Recently, a young lady asked me advice about co-founding a company. Here are some thoughts based on hard lessons learned. It's like skydiving ... once you jump off, there's no turning back. So what can you do to
prepare? It comes down to knowing yourself and knowing your market.

Know yourself

1. Do you have fire in your belly? It's not enough if someone else suggests you start something. Do you truly want do it, deep  within? Do you  have the passionate voice that can't be quieted, day or night?
2. Are you pioneer or a farmer? Are you the "Louis and Clark" type that's ready to explore new territory without a map? Or are you comfortable with where you are in life? A related point. You might consider yourself a pioneer but circumstantially you may not be ready, e.g. family commitments. If that's the case, don't start a venture unless you can really afford it and you have support. 
3. What's unique about you? Founders are usually individuals that not only recognize new opportunity, but also have unique insights on how to apply prior knowledge (and others'  knowledge) to that opportunity.
4. Do you have a safety net? Do you have enough funds to last for a year without income? Do the math - take your "baseline" expenses/month to live frugally, add 15% on top, and multiply by 12. That's how much you need. And/or ... do you have a significant other that both of you can live together without your income? If you can't make it, can you go back to what you did before (e.g. your old job)? Will the market be robust that you can find another job down the road? 
5. Do you have a network? You'll need help ... lots of it from friends, family and advisors. In particular, think
   about your relationship with your family and your cofounders. Your life is definitely going to change. How will your relationships endure regardless of whether  your venture is successful or not? 

Know the market
There's a lot of great advice out there about knowing the market (customers, competitors, partners, and
so on), so I won't repeat that here. A couple of tips: 

1. Don't share everything to everyone. Of course you have to share your ideas, trust your advisors and investors to get them excited and onboard. But, be careful about disclosing too much or too early. You need to get traction ... so share what you must, but reserve the "secret sauce" details to your trusted, inner circle. NDAs can  (and will) only go so far.
2. Know your exit before you begin. Are you going to disrupt the market? Are you going to share the market? What's the likely success outcome ... IPO or acquisition?. Here's an excellent blog post (an
   oldie but a goodie) about "Sharks, Pilot Fish, and the Product Food Chain". It's written by Rich Mirinov,
   a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.

Photo: JRubenc, licensed under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

You’ve heard the line about assumptions, the one about ‘u’ and ‘me’. Turns out checking for assumptions is really hard to practice. Why? Because we often “summarize” information in our heads – and in the process, details get lost.Think about this… we get tons of input about the world around us every  moment. If we were to stop and test everything every minute for assumptions, it would be virtually impossible for life to function.

However, because we often  rely on our instincts to “fill in the picture”, it’s easy to overlook details during the speed of conversation. In business, we may miss critical information as a result. Sometimes, that can be catastrophic like the Titanic disaster.

Turns out there are nine types of assumptions (Courtesy: Vervago).

1. Existence, an assumption that something or someone exists. A claim such as “this solution will solve the customer sat issue”, assumes there is a customer sat issue to begin with.
2. Uniqueness, an assumption that there is only one; e.g. only one problem, or only one solution. For example, there is only one customer sat issue, or only one solution for it. A helpful  hint is look for words like “this” or “the”… they imply uniqueness.
3. Measureable, an assumption that something can be accurately measured, e.g. customer sat. It would be important to know what goes into measuring customer sat; e.g. is just about product use? Does
   it include support? Pricing?
4. Possibility, an assumption that something is possible. For example, solving customer sat can done with existing resources, budget and in a timeframe that matters for the business.
5. Value, an assumption that the result will be valuable (e.g. good or bad). For example, solving the customer sat issue for a product that is about to reach end of life may not be in the best interest of the
   company.
6. Audience, an assumption about the audience (e.g. the market/geography, gender, income level,  and several other demographic factors). For example, the customer sat issue could be restricted only to a
   customers in a certain geographic region.
7. Category, as assumption that the issue/audience has been correctly categorized or subcategorized. For
   example, is the real issue product features or price?
8. Similarity, an assumption that what is being proposed is similar to something else. For example, the argument “we have already solved the customer sat issue for product ‘X’ using these techniques” assumes that the same ones will also be effective for the new product ‘Y’.
9. Time, an assumption that things will stay the same. For example, the drivers of customer sat could be pricing one quarter, availability the next, and performance a year later.

When preparing for a project review, or listening to one, I do a mental scan for these nine types of assumptions. It’s amazing how much critical detail get uncovered.

Here’s a test.. how many assumptions can you spot in the statement “After the heist, the masked gunman escaped with the money by running toward the alley for the getaway vehicle waiting for him”.

Re-read the statement again for deeper assumptions. For example, did you assume the alley was in the back? The vehicle was a  car?

Acknowledgements: I’d like to thank Dennis Matthies at Vervago for hooking me onto assumption checks!

Photo: Uta Wollf, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 Unported License