Are You Ready to Launch? Here's How to Find OutVeteran venture capitalist Jason Green on the importance of a minimum viable product and assembling a top-notch team.

ByJason Green

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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Q: I'm at the edge of taking the leap and launching my business, but I'm worried I'm not ready. How can I make sure I'm prepared?

- Moolah-Lea Ramasamy

A:While preparation is very important, it is no substitute for experience.

When feasible, I encourage young entrepreneurs to create a minimum-viable product and expose it to potential users as quickly as possible. Your first users will provide feedback -- both good and bad -- that you can learn from and incorporate into your next iteration. It is critical that you remain open to customer feedback and pivot quickly to keep improving. Often times, your earliest users will uncover things that you would have never thought of in a business plan.

Related:3 Tips to a Speedy Launch

Then, I'd also suggest making sure your team is ready for action. This is one of the biggest pitfalls I see. So, I cannot stress enough how important it is to choose the right partners and employees. The team is always the most important asset a startup has and one bad apple can derail an organization.

It's critical to consider these questions when choosing a partner or new hire:

1.什么样的文化,我想要我的公司吗?How does that culture fit with the company's goals?
2. What kind of personalities do I work with best? How do those personalities fit with the culture I want to create?
3. How do I find and retain the types of employees that excel within this vision?

Related:Failure to Launch: Why New Products Don't Make It

As an entrepreneur, you ultimately have to create a vision for a product or service and inspire your team to execute on that vision. Early employees are vital to a company's success and they need to be selected thoughtfully.

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Wavy Line

Jason Green has more than 15 years of venture-capital experience under his belt. As the founder of San Mateo, Calif-basedEmergence Capital, he invests exclusively in early- and growth-stage tech companies, manages $575 million across three funds and is actively seeking new investment opportunities. Green has led early investments that became market-leading public companies like SuccessFactors, DoubleClick and Ask Jeeves.

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