هذه قراءة من صفحات كتاب The Startup Owner’s Manual. But before I share it, we need to answer this question: How do you distinguish between

startups and established organizations? There are many differences, but the most important is that Entrepreneurial Projects تبحث (Search) و المؤسسات

و الشركات القائمة تنفذ (Execute).

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But what are you looking for, and what are you building?

Entrepreneurial Projects تبحث عن نموذج عمل قابل للنمو و الاستمرار. لأنه على الرغم من اعتقادك بأنك على معرفة من هم الفئة المستهدفة و القيمة التي

you’ll offer them, you’ll later discover that you need to change and adapt. This is perfectly normal for startups, as they’re searching for that model. Meanwhile, institutions and companies

القائمة لديها دراية و معرفة جيدة بفئتها المستهدفة وبنموذج عملها. لذلك تجدها تنفذa business plan tied to its model. Established companies

that stand out are always looking for new business models and testing how effective their current model is, like Amazon.

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Believing that you know exactly what your target audience wants

You encounter a problem that needs solving (not an idea!) and immediately believe you’ve successfully identified the target audience, the real problem they struggle with, and the right solution for them.

Then you immediately start developing and building. Unfortunately, this is a mistake most of us make—and I’m no exception. All you have so far are assumptions (or, more accurately, hypotheses) that you need to

prove or disprove.

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I know which features I’m going to add to the service or product

When you go down the wrong path with your first assumption, you can be sure you’ll make the same mistake again. You don’t know what features your target audience wants—you only “think” you do.

المستهدفة. لذلك، You need to validate the assumptions in your business model. You can do this by conducting interviews or observing how users try to solve

the problem with the tools currently available to them, so you can identify a core set of features that the solution must include (the book *The Startup Owner’s Manual*

الحديث عن كيف تفعل المقابلات بالتفصيل ومع الأمثلة). و هذه هي المميزات التي يجب على الأقل أن تكون موجودة في منتجك. 

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Focusing on the service/product launch date

لمن قرأ كتاب The Lean Startup أو على معرفة بمنهجية Lean Startup يدرك أنه لا يوجد موعد يُصاحبه ضجة إعلامية لإطلاق

الخدمة، لماذا؟ لأنك بصفة مستمرة و على دفعات تطويرية متقاربة تنفذ هذه الدورة من بناء – اختبار – تعلم. فكرة أن هناك يوم و ضجة إعلامية كبيرة

A set date is a practice inherited from large organizations and companies with established business models. Startups have adopted this mindset, which doesn’t suit

their nature of searching for a business model.

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Focusing on execution rather than hypotheses, testing, learning, and iteration

Some startups write down their assumptions about their business model in the Business Model Canvas and believe that this is

كافي لتنفيذ نموذجها بدلاً من التحقق من تلك الفرضيات المكتوبة على نموذج عملها. التحقق يتم من خلال اختبارتلك التوقعات و هذا في أغلب الأحوال

can be done without writing a single line of code. The outcome of these tests is that you learn the truth about your business model assumptions, then try again by updating

Review your business model assumptions using the Business Model Canvas, and validate them again.

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Traditional business plans don’t account for mistakes

Anyone who has written a business plan or feasibility study knows there’s a major flaw in it: you make forecasts and project future figures, expecting things to go as planned.

توقعاتك على خلاف مخطط نموذج العمل (Business Plan Canvas) التي تكتب فيها توقعات و أنت تدرك أنها مجرد توقعات عليك أن تتحقق من

every element of the canvas before putting it into action. You might write that you’ll earn 1,000 in profit in your first month. When you start operating and the first month is over,

you review the results: did you meet your target? Why did you fall short of it or exceed it? Based on that, you revisit your model assumptions and make the necessary adjustments.

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Combining traditional job titles with the roles a startup needs to get the work done

An entrepreneurial venture needs people who are comfortable with an unstable work environment and who are committed to continuous learning and research as they work toward a scalable business model and

الاستمرار. لذلك، من غير المنطقي أن توظف فريق مبيعات a team from the outset whose experience is selling products to established organizations with existing business models

that are well understood (meaning the target audience and offering are clear), while you’re still trying to figure out your own model. Early on, you’re still working that out, so you may

find that you don’t need many of the traditional roles found in organizations with established business models.

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Sales and marketing execute the plan

Let’s say you’ve written a business plan that sets marketing and sales goals. Then you hire a sales and marketing team for your startup

من البداية. بكل تأكيد فريق المبيعات و التسويق سوف يعتمدون أرقام خطة العمل أهداف لابد من تحقيقها. هل لاحظت المشكلة؟ Business Plan Figures

They are just projections that we haven’t validated, yet they have been set as real targets that must be achieved. If the targets are difficult to achieve, they will create problems among team members.

In a startup, this can lead people to conclude that a target wasn’t met because the sales or marketing team didn’t do its job successfully. You can think about growth only once you have a business model.

At that point, you have a stable business model that can grow and endure.

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The false assumption that you’ve succeeded leads to premature scaling

The traditional business plan and traditional project development approach (dividing a project into phases and assuming it will succeed if each phase is completed on time and with the specified features

the stage, and then move on to the next stage of development or design). Once we successfully complete these stages, we assume we have succeeded, creating the impression that the project

الريادي بحاجة للنمو و لكن In most cases, this need for growth is premature. Success at these stages is measured by completing work, not by reaching a successful business model.

That is why the Lean Startup methodology advocates a continuous Build–Test–Learn cycle. At each stage, you get feedback from your target audience

and then refine your model based on their feedback. This is true success—and the point at which you should grow.

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Managing crises by trying to contain them

The business plan projected first-month sales profits of 10,000, but the project achieved only 1,000. The sales manager is asked to explain this.

The shortfall is clear. The sales manager is trying hard to come up with plausible excuses for it, but the results are still nowhere near the targets set in the business plan.

This is after asking the marketing team and developers to work twice as hard by preparing new ad campaigns and adding more features in a

يائسة لاحتواء المشكلة، لكن أنت تدرك أن هذا الاحتواء لا يساعد إطلاقاً في حل المشكلة. لأن، الأهداف الموضوعة في خطة العمل مجرد تخمينات لم

tested, yet they are treated as if they were real and reasonable—and that assumption is wrong. A startup is also searching for a business model, so it makes sense to fail several times

before finding a successful model. This doesn’t mean we should accept failure easily or quickly. Instead, we should do our best to minimize it and learn from it when it happens to improve our chances of success.

The next attempt at the business model.