Startup stories are like those addictive Netflix binges—packed with drama, burnouts, and the occasional unicorn that makes you question all your life choices. The all-nighters that end in flames or the billion-dollar exits—they hog all the headlines. You hear those stories at every tech event where CEOs get up on the stage and tell you how they slept under their desk or lost their family fortune to bring you the Uber for [insert domain here].

But you know what you don’t see on the front page? The stories of slow, steady progress. Founders who quietly build something meaningful with grit, optimism, and a small team that’s in sync. No flash, no hype—just honest work. And guess what? That’s the real journey for most entrepreneurs like us.

At the heart of these under-the-radar success stories? Alignment.

Welcome to the Groundwork. In this series of articles, we’ll examine the core elements of a robust foundation: Alignment, Product, Brand, and Market. These articles aim to help you understand the programme’s structure and evolve a new mindset.

Alignment is the glue. No, the superglue that holds your organisation together. It’s the connection between people, a shared vision, and an understanding of a problem you’re solving together. It’s about sharing the same language, insights, effort and mindset.

First up, let’s talk team. What are your strengths? Your blind spots? Who are you as a solopreneur, co-founder, boss, and teammate? Spoiler: you can’t answer these questions solo. It takes time together, real talk, and those tough conversations under pressure.

It’s hard to function as a group without aligning on values, principles, and goals. On the business side, alignment determines how well you cover the essential functions in your organisation: design, engineering, communication, operations, and administration. This is where we swap hats, put out fires, and learn on the fly. You’re good to go as long as you’ve got all the bases covered.

Solo or as a team, you can’t solve a problem if you don’t get what’s causing it and how it impacts everything else. Alignment starts with the team recognising the key markers in your space—needs, trends, conditions, and facts.

Sharing attention and building a common understanding enriches everyone’s perspective. It adds details you might’ve missed and sometimes brings you closer to that “aha” moment. Keeping an eye on the context and decoding it as a team separates startups that find their groove from those that burn out chasing every shiny object. The landscape changes faster than fashion trends, so staying tuned in demands constant effort.

Can you spell out the problem you’re solving? Does everyone on your team get it? Can you all agree on the evidence? Are all [relevant] perspectives taken into account? If you can’t explain the problem so simply that even your gran nods along, well, you’ve got a different problem.

Alignment here means everyone’s on the same page about the problem, its causes, and its effects. If not, good luck generating effective solutions.

Most problems have multiple solutions—a blessing and a curse. Options are great, but they can also lead down endless rabbit holes. The best solutions survive tough internal conversations that require openness and clear boundaries.

Aligning around methods to generate solutions and setting criteria for what qualifies as a viable option helps your team focus and saves a ton of time.

It’s about creating space for everyone to contribute unique perspectives, insights, and expertise. Hold on, there’s a caveat—you can’t waste time here. Once you commit, you move forward as a team.

Let’s be honest: most startups start with someone asking, “What if?” A new technology rolls in, and suddenly, we’re buzzing with possibilities. Our pattern-seeking minds go into overdrive, scanning for every spot where our yet-to-be-invented solution might fit. The more we look, the more problems we discover. Dive deeper into these problems, and we start convincing ourselves that our solution is the silver bullet. Then we circle back to the tech that could make us a tidy profit if we crack the problem.

At this point, we practically brainwash ourselves, don’t we? We’re so convinced we’ve struck gold that we start hunting for ways to get everyone else on board. We don’t stop there; we try to make others see the problem just as we do and agree that our solution is the answer. If we’re lucky, we persuade them to chip in—to pour time, money, and resources into this shiny new venture.

Humans operate this way because of our opportunistic attitude and knack for spotting patterns. We often decide first, rationalise the risks later, and only then define the problem. There’s no shame in this; it’s human nature.

The real game-changer is the effort we put into genuinely working towards the problem. Those who can’t be bothered and get dazzled by a flashy solution or the latest tech fad usually pay the price. The story of the AI Pin is the perfect case study for this, and so is the Apple Vision Pro or the Metaverse built by Meta.

That’s why the Foundations program exists: to help you build faster and solve real problems and to give you and your team a structure that allows you to step back and determine if you’re chasing a mirage or solving a real problem.

Alignment isn’t a one-and-done deal. Everything’s dynamic—the problem evolves as your solution takes shape, team dynamics shift, new challenges pop up, and the context constantly changes. That’s why alignment needs constant attention.

Investing in alignment means more than holding endless meetings. It’s about making room for your team to contribute to bringing their different perspectives and insights from their unique angles, backgrounds, and expertise.

Alignment keeps you from wasting time, energy, and money chasing the wrong things. It makes sure your big idea doesn’t just survive but thrives. It stretches your budget, speeds up progress towards your goals, and makes working together something you look forward to.

So, What’s Next?
Dive into the other articles in the Groundwork series to explore the foundations of building a successful startup: Product, Brand, and Market.

Let’s get to work.