Editor’s Note: Celestine Ezeokoye co-founded and currently runs Tiketmobile, an application looking to disrupt transportation in Africa, allowing travellers easily find, compare prices and buy bus tickets, a first of many tech companies he’s looking to build across Africa. He studied Computer Science at the University of Lagos, and represented Nigeria twice at the Microsoft Imagine Cup. He has decided to share his experience with other (aspiring) founders in the ‘Start-ups On’ series. You can follow him on twitter or his blog.
I’ve long gone past the days when I believed I was a superhero. I mean, I believed I would be running a successful company at 20. I’m 24 with a fail trail so it’s hard to believe things like that any more. Now, solutions to issues revolve around decisions in hopes that they turn out right. I’ve come to believe that what determines your relevance or that of your start-up is the decisions you take. If your product would stay relevant a year or five years down the road, it depends on the decisions you take today.
Decisions are hard. Start-up decisions are even harder.
Should you target all the possible markets or should you streamline efforts? Should you build and release on a specific platform first or just wait till you build all? Should you focus on margin or on volume? Questions on how best to allocate limited resources always come up.
How do I solve these?
- I make consultations, they are very good. They give you a broad view of what you want to get into from the perspective of more experienced people.
- I go into brainstorming sessions with my partners/team members. At times, this spirals into mild arguments. This is where the milking is done. Ideas emerge and opinions are weighed against facts. I almost never take decisions without this.
- I go into a personal brute-force thought process. I start to draw up crazy late night imaginary if/else patterns.
However, no matter how much of these you do, the final decisions and their consequences always fall on you (and your partners/team members). What guides my final decisions is the roadmap we have drawn for our start-up and what we aim to achieve.
When those too have to change, the process is iterated again.
[Image via Flickr/ mattwi1s0n and Jordan Weaver]
