In Startup Freak you take the role of a budding entrepreneur, and grow your very own software startup from humble beginnings to a multi-million dollar company. Along the way you will have to overcome countless challenges, from building, testing and securing your product, to devising the ideal marketing strategy and securing investment. Through it, you must ask yourself the ultimate question: are you a Startup Freak? Build a stellar team Your staff are everything especially in those all-important early years. Hire an awesome team, skilled in technical, design, operational, or sales aspects of your startup. Build out your product Create your very own product by researching the market and building bigger and better features that match your users' demands. But building features isn't everything! You must ensure they are tested and bug-free, well secured, and tuned for performance. Features can also be upgraded and enhanced, for example by incorporating responsive design, or adding accessibility. Plan your infrastructure Even the best software is worthless without the right hardware to run on. Manage your data centres across the world, by researching better and more powerful servers, and dealing with ever increasing and shifting user traffic to your services. Find the right sales channels Not every sales channel is created equal. More importantly, not every sales channel works well for all types of product. It's your job to use data, and a bit of intuition, to figure out the best go-to-market strategy and win against the odds. Tune your pricing Pricing software is more art than science. Plan a pricing strategy, test it, and adapt to the market. On-board investors Early stage startups are always in dire need of funding. But pitching your venture to a potential investor is no easy feat! Research and understand your would-be investors, put together a convincing slide-deck, and watch them offer you millions for a small share in your company. P.S. don't forget to haggle! Deck out your office What startup doesn't want to be the talk of town for its fancy office? Buy all sorts of gadgets and furniture for your office and give your employees yet another reason to stick around. Make a big exit Sooner or later, every founder wants to make an exit from their startup and see the fruits of their labours on a check. The number on that check is dependent on every single decision you have made along the way.
