Global Leadership Conference

Association of MBAsAudencia Nantes, France

6-9 February 2014

Create! From concept/idea to product and from product to

business

Dimitris Tsigoswww.linkedin.com/in/tsigos

President, YES – European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

www.yes.be

Questions & Decisions

• Why

• What

• How

Why?

• Maximize income, wealth

• Catch the wave (ride the bubble?)

• Create an organization larger than & independent from you

• A way of living

Entrepreneurships Vs Business

Sustainability Vs Domination

From pyramids to pancakes© Josephine Green

http://futures.research.southwales.ac.uk/people/josephine/

What?

• “I want to startup, I just don’t know what to do”

• It doesn’t really matter!

• Prerequisite is simply to like it

Must-have Vs Nice-to-have

Creative copying

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something

different.”

― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood

How?

• Here’s where the great misunderstanding is

• The “garage s/w” model does not really work

• Thin & lean is the way to go

• Management should be in the startup’s DNA

Reasons to fail

• Most of the failed startups lacked management skills and capacity

• Founders should never underestimate the necessity for management skills & processes

• Founders often hesitate to add management skills to the team

The management leap

• Many startups fail to make the leap from 1M to 5M in revenues

• Failure to introduce management structure

• The most difficult change a company has to manage in its early years

A startup is …

• …an innovative, creating, dynamic, aiming-to-grow…

• …BUSINESS!• It then should be always run as a proper

business• Tools, techniques, methodologies• As lean as possible, but not more.

Thank you