Starter

Many companies gather so-called high-performing employees and form a “New Business Ventures” organization. Within the NBV, there are teams and sub-teams, each leading a “startup.”

It rarely works. The NBV organization is often a group of PowerPoint experts with readily available resources and no accountability. For them, expenses are part of corporate overhead, and revenue is an afterthought. All this while the teams are pretending to start a business.

The whole endeavor is too far removed from the realities of starting or operating a business. Revenue generates cash inflow. The expense is a cash outflow. Either make cash inflow higher than the cash outflow, or your venture is dead, period.

Corporate or sometimes equity-financed startups ignore this fact. They have no skin in the game. There is no urgency for turning a profit and be an actual, sustainable enterprise.

As a coach, I have heard some say, “Oh! Let us do this. We will worry about making it profitable later.” These people are delusional. A venture without a clear path for profit is not a business. It is a daydream.

Do not be a corporate startup. Start an actual business. Worry about bills, payroll, customers, and profit from day one.