The challenges are
- Cognitive: coming up with and constantly tweaking an idea till it works
- Emotional: Patience, pluck, leadership, risk taking ability, staying together
- Financial: Conserving cash till the idea is proved. Finding the right investor
- Competitive: Establishing and sustaining advantage through customer relationships, brand, patents, copyrights
Must Haves:
great team, workable idea( not necessarily the big bang, but an idea that with massaging can go somewhere), potentially big market, linkages with suppliers, partners, customers, incubators, government.
Good luck!