Ingles

HOW TO START A START-UP A start-up is a new business venture. We need three things to create a successful start-up: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spendas little money as possible. Most start-ups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A start-up that does all three is going to succeed. And that's exciting, when you think about it, becauseall three are doable. Hard, but doable. And since a start-up that succeeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies getting rich is doable too. Hard, but doable. There is no magicallydifficult step that requires brilliance to solve. The next story is an example of a successful start-up and a step-by-step description of its development. Harry Cragoe, an English man, had an early insightinto what motivates entrepreneurs to work. Most of his parents’ friends were self-employed and when he was eight he used to sit underneath the table when they came round for dinner and listen to theirconversations. He says: “I used to hear them talking about their businesses and what they were doing, and I’m sure it had an effect on me as I never really considered a life working for someone else.”He left school at 18 and started working as a commodity broker, but soon he quit to set up a company with three friends selling air and water-filter systems. That took him to Los Angeles where hedeveloped a passion for drinking smoothies, a cold drink made from blended fruit. He says: “When I left England I was unfit and pasty white, but once I got to Los Angeles I really got into theCalifornian way of life, going to the gym and running along the beach. And part of that was about putting good stuff inside my body.” Enthused by his discovery he sold his share of the water-filter company andwent back to Britain determined to find a way of taking smoothies to a new audience there. He asked a friend to help him, and between them they raised £100,000 to invest in the venture. Cragoe says:...