Startup - This is the one word many people dream of.

The United States has more than 70k startups, and there are more startups emerging.

About 90% of startups fail, and almost 10% fail in their first year.

So, only 10% succeed.

Want to know why?

Here’s the deal:

Their approach to their startup makes all the difference.

One crucial aspect that makes your startup grow and scale is your mindset.

Because it all boils down to how you shape your mind to deal with day-to-day startup challenges.

So, the big question is:  

What is a startup mindset?

Let’s find out as we list 10 promising ways to develop a startup mindset that will help you build and scale your startup from scratch.

       Key Takeaways

• Learning is a crucial part of cultivating the startup mindset
• Ego is your main enemy as a startup founder. Win ego for better results
• Change according to the trend to optimise your growth
• Failure is okay, but quitting is not

Table of Content

• What is a startup mindset?
• Different ways to develop a startup mindset
  1. Cultivate a learning mindset
  2. Always search for problems
  3. Try out other startup products
  4. Leverage the resources to maximum
  5. Mistakes are acceptable
  6. Do as a passion
  7. Win your ego
  8. Be a risk-taker
  9. Be ready to fail
  10. Accept changes
• Famous quotes from startup experts
• Final thoughts
• Bonus FAQs

What is a startup mindset?

A startup mindset is a unique approach to business that helps you get your products or services to your target market faster. Following a startup mindset lets you build products faster than the traditional method. With this mindset, you don't do what others say you to do.

You will find a problem, then evaluate it and find the market. After that, you will create a product that provides the solution customers need.

A startup mindset is based on three factors, "Build, Measure, Learn".

1. Build - You develop an MVP (minimum viable product) rather than building a final product.
2. Measure - You give your product to your target customers to use and collect feedback from them.
3. Learn - You learn from the feedback. Then you add features or rebuild your product accordingly.

Different ways to develop a startup mindset

To make your startup stronger, you need to be stronger.

You can't go with an employee mindset to build a startup.

Everything starts with the mind; make yourself startup ready by changing it to a startup mindset.

Let's look deeper into how to develop a startup mindset by merely modifying your daily activities.

1. Cultivate a learning mindset

When you are into technology, the trends will change. If you are managing a tech firm, you must be in the trend to succeed.

To be in the trend and evolving at the same pace as the technology and customers. You need to be a continuous learner.

Also, there are many possibilities you will be involved in different teams other than your core department. You need to learn about those departments to get the overall performance of your startup.

Let's say if you are from a technical background, you need to learn about marketing and product management to run your startup.

Learning the basics of the different areas of your business will give you a better understanding of your organisation when you scale.

Actionable Tip
Start to upskill every day in your area of expertise and also in other areas of business. You can use podcasts, books, mentors or workshops to learn on daily basis.

2. Always search for problems

You will be one person everyone will come to when your startup gets hiccups.

During a block in the work progress, you need to find the exact problem first before finding a solution.

So to improve this character in your mind, start by doing it in your daily life.

Also, when we talk about startups, providing a unique solution to an already existing problem is what makes a promising startup.

When you start to look for problems, you may stumble upon some great ideas for your startup. Either way, it's a win-win.

Actionable Tip
Look out for problems from why you wake up late to why your laptop doesn't work. Work on the root of the problem to solve it.

3. Try out other startup products

To know what your customer will think about your product, you must become a customer first.

Use products from different firms in your niche to understand what they offer and what you expect.

This way, you can understand how the existing products in the market work and what you can do differently.

For example, you can start buying products online if you plan to build an e-commerce store. You can find how they send personalised push notifications to get you into buying more.

Actionable Tip
From ordering toothbrushes to writing an email, try to use different startup products and discover different customer experiences.

4. Leverage the resources to the maximum

You don't get a lot of funding at the early stage to build your product. You must develop a mindset of optimising your existing resources.

For example, while creating Dropbox, before developing a product, they used a video which explains the use of Dropbox to get responses from their potential customers.

Leveraging the use of video is one great example. Likewise, you create a video for a landing page before you develop a product.

Actionable Tip
Learn how people or other startups use minimum resources to yield maximum results.

5. Mistakes are acceptable

To make the best startup, you need to make mistakes, but the crucial part is

• Learn from the mistake
• Not repeating the mistake

Minimum Viable Product will undergo many iterations before evolving into the final version. You will find many mistakes from research to release during the iteration phase.

Build a learning mindset when you find a mistake. Analyse-it and see where you went wrong.

Mistakes are the results of innovation and uniqueness. So be prepared to accept mistakes as they are.

Actionable Tip
Whenever you encounter a mistake or downfall in your personal life. Try to pick yourself up. Try motivational books or quotes to learn how people raise from destruction.

Here are some mistakes you can avoid while starting up.

6. Do as a passion

When there is a passion at work, the result will be rewarding.  

For example, every technical founder might be in love with coding.  They would code relentlessly every day to build their product since they don’t feel exhausted. Coding may not just work for them, but something that they enjoy doing.

So whatever the idea you have, align it with your passion to do amazing things!

Actionable Tip
Find your passion before you start your startup. Include your passion into your startup service in any way to motivate yourself.

7. Win your ego

Ego is the biggest enemy of humankind. If you stick with ego, you won't be able to accomplish anything in life.

Every time you get ideas from someone greater or unique than yours, you  need to use it.

But with ego, you won't be able to do it. Kill your ego if you want to have long term startup success.

Actionable Tip
Practice gratitude and forgiveness to deal with your ego.

8. Be a risk-taker

Are you afraid of getting out of your comfort zone or thinking a lot about what happens next?

Then, you need to get rid of it.

You are going to build a new product; there are a lot of assumptions and risks to take.

You don't have the choice of getting away from it.

When people hesitated to invest in Tesla, Elon musk invested all his life earnings into it. Many founders left their studies in reputed institutions to work on their startups.

Actionable Tip
Break your comfort zones. Analyse and learn about risks in startups and be prepared.

9. Be ready to fail

Both success and failure are part of the startup game.

Many startups failed many times before they succeeded. One of the main reasons many startups didn't make it happen is they quit once they fail.

The critical part of making the startup sucess is picking yourself up from the failures, learning from them, and moving on.

Actionable Tip
Read books or listen to podcasts from startup founders about how they recovered from early-stage downfalls.

10. Accept changes

Changes are rapid in startup culture.

You build an MVP, and people don't like it you change it the next day.

You can't create three or five-year plans here. Even a one-year plan will be changed many times within a year.

If you find a new and exciting technology comes you move to it, you won't stick to one in a startup.

So be ready for some exciting changes.

Actionable Tip
Remind yourself that change is the only thing that never changes. Prepare yourself in advance.

Famous quotes from startup experts

Final thoughts

Everything starts in the mind. If you plan to dedicate yourself completely to building a startup or startup product, prepare your mind for it.

Be a good risk-taker and continuous learner because it requires trying and building new things.

Also, the startup mindset is not only for startup founders but also for startup employees and employees who like to do things faster.

It's all about doing your best now and not looking broadly into the unknown future. When change is expected, be that change to find success.