Studies have shown that committing to a goal can help improve employee performance. But more specifically, research reveals that setting challenging and specific goals can further enhance employee engagement in attaining those goals.

This is why we stress the importance of a startup understanding its vision and mission and working its way towards them in a series of short-term goals. In this section we will discuss the best practices for you to establish goals and track them so that you can keep focused on achieving your long term mission.

This is all about leading your business.

The ABC’s of designing and guiding your startup

Easier said than done, right? At District 3, we have broken this competency down into 4 main skills that need to be developed to demystify what is “design and guide your startup”. You need to be proficient in the following areas:

1. Define my startup purpose

I can write a 1 sentence vision statement, and a 1 sentence mission statement that characterize my startup purpose.

2. Set objectives and key results

I am able to articulate my high-level objectives (“Where do I need to go?” DOES NOT contain a number) and associated key results (“How do I know I’m getting there.” Always quantifiable.) that will guide my startup to reach its vision and mission.

3. Develop a business model

I am able to build a solid business model based on validated hypotheses, that tells the story of desirability, feasibility and viability of my startup.

4. Tell a strong startup story

5. Track strategic initiatives and key results

I can easily create a quarterly plan of attack whose initiatives are aligned with a longer term (annual) plan. This plan will include defining the minimum viable key activities, players, deliverables required to achieve our shared OKRs. I can set up to operationally execute on that plan.

These 5 skills are critical skills that will stand you in good stead long after you have validated (or invalidated!) your first business idea.