The Startup Triangle

1/ A startup is an evolving relationship between technology, users, and capital.

ST_1

 


2/ Startups must grow in three areas: output, impact, and value.

ST_2


2A/ Advancement on the “Output” axis indicates the startup’s capacity to turn capital into technology.

 

ST_2A


2B/ Advancement on the “Impact” axis indicates the scale of user adoption.

ST_2B


2C/ Advancement on the “Value” axis indicates the startup’s ability to monetize usage.

ST_2C.png


3/ Startups cannot advance along each axis independently.

ST_3.png


4/ All layers of a growth must be connected.

ST_4


4A/ Connective tissue is required to produce technology that users will embrace.

ST_4A


4B/ Connective tissue is required to attract users who will pay.

ST_4B


4C/ Connective tissue is required to reflect business learning in the development process.

ST_4C


5/ A startup, sometimes intentionally, becomes off balance when advancement is not equal across all axes.

ST_5


6/ A startup with Tech Equilibrium produces technology in a tight feedback loop with user interaction.

ST_6


6A/ A startup on the Users side of the Tech Equilibrium line faces technical limitations in handling user growth.

ST_6A


6B/ A startup on the Capital side of the Tech Equilibrium line produces technology with invalidated demand.

ST_6B


7/ A startup with User Equilibrium has an equal value exchange with its user base.

ST_7


7A/ A startup on the Tech side of the User Equilibrium line does not sufficiently monetize its audience.

ST_7A


7B/ A startup on the Capital side of the User Equilibrium line dampens user growth with over monetization.

ST_7B


8/ A startup with capital equilibrium is building a technology with proven business value.

ST_8


8A/ A startup on the Users side of the Capital Equilibrium line is allowing a successful product to stagnate.

 

ST_8A


8B/ A startup on the Tech side of the Capital Equilibrium line is prematurely scaling its product development operation.

ST_8B


9/ VCs supply startups with artificial Capital Equilibrium so they can focus on growing output and impact before trying to capture value. They bet that user equilibrium can be created late in the game.

 

ST_9

 

 


10/ While startups may intentionally lose balance on the way, they must ultimately find complete equilibrium to sustainably grow.

ST_10


What does your startup look like? Visualize it with this template.

 

ST_11

 

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s