The Ultimate Start-Up Checklist?

How to be successful startup founder?

In an unexpected, fast moving, world the capacity of building new economic entities under uncertainty (startups…) is extremely valuable.

Startup founders are constantly seeking “The Ultimate” strat-Up roadmap, or checklist that they can follow. Those familiar with ‘The lean startup’ concept believe this kind of universal roadmap could never exist.

A lot has been said and written about building entrepreneurial capabilities. While many of those ‘How to’ guides are quite useless, I find others too specific, and only a handful few are very effective.

The new released book “The Startup Checklist” by David Rose, joins the excellent  “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” book by Bill Aulet. Both books provide a guided ‘step based’ process for startup success. While Rose presents a 25-step checklist, Aulet suggests only 24 steps.

Being a founder and investor, Rose enters the discussion as practitioner, while Aulet’s current position is a professor at MIT, yet he holds extensive practical background as well.

So, which should you prefer to follow?

Carefully reading both books, you will soon find out that Aulet’s 24 steps cover the early stages of new venture creation in more detail, while Rose is more detailed on the later launce stages.

There is somewhat of an overlap between the books: when the last few chapters by Aulet overlap the first few chapters by Rose.

So, entrepreneurs will actually need to cover about 35 steps when building a successful venture. Keep in mind that you might need to repeat several stages, as no venture develops in linear manner – iterations are essential part on the way to success.

My recommendation will be to read them both, starting with Aulet’s “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” and continue to Rose’s “Startup Checklist”.

Ohhh… one last thing: before you comment by saying: “What bout Steve Blank’s ‘Start-Up Owner’s Manual’ guide book”. Well, Steve also covers only about half of the items you will need to address. Yet it is still one of the best guides out there)

Good Luck!