While some say entrepreneurs are born, not made, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Bussgang disagrees.
“Despite some common misperception, entrepreneurship—and the precise processes that entrepreneurs execute on their path to success—can be taught,” Bussgang says in the online course Launching Tech Ventures. “Although we can’t guarantee a startup’s success, there are certain techniques that can be applied to the entrepreneurial journey to improve its chances.”
If you aim to start your own technology business or join one in its early stages, don’t be discouraged if you don’t have the knowledge yet. Like any other subject, tech entrepreneurship requires unique skills you can develop through education and practice.
Here’s an overview of tech startups and five skills you need to launch your own.
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhat Is a Technology Startup?
In Launching Tech Ventures, Bussgang defines a technology startup as that “whose product or service is based on some form of innovative technology.”
That technology can be software, hardware, or a scientific advancement in fields like biology and chemistry.
Launching Tech Ventures features several real-world business leaders from tech companies that began as startups, including:
- Zach Sims, CEO and co-founder of Codecademy
- Dave Salvant and Songe LaRon, co-founders of Squire
- Bailey Richardson, former Community Team Member at Instagram
Many household-name technology companies started with an idea and a form of innovative technology to make it happen.
To successfully scale your venture, here are five skills to develop and hone.
Related: 10 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs
5 Skills You Need to Launch Your Tech Venture
1. Developing a Strong Business Model
Even the best startup ideas can fail without a strong business model. With many to choose from, Bussgang recommends sharpening your ability to select the right one for your business, industry, and moment in time.
“Not all business models are created equal,” Bussgang says in Launching Tech Ventures. “Some business models yield companies that are valued dramatically differently than others.”
In the course, Bussgang breaks down a business model’s eight components using the Diamond-Square framework, coined by HBS Professor Thomas Eisenmann. The first four facets are internal and operational in nature:
- Customer value proposition (CVP): How will your venture deliver value?
- Go-to-market plan (GTM): How will your venture reach customers?
- Profit formula (PF): How will you make money?
- Technology and operations management (T&O): How will you create and maintain the product?
The remaining four facets are external in nature and represent your business’s stakeholders and resources:
- Founders: Are they a strong fit for the opportunity and business model?
- Team: Do they complement one another? Can you fill any gaps?
- Investors: Who have you assembled to finance your business? Are you all aligned?
- Partners: Who have you selected to aid in your execution? How will they help?
“The components of a startup business model must be aligned to ensure that the startup can grow successfully and sustainably,” Bussgang says in the course.
The ability to craft each component to support and work in harmony with others is a skill you can sharpen by learning from the real-world stories of those who came before you and practicing—although too many failed attempts can be costly.
Related: How to Create an Effective Value Proposition
2. Finding Product-Market Fit
The ability to find product-market fit is an essential entrepreneurial skill. It requires building a product that:
- Has a novel component, whether that’s the product itself, its delivery method, or a facet that differentiates it from competitors
- Fulfills a customer need or job to be done
If your product only fits one of these criteria—for instance, it’s an innovative idea but doesn’t fill a need, or it fills a need but doesn’t differentiate from competitors’ offerings—you haven’t achieved product-market fit, diminishing your chances of sustaining your company.
In Launching Tech Ventures, Bussgang describes tech startups as “experimentation machines,” meaning you should run experiments that provide increasingly deeper insights to iterate on your product to achieve the best market fit.
Learn more about finding product-market fit in the tech industry in the video below, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for additional explainer content.
3. Pitching Your Venture
Preparing and delivering a strong pitch is a multifaceted skill critical to raising capital. The goal is to instill confidence in your company’s value proposition and business model while demonstrating how additional funding could propel it forward.
The steps to prepare include:
- Knowing your investors: Research potential investors before your pitch. What industries and stages do they invest in? What’s their track record?
- Creating a tight pitch deck: Depending on the situation’s parameters, you may be required to keep your pitch to under three, five, or 15 minutes. Craft a presentation that’s clear, short, and keeps you on track.
- Practicing confident body language: Investors pay attention to more than your pitch’s content—they also want to be confident you’re the right person to work with. Your body language can help communicate that.
- Telling your story: While your business plan’s details are important, appealing to the investors’ personal sides is, too. Be prepared to tell the story of why you had the idea and drive to start your business.
Communicating that information clearly and compellingly is vital to sparking venture capitalists’ interest.
4. Building and Maintaining Relationships
Any entrepreneur must build and maintain valuable relationships. When just starting out, your network can propel you by making introductions, offering advice and support, and providing funding.
To bolster this skill, put yourself in situations where you meet new people, such as industry or organization networking events, group gatherings, and conferences. Have a few questions in mind to spark conversation and get an idea of who you’re speaking with. The goal of networking is to forge mutually-beneficial relationships. Ask yourself, “How can I help this person? How can they help me?”
Once you’ve met someone you feel is a good connection, maintain and foster the relationship. That can mean scheduling time to meet, sending check-in emails, or simply letting them know you’re thinking of them—for instance, wishing them luck on an upcoming project.
Networking as an entrepreneur is crucial to navigating relationships with investors and partners, as well as suppliers, mentors, and potential team members in your field. Luckily, you have plenty of opportunities to practice.
Related: 7 Ways to Build Your Network Through the New HBS Online Community Platform
5. Navigating Biases and Ethical Concerns
A challenging but necessary skill to grasp as a tech founder is navigating bias and ethical concerns.
“In practice, gender, race, and age impact how startup journeys play out,” Bussgang says in Launching Tech Ventures. “While startupland is in some ways open, accessible, disruptive, and innovative, it’s still made up of humans, and so biases can and do come into play.”
It’s crucial to understand how biases can impact you to learn how to respond in the moment and throughout your career.
You must also learn how to catch your own biases and self-correct. Are you making assumptions about potential investors, partners, or team members because of a demographic attribute? Becoming comfortable correcting yourself and others when such biases arise signals strength and dedication to creating a more equitable startup ecosystem.
Of equal importance and nuance is recognizing and navigating ethical concerns. Especially in the tech sphere—where new ideas and innovations regularly surface—you must question the ethics of each decision you make.
For instance, Bailey Richardson, a former community team member at Instagram, noticed an ethical concern about the photo-sharing and social networking app’s business model.
“At most tech companies, the big things they look at are: ‘How many new people are we adding to the product. Are we growing?’ and also ‘How much time do those people spend in the product?’” Richardson says in Launching Tech Ventures. “Therein lies the big tension of the attention economy of Instagram. Is it ethical to continue to demand more and more and more of people’s time to be in a digital space?”
As a tech entrepreneur, it’s your responsibility to develop this skill to ensure your business operates ethically and adds rather than detracts value.
How to Build Your Skills as a Tech Entrepreneur
If you aspire to start or join a tech venture, you can build and bolster your skills in several ways.
First, read industry news. Determining your product-market fit relies on your knowledge of the competitive landscape.
Next, make connections. Whether attending networking events with classmates, joining an online learning community, meeting up with local organizations, or reaching out to a friend of a friend, networking can open doors to build your skills and gain new opportunities.
Lastly, consider taking an online course that fits into your busy schedule. While several entrepreneurship and innovation course options exist, some, like Launching Tech Ventures, cater to the technology sector’s challenges and opportunities and provide the tools and frameworks to set your venture up for success.
Are you interested in building the skills to launch a viable, valuable tech startup? Explore Launching Tech Ventures—one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses—and download the free guide on how to get started on your entrepreneurial journey.
