Today I finished the audiobook Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas Into Successful Enterprises. In this book author Derek Lidow outlined the 4 stages of a company’s growth and the leadership requirements for each of those stages. He mentions that the entrepreneur must move passed being just an entrepreneur to becoming an entrepreneurial leader (EL).
Stage One: Customer Validation starts once the idea becomes reality and ends as soon as customers commit.
Stage Two: Operational Validation starts as customers use the product and ends when processes ensure customer satisfaction.
Stage Three: Financial Validation starts when the value proposition delivers on its promise through a viable business model and ends when the company scales and is consistent.
Stage Four: Self-Sustainability starts when the leader develops not only new customers, but new products and ends (or never ends) with a process of continuous development of both.
Thoughts & Moments 