Antler Academy resources

Without a market, a business doesn’t have much of a future. Actually understanding the potential size and shape of the market is a critical step in the early stages of developing a business, as it will help to inform everything from your short and medium-term objectives, product development, right through to the way you pitch to investors.

Every founder wants to build a $1 billion unicorn company. How do they achieve this? Learn more with Antler

Defining a value proposition is one of the most valuable things a startup can do. Here, entrepreneur, TK Kader, explains how to do it in four steps.

If you are starting a business, it is important to ensure you meet your legal obligations from the very beginning. Not only will your startup be legally compliant, but it will also reduce the risk of major legal hurdles down the track.

A key element of running a company is successfully managing your shareholder relationships. Indeed, your shareholders are often subject to change—some may wish to exit the business, while others may join. Therefore, many companies use a shareholders agreement to manage these dynamics.

Every startup founder has a Hollywood-style fantasy that they’ll wind up in an elevator with a rockstar investor. As the fantasy goes, over the course of that 30 second elevator ride they successfully pitch themselves millions of dollars of investment and set their startup on the fast path to billion-dollar success.

Wondering what personal and professional qualities you need to launch a startup? Serial entrepreneur, Erik Jonsson, discusses the ins and outs of being a founder.

What drives you as a startup founder? It’s probably that you’ve seen a problem in the market that you believe you can attack more effectively than the incumbents. That means that by its very nature your business is going to be different to your competitors.

Building a startup is going to be the most rewarding, but challenging thing you will ever do. You’ve identified a significant gap in the market and an opportunity to make a difference. There’s a potentially successful business and lucrative exit at the end of it for you. But know that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and to get there, you’re going to have to move through several stages of funding.

It doesn’t matter what sector or vertical you’re entering, your startup is going to have to deal with competition. Your business idea should be a game changer in some way, but you’re also going to have competition and for this reason you will need to do a competitor analysis early on in the startup journey.

The Classical school of Economics chanted, "Supply, creates its own demand!” Fast forward to the modern era, the “supply first'' days are long gone. We live in an age of abundance, and new age entrepreneurs must find the customer demand before creating supply. In modern entrepreneurship, this saying has reversed: "Demand, create its own supply."

Finding the Problem-Solution Fit for your first product is not easy. You have no bearing on the right customer problem, no paying customers, and close to zero customer input while building the product. Unsurprisingly, one of the key reasons startups fail is “trying to build and sell solutions that customers don’t want.” According to a CB Insights report.