Launching a Startup:
a Family Affair By Ronald Hedley
In Bram Krommenhoek’s April 2018 article entitled Why 90% of Startups Fail, and What to Do About It, he shared the four problems and the four subsequent solutions to the crash and burn world of launching a startup. One of the problems, Krommenhoek wrote, is being a one-person team. He offered the following solution: “My advice to each (would-be) founder is this: find at least one person from a different discipline to join you. Ideally, you have a combination of people that cover the holy startup triangle: hipster, hacker, hustler (aka designer, engineer, marketer).” So, heeding (subconsciously) the advice above, when Nick Gunn, former SVP of Global Corporate Services at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, buckled in and launched The NiVACK Group, he was not going it alone. He was starting his new company with his son Charles. The term NiVACK is significant. It represents what’s important in Gunn’s life, and it supports the assertion that one should not launch a startup by oneself. “I made up a name using our initials. The Ni stands for Nick. V is for Vanessa, my wife. A is for Ash, and K is for Katherine.”
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