7 PROFILES TO STARTUP YOUR IDEA

If you think it is possible to create a digital product that will positively affect millions of people on your own, you are terribly wrong. It is possible to develop coding and design skills, but to succeed in the market you n eed someone to sell your innovative product or service. Trust me selling is art, as well as the other two mentioned. A balanced combination of these elements can result in magic. And what do the unicorns like? Yes, you are right — they love magic.

If you are capable of executing all of these practices simultaneously — you are a magician. In all the other cases, you need is a solid team. I experienced how hard it is to build a right one from scratch. When I came to Copenhagen two years ago, my understanding of IT, start-ups and digital product development was shallow, and I had a minimal network in the new city. I had an idea, like many of you and was crazy passionate about it. I read top literature about start-ups, integrated into some entrepreneurial media and was simply sucking in all the information I could about a new form of business. I never wanted to be a businessman, because in my home country Lithuania it was associated with money and self-interest. However, I wanted to create something, which will represent my personality. It took me some years to find out who I am, but eventually, there I was, a 26-year-old business noob in Copenhagen ready to make his dreams into reality. My first idea I was inspired by Pinterest, I wanted to merge fashion and music into a combination of e-commerce and social media. The biggest problem — I was alone, without a clue how to write a single line of code.

I’m an extrovert and need people around me, so I started talking about my idea for everyone without exception. I was spreading the word and thinking about it nonstop, made business canvas, user flow chart, branding materials and needed a dedicated developer to transform my concepts into a digital state. I was looking for another half to complete the whole. But it could not be a regular geek, I was searching for a cool person I could be friends with, someone who would support my idea and had motivation to make it happen. There was a reason for my pickiness — I knew my dreams are big and I would have to commit and spend at least 5 years of my life together with someone. That’s like marriage, you have to enjoy each other’s company otherwise it’s not gonna work out.

It took me almost 2 years to finally meet people to start KEENTOO with. At one of the Venture cup’s team-building events I fortunately met a founder who came with a product and few more talented individuals to form a team. My initial idea happened to be just a small piece of crative society’s co-founders’ vision, so I had to kill my baby and join his forces to create something significant together. During these 2 years of a founder hunt I had a simple rule — don’t go home. There were plenty of start-up, educational, music and art events taking place in Denmark daily, so instead of Netflix and chill I went with “Just do it” mode. While attending local networking, Venture Cup mentoring and FED (Future Entrepreneurs of Denmark) events I have learned a lot about myself and people needed to make ideas into disruptive products.

I have completed the creative problem-solving profiling on Basadur and learned, that to solve any problem person has to be creative, and there are 4 profiles to look for when you are building a team:

· Idea generators

These kind of people are very creative and constantly produce ideas-any ideas, from genius to ridiculous.

· Conceptualizers

Creative people of logic who put ideas together, apply to old and develop new conceptual models to propose multiple solutions.

· Optimizers

They are the “I know better” kind of people who think lean. They despite waste and have a mindset focused on improving things.

· Implementers

Get-shit-done kind of people. You don’t have to tell them; they are already on it.

If you have thin-sliced, analyzed yourself and think that you possess all of these traits, then you are either genius or simply don’t know yourself well enough. In either case, you have to understand that, if you want to go far you need support from similar-minded people you can trust. Another classification of people extremely useful to any organization is described in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The tipping point” . Author categorize those into three archetypes:

· Connectors

Altruistic individuals with a very special gift of bringing people together. They get satisfied by connecting you with someone from their network, who might know how to solve your problem or help you. People is the priority for them, and they can not live their life without helping others. You might recognize them by constantly saying things like: “You should talk to…”

· Mavens

A person who knows a lot of different products and services. They feel satisfaction by informing you about a better way to do something, a better deal for a product you are searching for or a new app which will have value in a specific situation. They are experts in their field and love sharing knowledge. When it comes to digital product development, these type of people will dig deep into your product and give constructive feedback and insights on how it can fit the marketplace.

· Salespeople

Individuals with exceptional communication skills who can sell you anything. Good sales people are usually familiar with the psychology of influence and will affect your decision on a psychological level.

Mavens are data banks. They providethe message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also aselect group of people — Salesmen — with the skills to persuade us when we areunconvinced of what we are hearing.

It is very difficult to find these remarkable people, that’s why you better don’t go home, create more possibilities to meet talents and ask about their passion. I promise, that one day you will get the founder match, just keep going!