Don’t try to do everything by yourself in a startup

Don’t try to do everything by yourself: In this article, I’ll make a case for an entrepreneur not to do everything by themselves. Although the temptation is to save expense and bootstrap – it can turn out to be expensive in the long run. Not only that, but you also won’t have the expertise to do a good enough job at it.

Having said that, I agree that there are some tasks that you’ll have to do yourself. The main distinction is to separate between tasks that demand expertise vs the ones that can be generic.

Don’t try to do everything by yourself

This point is important for two main reasons

• Experience and expertise
• Startup is a team, not an individual

Let’s delve into this a bit deeper. In early stages of a startup, I’m tempted to say that you ought to do most things yourself. We even talk about this in detail in the article – how to build a startup with no money? This includes setting up a company, initial branding exercises, logo creation, etc. However, when it comes to important things, you must deliver it to an expected standard. This is where you’ll face conflicts between spending the money vs doing it yourself.

Early stages of a startup – Doing things yourself

During the early stages, especially pre-funding – you have to do most things yourself. However, there will be tasks where you can’t afford to wait and spend time to gain that expertise. Let’s call this affordable loss. The main thing to remember here are:

• How pivotal is this task for your business?
• Can you manage with a mediocre quality?
• Do you have the capability to do a brilliant job?
• Can you afford to wait until you gain experience enough to complete this job?

The combination of answers to these three questions will help you decide whether to do this yourself or take help. Use the same logic as you would while delegating tasks. If it is important and you don’t have the expertise – this is a task for the experts. Maybe you ought to seek professional expertise.

Scale up of a startup enterprise

This is where things get really interesting. As we discussed in the difference between a startup and small business – it is all about the reach and opportunity for growth. A startup prides itself in explosive growth.

By the time you reach a scale up stage, you’d have proved your product market fit. (What is a scale up?) It is all about growth and quickly expanding. At these stages, you’ll be foolish to try and do everything yourself. Ceding control is a beautiful skill to possess in a scale up circumstance. You ought to find the right people and believe in them.

Personally, I think this is the most fun stage in a startup. You’ve done the hard task of proving that your product works. You’ll obviously face some challenges, but they’re fun because you’re suddenly thinking like a large company.

As a large company, you can’t afford to waste time in trying to do everything yourself. Time is of the highest importance for you.

Build a startup team

At the start, the startup is about an entrepreneur. It is about your idea, ability to articulate to investors, build a business plan etc. During this stage you’re struggling for survival. The early startup team is looking for partners, people who’re invested in a vision and come with an inventive spirit. (Related: how to build a startup team)

During these stages, you need to look for people capable of wearing multiple hats. A job description also keeps changing based on the market demand. But once you grow to a certain stage, you must start looking for experts. The mindset shifts from survival to expansion. You ought to start thinking about standardisation, expansion and wider reach.

During these stages, it becomes more important to delegate and ensure that you have setup the right standards. Ultimately, the key success of a startup is to ensure that it survives beyond a founder.

“Don’t try to do everything by yourself, but try to connect with people and resources. Having that discipline and perseverance is really important.”

Chieu Cao, Co-founder of Perkbox