So you’ve gotten your fledgling startup going. You’re at a co-working space, starbucks in hand, and wondering if this is "it". Is this really what all the hype is about? And cue the doubts: "Is this a good idea?", "am I the right person for this?", "what am I doing here?" There's glamor in starting a business, but it can fade in a real hurry. In our second episode of the "Startup Takeoff" four part series, we tackle the credibility crisis of starting a company.

Welcome to Episode 5 of Season 2 and the first episode of our Startup Takeoff series. Today we tackle the psychological barriers to entrepreneurship. The first biggie? Breaking the mold and starting your own company can feel unnatural and intimidating. You might think you’re not cut out for entrepreneurship. But here’s the thing: entrepreneurs are made, not born. You are an entrepreneur and you can do this.

Oh boy. Cue the existential crisis. You’ve successfully brought two companies together except for one nagging detail: you. Turns out you successfully made yourself irrelevant to the operations of the business and now it’s time to walk away. It’ll be one of the toughest walks of your life.

Listen to more on this episode of the Startup Different Podcast!

You've just had a life-changing event - you sold your business and locked in your financial freedom for the rest of your life. But you're not off the hook yet - you've got to navigate the complexities of taking your company and merging it with the acquirer's firm. In this episode of the Startup Different Podcast, we'll cover what it takes to bring two companies together.

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Everyone has heard of companies being acquired, but do you know the actual steps of the acquisition process?

From the outside looking in, getting your company acquired is pretty mysterious. Basically all founders want this, but they don’t really know how they’ll get there.

In part one of a four part series, we’re going to go into how you actually get your company in a position to be acquired. We’ll discuss our real world experience of selling our company, and compare it with data on when and how most startups are sold.

For the season finale of season 1 we opted to run right at explaining the Lean Startup's MVP process and how we used it to iterate and improve the Startup Different Pod. Rather than talking about an abstract business concept, learn how we built, measured, and learned key concepts for podcasting.

As a founder, you'll have an idea about where you'll want to highlight your product to prospective customers. Whether that's social media, trade shows, or inbound tactics, you'll have a hunch as to the how and where you'd like to meet your customers in the market. Here's the thing though: What's best for you isn't always what's best for your prospective customers.

We thought we could be like NetFlix. Or at least, we wanted to be one of the most disruptive businesses out there. We wanted to build a winning culture, when really what we needed to do was build a culture around how we wanted to work. It was a painful learning moment. Avoid our mistakes, and learn how to build a great startup from day one in this episode.

I know. You want to believe you can do this all yourself. Maybe you've got industry experience, maybe you know how to build a product - hell, maybe you could do it by yourself. But do you want to? In this episode we'll discuss the pros and cons of co-founders. We'll also discuss some of the unique challenges and benefits of starting a business with a sibling.