Leading a Start-up company. What to consider before you start. : Manual for Haaga-Helia Startup School's new students.

This thesis is a product based thesis, and the aim is to create a useful product for the commissioning party Haaga-Helia’s Startup School in form of material that can be used for inspiring and intriguing Haaga-Helia’s Startup School’s new students. The material will consist of Power Point – presentation and a leaflet that can be handed out to the students after the presentation. The background to the product and the examples are from the founders of company called TripAhead. The hype around Start-up companies and all the success stories might also give an unrealistic view of Start-up life. This is why it is good to hear the other side of it as well. It is good to think the motives why to become a Start-up founder. A big part of the thesis was to introduce Start-up term and to look how Start-up companies evolve and what is special and unique about Start-up companies. This thesis introduces leadership in general and how it affects Start-up companies, and also how Start-up companies could be lead. The authors managed to choose leadership models and theories which fit well with Start-up companies. They also created a model of their own for Start-up leadership by combining aspects from other models and theories. However it should be taken into account that every leader should think how they will lead their company as the models and examples should be modified to suit the leader and the company. The process of making the presentation and other materials will be discussed and analysed. Also the valuable feedback received from the commissioning party will be presented. The process itself was rather fast, but both the authors and the commissioning party are pleased with the end result