From one young entrepreneur to another
5 pieces of advice from trailblazer Anthony Collias, founder of Stasher
Anthony Collias, co-founder of successful startup Stasher, shares his most valuable pieces of advice to young entrepreneurs. Take note!
By Rute Costa
Anthony Collias is the young co-founder of Stasher, a fast-growing luggage storage business that offers locations for tourists to leave their bags. Their easy online booking system connects customers with local shops and hotels where they can safely drop their luggage for the day.
Stasher began with three recent graduate friends who spotted a problem and created a solution. The startup has grown exponentially in just three years, and is now building a European network of ‘stash points’ in different cities.
Here is what Anthony has learnt throughout the journey, from one young entrepreneur to another…
1. Think and rethink
No business starts fully-fledged, perfect and stable. The beginning is marked by a process of trial and error, of figuring out ways to improve your startup model.
For Stasher, this was no different. They began offering storage from one day to one year, but then realised their target audience was mostly just looking to leave their luggage for the day. Analysing what people wanted and needed helped Stasher refine their brand. “From then on we thought, ‘OK so now we’re building a marketplace that connects people who need to store bags for one day (usually, it can be up to a week) with little shops and hotels”.
Listen and adapt to what your target consumer audience wants. Then build and rebuild your startup around it.
2. It’s a rocky start
Establishing a company in any market is no easy task. Collias remembers the start of Stasher as a strenuous process of selling the idea to potential commercial partners face to face, a lot of “just going in and talking to shop owners”. He recalls: “The beginning was hard going, it was a very manual and laborious process of getting places on board, talking to them, keeping them happy”.
Collias believes that this kind of hard sales “is something everybody should do at least once in their life” as it establishes meaningful connections between startups and partners and builds credibility. It also yields fruit: “The natural progression with sales is that you work your way up: you talk to larger, more legitimate businesses, and they’re the stepping stones to other larger more well-established businesses”.
Spend your energy introducing your idea to people, embrace the effort it takes, and you will begin strengthening your partnerships.
3. Traction before funding
Anthony has a “little bit of advice” that he gives to anyone who asks him about starting a business. “When you’re young, you can’t lean on expertise, experience, network or anything like that, so you have to build some traction before contacting investors”.
“The most important thing was that we did build some traction before we actually went for the funding”. Stasher had some customers and popularity before it got funding. And it worked: it got the interest of the CEO of Yellow Storage, who became Stasher’s first big investor.
“Think about your business model, and make sure it’s not too capital intensive to start with. In reality, a young entrepreneur is not the right person to start a capital-intensive startup because they don’t have fundraising experience, and are really going to struggle to take that off the ground”.
4. Know their pain
When it comes to pitching, the Stasher founder advises entrepreneurs to “think about context: the way you pitch to an investor is not the same as the way that you pitch to a shop”.
“Pitching is in essence sales, and the best bit of sales advice I got was that it’s a process of showing people that they have some pain, and showing them how your business solves that pain”.
Anthony says that a lot of young entrepreneurs fall into the ‘cool’ trap. But having a ‘cool’ idea is not enough. “It goes back to my main advice to young entrepreneurs – your business should really solve a problem”, he says. Having full comprehension of what the problem your business idea is solving will help you showcase your startup, get investment and grow.
5. Get an A team
You only have to go through it once to realise how challenging yet valuable hiring the right team members can be.
“Hiring is time-consuming but so important. If you hire A players, you can leave them to do their own thing, you can give them more autonomy. If you hire B players you’re gonna have to spend more time micromanaging”.
Anthony sees the importance of building a suitable working environment. “I always wanted to create the place I like to work in, and then share it with other people. Actually creating that work environment, having an impact on it, and then bringing in other like-minded people, is pretty fulfilling”.