Startups are not scaled down versions of companies

<p>A common mistake across founders is that practices that work in large corporate firm can be scaled down to match a startup's size. However, <a class="wikilink" href="/startups/">startups</a> are not smaller versions of companies, but a completely different organization. </p> <p>The <a class="wikilink" href="/five_elements_that_make_a_business/">five elements that make a business</a> are missing, the role of the startup is to identify customers, meet their demands with a product and validate whether that can become a repetitive business in order to scale. </p> <p>Therefore, metrics that are used by large companies may not be appropriate to understand a startup. </p> <p>For example, the <a class="wikilink" href="/business_model_canvas/">Business Model Canvas</a>, does not assume any iteration, and gives no room to customer or product discovery. If we present to investors a roadmap on how we are going to create a 10X return, we may end up believing such roadmap exists and try to stick to it.</p>