with new ideas, technologies and initiatives. Visit current resources, use technical and information innovations and everything that did not exist yesterday. Be at the forefront, thinking about products for the next generation.

Those who did not cling to the past, but looked to the future, helped make our world what it is (meaning its best features). Our future includes portable gadgets, nanotechnology, and machines running on fundamentally different types of fuel.

Try to think in terms of the future. Don't think that these are just empty dreams and fantasies: tie innovative ideas to real problems. Original and creative thoughts rarely arise on their own; they need to be stimulated through daily practice.

Tip 2: Become a pro at something

In the modern civilized world, there are a lot of special areas where it is impossible for a person to get to from the street. Nuclear energy, medicine, customs, professional sports.

Creation own business in highly specialized areas is possible only after gaining work experience as an employee of a company of this profile.

Become an insider—someone who studies a particular industry from the inside—and you can break into lucrative markets with the knowledge base you need. The main thing is perseverance and a sincere desire to understand how everything works in a particular industry.

Example

Michael Bloomberg worked as an IT specialist at Salomon Brothers. In the early 80s, he was fired and given compensation in the amount of $10 million.

With this amount, he created his own company, Bloomberg L.P., which provides commercial information to interested organizations and individuals. Now the company is the leader of its niche, and Bloomberg himself is 13th on the Forbes list and also the mayor of New York.

Becoming an expert in some field or a master of some powerful tool is not that difficult. Just spend time on it - make a personal investment that will bring you profit for the rest of your life.

The well-known entrepreneur and expert in the field of personal development and business says that the best investment is increasing your self-worth and earning power.

Meet different people, talk to them, offer your help. Let everyone know about your skills more people.

It’s great if you become great in several areas at once - for example, in medicine and trading, in stock markets and IT technologies. At the intersection of two different spheres, a lot of perspectives open up.

Tip 3: Find a problem you can solve

Look around and note what prevents you from living, working or relaxing. Pay attention to problems for which you cannot find ready-made solution, since it (the solution) may not exist.

It often happens like this: you have a company that is facing certain difficulties. Another company is being created that eliminates such difficulties. Successful activity leads to the fact that the second company becomes more profitable and larger than the first.

Example

The world-famous Flickr resource for storing graphic files appeared when an online game needed a convenient way to post user images online.

Now the system has millions of clients, but no one remembers the game itself.

Tip 4. Strive for continuous improvement of service in different areas

Try to improve everything around you, because there are no limits to perfection. Pay special attention to those things that cause hostility or hatred in people: finding housing and parking, obtaining documents, transportation, visiting doctors. Think about how you can solve these problems more effectively.

It might be worth bringing Newest technologies to improve existing algorithms for daily actions.

Consider, for example, how smartphones can help workers in large enterprises perform their jobs, rather than hinder them. Or how in the digital era you can solve the problem of queues in public institutions.

Remember that monopolists and large government agencies have no incentive to develop. Challenging established systems is difficult, but not hopeless. Some world-famous corporations appeared precisely because of the desire to make the service more comfortable than that of their competitors.

A significant portion of today's successful companies were at one time derivatives (and some practically clones) of other successful ventures. The most famous examples are Amazon and Ozon, Facebook and VKontakte. Even credit systems (cards) are a domestic version of the foreign analogue of Capital One.

Think about what you can add to existing commercial projects to improve them. Maybe it’s worth finding new, cheaper ways of implementation or radically improving the service. Such innovations are often much more profitable and promising than buying ready-made franchises. We have already written about this earlier.

Tip 5. Find a product for new markets

New markets appear constantly, but not everyone has time to track them. Mass products from large corporations are constantly creating many promising areas for developing your own business.

Most illustrative example– created by Bill Gates Microsoft. The company was founded to sell home computer software released in 1975 by MITS. The mass product became the starting point for the promotion of one of the most successful business projects in the world.

4. Investing in a startup and finding funding for your business

All major investors are aware that the maximum income is promised by “dark horses” - unknown startups from young and talented, but cash-strapped entrepreneurs.

In the Russian Federation, as well as throughout the world, startup organizations and so-called “business angels” are involved in financing startups.

Venture funds manage other people's money - mutual investment funds (MUIFs), assets of insurance companies or pension funds.

“Business angels” are representatives of private capital who independently select financing objects and invest money in promising initiatives.

It is in these two directions that aspiring startups should move in search of investment. You can also involve relatives, friends, and government funds. Oddly enough, in Russia, help from relatives is the second category in terms of the volume of investments in promising business ideas.

Another productive method of finding investors is participation in forums, conferences, competitions held by venture capital companies and other commercial structures.

5. Examples of successful projects - TOP 5 ideas for a startup

Examples successful startups- weight. Every year the directions of commercial thought change. Today coworking and Internet applications are relevant, tomorrow they will talk about private kindergartens or private recruitment agencies.

Today the following startups are the most popular:

1. Organization of a cargo transportation agency working with the active use of Internet technologies. A very promising direction, taking into account the fact that more and more people are making purchases in online stores.
2. Organization of sales or intermediary activities through Avito (the most popular free classifieds service in the Russian Federation). Many people want to sell something, but do not have the time to do so: an intermediary can take over the organization of sales for a certain percentage of the proceeds.
3. Organization of private kindergarten. Many parents do not want to use the services of municipal institutions, fearing a lack of attention from staff. In a private company, children are given more time, and it is also possible to regulate the length of time the child stays in the kindergarten.
4. Creation of convenient systems for converting electronic currency into cash.
5. Creating effective applications for quickly posting and launching online stores for sales through social networks.

It's just sample list, which can be expanded ad infinitum. You can find a more profitable and interesting option for yourself: you just have to get creative and put in some effort.

Aspiring businessmen who are inspired by the idea of ​​their business are looking for opportunities to implement it. Often, to implement an idea, initial capital is required, which is not available. And the search for investors begins, and those who are weaker in spirit completely refuse to implement the idea. Is it even possible to organize a startup without a budget? There is already an answer to this question: “Really!”
In order not to be unfounded, the article provides examples from world practice when startups were created with a zero budget, growing to companies with million-dollar turnover. How did they do it?

Startup without a budget: what's most important?

It’s not worth saying right away that newcomers have little chance of realizing global ideas. That dreams will remain dreams without financial support from investors and a highly paid professional team. But everything is not as banal as it seems at first glance.
After all, there are examples of entrepreneurs who, despite the lack of money, moved towards their goal and achieved it. Why do some people succeed and others don't?
Why are the teams entrusted with big hopes, do not live up to expectations, but someone without connections or money can bring the idea to life? A striking historical example!

Inventor Samuel Langley had a good team and excellent connections. He worked at Harvard, was a mathematics professor, and had open doors to the most successful people who could support him.
He was given a $50,000 grant from the US Department of Science to invent the world's first flying machine. His work was covered by journalists, to whom he constantly promised the first plane.
At the same time, the Wright brothers were also trying to build an airplane in Ohio. They didn't have a grant, they didn't have any connections, they didn't have funding. They were in their garage, where they sold bicycles, got together with their friends and invented an airplane. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, and they changed the world.

What is the principled approach of S. Langley and the Wright brothers. Langley wanted popularity, strived to be the first, the brothers, in turn, wanted to improve the world. And their friends who helped them were like-minded people who also had this dream.

Moving forward towards your dream depends on motivation and belief in success!

What is the secret to a successful startup?

Simon Senech, a speaker on the popular TED show, made the following conclusions.

100% of companies know what they do, what product and service they produce.
— Some companies understand how they differ from others, what their competitive advantage is.
- Few companies know why they are doing this business. This does not mean profit, since it is only a result. Why is the original reason, belief in something, a dream, the engine of the process.

What can get you out of bed in the morning? Why is your startup needed? Why should they love him? The answer to the question “Why?” - this is the secret key to the client’s heart!

Scientists conducted studies of the most successful people and concluded that they think, communicate, and approach their work perfectly in a special way. What they do is completely different from what others do.

Let's look at an example if Apple company was the same as everyone else. How would she communicate with her clients?
— We produce computers. They are easy to use and beautiful in design! Want to buy?
This approach is the main one of many manufacturing companies.

A similar example in other sectors:

We have opened! Grocery store 24 hours! Come to us!
-We are a large law firm. We serve such and such prestigious clients. Waiting for you!
This approach is not effective.

What is Apple's ideology that brought them popularity?
“Everything we do, we believe it brings new standards of quality. We believe it is possible to think differently. Believing in this, we make our products easy to use, modern and beautiful. It just so happened that we make good computers, iPads, and iPhones.”
The very first buyers of these products were the first to believe in what they believe.
Believing in the company’s ideology that it is changing the world for the better, products are bought for a lot of money, despite the cheaper analogues of competitors!

Another example. The first MP3 player was released by the Singaporean company Creative Technology called 5GB3MP, but it was not popular. After 21 months, Apple released an iPod player called “100 Favorite Songs in Your Pocket,” which everyone loved. Do you feel the difference in the presentation of goods?

When we tell you what we do, what we produce, this should not force people to buy our product. How can we make customers loyal for many years? Demand for a product cannot be maintained only by constantly giving discounts.
We need something that will enable customers to become like-minded people with the manufacturer. And this can only be done if we broadcast ideas in which we ourselves believe.

What target audience should you attract?

Why is it important to find like-minded buyers? Because they are the engine in creating new demand!
There is a well-established rule for developing demand. The entry of a product into the market consists of several stages:
1. 2.5% of customers who will be the first to buy a product are innovators;
2. 13.5% early adopters;
3. 34% previously majority;
4. 34% late majority
5. 16% laggards.

When purchasing a new product, the very first customers rely on intuition and impressions of the product; they will be the engine of further sales through word of mouth. You need to find clients who will believe in what you do.

How to create a team of professionals without money?

When selecting people for your team, you need to look for like-minded people who will also believe in your idea, who are ready to work for free until the result is achieved, and not for the sake of receiving a salary.

A striking example was the creation of Facebook, when development partners were offered a share in the company instead of a salary, because no one knew what this could lead to.

There are other non-monetary motivators, for example, creating a flexible work schedule, comfortable spot work or the opportunity to work remotely from home, public praise of employees, arranging entertainment for them.

Where can you look for employees? Good way negotiate with higher and specialized educational institutions, where to get trainees to get practice as interns. In turn, you can be useful to them as a mentor.

Instructions for implementing a startup!

1. Make a plan of what you would like to achieve in the market, i.e. ultimate goal. Knowing it, you need to understand what approximately you will have to do to achieve this. An ordinary business plan here is doomed to failure, because... it is static, not flexible. Don't try to fit the development of your new idea into some old market framework. Write what you would like, without being limited by anything.
2. Analyze the current market situation according to this direction. Find niches that have the least competition. Choose one as your main one.
3. Make a trial batch of a product or service and offer it to customers. We need to make sure that people want to buy it.
4. Make short-term planning for the quarter. The main emphasis should be on achieving immediate goals.
5. Officially register in tax authorities. Build a system of repeating business processes.
6. Release of goods and services in proportion to sales.
   There is no need to make a large inventory. Minimize costs.
7. Adjust business development.
   Take into account changes in market dynamics, remove inconvenient processes. Plan short-term, while leaving the opportunity to quickly make adjustments to the current plan.

Where to make money: 5 unique ideas for business that will help you get rich! How to make money quickly on the eve of the holidays? Working methods from Anatomy of Business!

As a hunter, one way or another I have to watch the stories of the most different startups. And in fact, all teams go through the same stages, step on the same rake. Having received my personal portion of rakes during the construction of a hunting agency, I carefully stored them all and took them into account during the recent launch of the PRUFFI Friends application.

Rely only on yourself

The first thing you will hear when you start doing a startup is: “What a great guy you are, do it, do it!” At this point, it is very important to remember two things. First, no one really wants you to succeed. Second: no one will help you. All the people who will shout “We are with you!” at the start will not help you in the long run. And if they do, you shouldn’t count on it. You should rely only on yourself. You have a path of great loneliness ahead of you. Most likely, by the end of the first year, about twenty percent of the team you start with will remain. And with the rest, you will most likely ruin your relationship for many years. Be prepared for this.

Hard mode

You are very mistaken if you think that after six months of hard work everything will work out. Nothing like this. The stories of all successful projects without exception are long stories. They last for 5, 10 years. Your startup will completely absorb you and your team (at PRUFFI Friends they currently work an average of 18 hours a day). So you have to have a very strict physical routine: you get up at a certain time, you go to bed at a certain time, you exercise at a certain time. And so on all the time. Your brain works in accordance with the program given to it from the outside, and it is very important for you not to allow any failures in it.

When you are planning to start your startup, the first thing you need to do is get some sleep: you won’t be able to do this for the next many years (of course, if you take your startup not as a hobby, but seriously). Get enough sleep, read, relax - you will forget about it for the next few years. And warn your team to do the same. Everyone will plow the same way, regardless of competence.

First team

They say the team is very important. This is true. But understand, the story about “our team was so great from the very beginning, we all walked together holding hands for 10 years” was invented by those who survived as a team after these ten years. It's not like they made up these stories. It’s just that, most likely, they forgot how everything really was.

And if we start to look at how everything really happened, we will see that almost none of the first team members reached the end. Based on the experience of PRUFFI and other projects in which I worked, I will say this: it is important to absolutely trust your colleagues, but at the same time understand that at different stages of life these people tend to fall away. For a variety of reasons.

When an idea turns into a product, everything changes very seriously. Either the product is not liked by those who work with you, or your accomplices do not match it in terms of competencies. While working on PRUFFI Friends, we tried to take this point into account from the very beginning, so what is called the boring word “goals and objectives” was discussed and spoken about so many times that everyone who participated in the work on the project seemed to have developed their own language.

And this is very important, because if you think differently about your product, you will either have to part with your accomplices, or carry them on yourself like some kind of technical tool: after all, they once believed you, they pawned their cars, they were with you, they you were supported.

Will the family survive?

Any serious business has the ability to destroy not only your friendships with colleagues, but also your family. So don't go to a startup if you are in a recent relationship. Believe me, they won't stand it. By the time you take on your own project, you either should not have a relationship at all, or it should be an established one. Because if your family doesn’t help you, they will at least interfere with you minimally.

Attention girls. The moment your little chocolate shop scales, you stop being a girl. This doesn't mean you stop wearing skirts, no. This means that you are no longer perceived as a girl and you get even more. You yourself stop perceiving people by gender. And now comes an even more terrible stage, when from a girl you turn into a creature without gender. you become entrepreneur. And by the way, when you try to “turn on a girl,” no one reacts to this (there is only one young man in the PRUFFI team. - Forbes).

Not your money

If everything goes right for you, you will earn your first money pretty quickly. Under no circumstances should you take them out on yourself, even if you really want to. And you will really, really want it: you will want to go somewhere, buy a car, and so on. Do not do that. Your business will need this money very soon, and the more you have, the more likely you are to survive. And that's why.

Investor money is a very unreliable thing. If you started building a business with investor money, this means that you are building it with money from a business angel. And no matter how decent a business angel may be, the fact remains: this is his personal money. This means they are completely dependent on him. He may go broke, get sick, or simply leave. And he won’t necessarily want to ditch you. Circumstances can just turn out any way. Therefore, it is imperative to have your own capital comparable to investor capital.

At some stage, you and the investor will definitely have a conflict. You will want, for example, to somehow adjust the direction of development of your startup, and the investor at this moment will quite rightly say: “I’m not ready to invest in this, you and I discussed such and such a business framework, you should move in such and such a direction.” And you will answer this: “But I want to come here, and I am absolutely sure of it, you will have to risk your money.” This is where everything will happen.

Now there is a paradigm in which you need to start a business very quickly and sell it very quickly. It works because there is a lot of easy money in the market now. They will definitely come to you with them. And believe me, there is nothing worse than accepting money that is not yours. This is a liability loan. I’ll say it as a woman: you need to choose an investor much more carefully than a husband. Because divorcing an investor is a hundred times more difficult than divorcing a husband.

Gain experience

And finally, one more piece of advice. Don't go into business small. If you want to prove something (to yourself or someone) - then go, they will see you and take you to big company. But if you are doing everything seriously, it is better to go to a large company first. Understand what the world looks like, what business is like inside. Get a name there, connections, earn money, and only then go to big business. This will make it much easier for you.

Of course, there is an exception to this rule: it doesn't work if you're Zuckerberg. But if you're Zuckerberg, chances are you're not reading this right now.

The last thing you want to do after an 8-hour day is work on your startup. But if you don’t do this, if you don’t open yours, you will find yourself in an endless cycle of working for someone else. And you will be forced to adapt to corporate rules, climb career ladder and rush to the office by 9:00 every morning.

How to learn to wake up at 5 am

I decided to get up at 5 am and work on my startup before the draining workday at the office began. I decided to become an early bird, but I discovered that my morning zombie-like brain cleverly tricks me and overcomes all obstacles just to get a little more sleep. In those happy Days When I managed to get out of bed, I just sat and looked at one point.

Productivity blogs make it look easy, constantly bombarding you with examples of amazing feats people accomplish in the morning. mythical people: “8 things that every person should do before 8 am”, “7 things that early risers do differently”, “Why do they get up early”... Reading about the achievements of these superheroes who manage to save the world a couple of times before 8 am, you feel guilty for oversleeping again. Are they people at all?

For example, Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, gets up at 5:30, meditates, runs 9.5 km, and then works for about 8 hours at Twitter and Square.

The truth is that waking up at 5am is hell. The morning you is the enemy of your endeavors. This is your second personality, which meanly turns off the alarm clock before important morning meetings and constantly presses the “Snooze” button on it so that you miss the train. You can't trust the morning demon, but you can overcome it by changing your routine of getting up in the morning.

Find an alarm clock that's smarter than you

I don’t know where this tradition came from - jumping up to the deafening ringing of the alarm clock, but for some reason we are quite happy with this morning shock therapy. Instead of voluntarily submitting to the treacherous attack of a wildly screaming alarm clock every morning, find one that will gradually and gently wake you up. Waking up slowly allows your body to accept the fact that you are waking up. And when your brain actually wakes up, you will no longer have obsessive desire smash the hated squeaker.

You can use an alarm clock that brews coffee at the appointed time and wakes you up with the aroma. Or an alarm clock that glows softly, simulating the dawn. It seems to the body that the sun is rising, and it is easier to wake up.

Or try a smart alarm clock in a fitness bracelet. It will wake you up with vibration on your wrist during your cycle REM sleep, but will not bother your partner, and he will not have the desire to kill you for your early rises. By the way, a cat, dog or child, who at 5 am can decide to walk all over your face, is also a great way to help you wake up.

Personally, I use the Warmly app along with a standard alarm clock on my smartphone. Warmly slowly wakes me up with 5 minutes of birds chirping, and I finally wake up to the vibrating sound of Yo-Yo Ma's cello. Outsmart the morning demon by starting with your alarm clock.

Establish a long-distance relationship with your alarm clock

Developing healthy habits is not rocket science, it can be learned quickly. A simple strategy for acquiring good habits and breaking bad ones is to establish affordances.

In design, we create affordances when we want the user to take some action. This encourages desired behavior (making it easier for the user) and discouraging undesirable behavior (making it more difficult to perform).

If you need to develop the habit of not turning off your alarm in the morning, create many obstacles to turning it off. Set several alarm clocks, download to your smartphone, which does not stop ringing until you solve the puzzle, put the phone in a jar and close it. I want to fall asleep hugging my smartphone, and when I wake up, look at social networks. But if I decide to get up early, I'll have to put it aside.

Force yourself to drink coffee

For those who have endured the fight with the pillow, pulled away from it, and even seem to have woken up, another problem awaits you: you want to go back to sleep. You are still so young, there is a lot of time ahead, so why not get up early tomorrow? Oh, I hear that little voice every day, tempting me to go back to bed. Morning me is a terrible type. So let's hit it.

You can prepare coffee as you usually do. Get up, put your coffee in the coffee maker or put the kettle on to brew instant coffee. But be prepared for the fact that your morning monster will not let you get to the kitchen. His goal is to get you back into bed with all his might, and he will ignore your attempts to get to an invigorating drink.

Coffee needs to be integrated into your waking up process. The goal is to make the alarm clock a trigger for your coffee drinking habit. The alarm clock rings - you drink coffee. Experiment with automating the drink preparation process.

Initially, I tried to start brewing coffee when the alarm rang. But I didn't make it to the kitchen. Then I tried making coffee at night and putting it on my desk. But I didn't reach the table. Eventually I started putting a cup of coffee on my smartphone. That is, in order to turn off the alarm, I had to remove the cup. And when the coffee is already in your hand, not drinking it is completely weak-willed. Make 5am the start of your workday, drink coffee and build your startup.

By the way, here's another easy way to learn to get up earlier: Twitter will help you. Use this to schedule a tweet for the morning: “I want to get up at 5 am. If you see this tweet and reply to it within 5 minutes, I will send you 100 rubles.” Schedule a tweet for 5:15. You will have 15 minutes to get up and cancel it, otherwise you will have to pay the fast lucky ones.

Procrastinate to Wake Up

Still not awake? A little won't hurt anyone. And ignore all the productivity tips from self-taught people on the Internet.

I spend an absurd amount of time looking at funny cats on Reddit, Imgur, and 9GAG. Time and time again I refresh the pages, hoping to see something new there. Although I know that nothing new appeared there.

Looking at funny pictures before going to bed, you earn insomnia by looking at them in the morning - helping yourself to wake up.

Staring at your smartphone or computer screen first thing in the morning can really help wake you up. The blue light from LED screens affects the photopigment melanopsin, which leads to the suppression of melatonin production, and as a result, the feeling of sleepiness disappears.

If you can't jump right into working on your startup in the morning, spend some time entertaining yourself on your smartphone or computer until your morning demons calm down.

How to create your own startup

Break the project into several micro-projects

And so I conquered myself and stood up. And I don't want to start the day by fixing a server error. I'm dumb in the morning. AND difficult task- this is an additional incentive to climb back into bed.

Do you know why all these don't work? 88% of people do not achieve them because they set the bar unrealistically. “I want to defeat hunger in the whole world”, “I will pump up my six-pack abs” (even though I have never been to the gym since school). This is not the Miss Universe competition, why show off?

The Art of Manliness explains how micro-habits add up to one big change. The goal is not to do a big chunk of work in the morning for the benefit of the startup, but to at least start doing something. Once you start your engine, it will be easier for you to move on to bigger things.

If you want to get into the habit of flossing, start by flossing just one tooth. Just one tooth is your goal for the day. Cleaned up - cross it off the list. But here's the trick: once this micro-habit becomes established, you'll have a hard time not finishing the task.

Break your project down into micro-steps that you can take while half-asleep in the morning. Develop an application by adding one line of code per day. Write your blog one paragraph at a time. Add one sketch per day to your portfolio. You're more likely to build yours by adding a little bit each day rather than trying to devote a full day to it. And as soon as you are close to opening a startup, you will no longer want to sleep in the morning.

Create a Lean Startup

It’s hard to believe, but at first no one really understands how the project should turn out. Even today's monsters spent a lot of time finding the ground under their feet. Airbnb survived by selling Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's cereals with political leaders on the packaging. Slack grew out of the failed game Glitch. Even YouTube started as a video dating service, Tune in Hook Up.

Micro-startups fit perfectly with the lean startup methodology (read about this in Eric Ries's book "Business from the Ground Up"). A micro-startup is easier to launch and provides a short feedback loop, allowing you to stay in touch with your audience. Considering that 75% of startups fail, would you rather sit in your basement for 100 days inventing something that the audience might like, or constantly contact users to tailor the project to their needs?

Always assume you are wrong. Test all your ideas and guesses with micro-experiments.

When I founded Krown.io, I explained the functionality of the service as: “Annotation blogging platform.” And after a while I realized that most people have no idea what “annotative” means. We tried Smart Blogging, Highlight Blogging, Feedback Blogging and Contextual Blogging Platform. And here’s the surprise: people still didn’t understand what we meant. Then we added the phrase “Select text and add a comment to the selected piece” under the title...

Test your hypotheses.

Present your work

We all have an irrational fear that as soon as we submit our project, trolls from all over the world will unite to bombard us with dislikes. The truth is that they don't care. There is so much going on in the world every day that you will have to try to get noticed. This is not an easy task, you really need to stand out with something.

If you can't even get up early and create your own, then why do you even care if the public likes it? It's like worrying that you might become a Harvard professor if you study too much. If you've been struggling with your masterpiece for a long time, then presenting it to the public will help you finally get up earlier and finish it.

Keep a daily project log on your blog.

The blog will be useful in any case for the subsequent promotion of the project. If, even before launching, you start writing down what's happening with your startup every day, here's how it will help:

1. While I'm writing a post, I'm talking about the progress of my project. How to improve interaction with your audience? Should you ditch the WordPress comment system and switch to Disqus? What tasks can I automate? And did I go crazy starting my own business?
2. Running a niche blog takes time and you need at least 1,000 short articles to start getting organic traffic from Google. Daily entries in the project log will become the basis of the blog.

I run the TechMob blog on my Krown platform, it is located in the techmob.krown.io subdomain, hence every post promotes my blog platform.

Get ready to run a marathon

Around 7 am you will have to switch to your main job - 5 days a week for 8 hours. Of course, I would like to devote all my time to a startup, but, unfortunately, people are in a biological trap: we need to eat, drink and sleep with other people. Damn you, Darwin!

Be reasonable. Don't put your whole life on the line in a poker game. Bet some of your assets on a game that may change your life, but continue to work in the casino itself. Growing a startup takes time, and you need something to eat.

Based on the barbell theory from Nassim Taleb's book Antifragile, you should allocate 20% of your resources to high-risk, high-reward activities (startups, bungee jumping), and invest 80% in low-risk activities: school , daily work, family dinners. Get the best of both worlds. Launch a startup as a side hustle, make sure your hypotheses are correct, and then jump into the unknown.

Get up early and build your startup

Find an activity that aligns with your goals. If you're going to spend 8 hours doing a job you hate, spend at least one hour doing something you love. It is very strange to do the same thing every day and expect some new result. Don't let "reality" pull you in the wrong direction. Face the chances that will change your life. Get up early and create your startup!