Startup Do’s — 9 Points to consider.
Not every entrepreneur gets successful with their business Idea and It’s not an idea that makes them fail, Instead, it’s the approach they follow to build a startup. In this article, I will be talking about the possible ways to avoid mistakes that most entrepreneurs do.
Introduction.
I am Rohit, Previously Founded FivoTech and With around 10 years of experience in the Software Industry, I started my company with a vision to build an R&D company along with a bunch of fresh entrepreneurs.
Overview.
As an entrepreneur, I made mistakes that could have been avoided. With many young entrepreneurs these days with different startup ideas, I felt sharing what went wrong can help others to reduce the errors before starting with the business.
- Your Startup Idea.
This first thing to always do is have a workbook with you. Once you start thinking of starting a business you will often get many ideas and the best way is to write down whatever you get into your head. Awake or Dream it does not matter just write it in your workbook which can later be helpful in planning the process or even in executing it.
The beauty of life is that the day you think about starting your own startup you will always see the world differently and your brain will always see your surroundings or your readings into an opportunity. So keep your workbook ready.
2. Market Research & Competition analysis.
Once you are serious about your idea that you have added in your book. Its time to do market research. This is one place where startups fail or plan successfully. You need to know how big the market is and who is your competitor.
When I say Market Research, its not few hours of work. It means this is the time when you should start cleaning your idea from the workbook to the work model.
By the end of this stage, you should have the following checklist clicked.
I. Who your audience is and how big it is.
II. List of all your competitors with their product features. This will help you to plan your feature or marketing process differently.
III. Understand the Cost that is being used by your competitors. This will later help you to plan your revenue system.
3. Creating a Business Plan.
This is the most important part after your Market Research is Business Plan. Do not skip this stage as this will be your business blueprint and your whole business process is going to depend on this.
Based on all your market research, this is the time when you have to create a Business plan that defines what your business is, your audience, your vision & mission, your pricing model, and Business strategy.
This stage is important for your startup to set goals that you want to achieve over a period of time. Business Plan changes from time to time as the business grows and hence having this model cristal clear is the first step towards your business success.
4. Building the right team.
Now this stage is something that could make your business stand or fall. One cannot do everything in the startup. Hence choosing the right team is quite a tedious task. A team needs trust and understanding within themselves if not could result in disaster at a later stage.
Your team needs to trust you as a leader and should accept your decisions at different times even though it may fail.
For fresh or entrepreneurs who are in graduation can find the right team within friends circle or classmates. But selecting a team is more challenging when a profession or experienced person starts a business. Knowing your core teammates including nature and skills is very much important. We will be writing a separate article on what exactly one can do to identify the right team for their product or services. Keep following me on Linkedin.
5. Bootstrap or Funding.
By this time, you need to be ready with your market research, Business Plan, and a team that could lift your Startup Idea into a Real Business.
According to me, one should consider Bootstrapping as first priority. Which means starting a business with what you have rather than taking loan or funds from an investor.
Even if you are considering for Funding, make sure your product or service has some portfolio to showcase. Investors don’t fund your ideas. Rather they fund on your effort already made and revenue or amount of data your Idea can collect which in return will generate revenue for the investors.
Hence having an MVP or POC of your product or a working Service model will help you to raise funding.
People starting a startup in graduation have less money requirement and hence they should always focus on Bootstrapping.
6. Preparing financially.
Now, its high time for you to understand how much money do you need pre-startup and post-startup.
Your pre-startup costing depends on your goal and time period to achieve your goal. It is nothing but your marketing cost and your resource cost that you need before your startup gets converted into business.
Post-startup is nothing but planning but generating sustainable revenue for you and your team. Though you will need to grow your team once you reach this stage and this can be a separate topic.
7. Process setup.
Planning Business and Planning product development or Service Marketing are Entirely different. And without proper planning of development or marketing process, your idea can turn into a disaster. If you are hiring an agency for marketing or development of your product make sure that you have a budget set for your MVP at least.
Hiring a technical consultant is always a great idea if you do not have a tech guy in your team. Hiring or partnering with a technical guy is always a win-win situation and I want you to believe me because I have been doing consulting from the day I quit my job and this has helped me in building my business.
The tech guy can help you break features for your product and communicate with you and the tech team on daily basis to see if product development is in process. He also takes care of hiring, code review, and more technical work. Similarly goes to marketing, and finding right team and reviewing tasks can be challenging.
8. Connecting with people.
As an entrepreneur, You should never hesitate to meet people around the globe. Connect, communicate, help, teach, and learn with your connection or network. Linkedin is the best platform to connect and have a professional environment.
9. Time allocation.
Entrepreneurs by nature have lots of responsibility on the shoulders. You need to take care of almost everything. Even though you are not the marketing guy or tech guy you are supposed to involve on a regular basis to discuss along with your other work. As a leader, you should be attending meetups and events to meet and understand different minds in your industry.
Conclusion.
All the above is based on my self-experience and my intent to help entry-level entrepreneurs. The new generation is thinking beyond and we are supposed to see lots of young entrepreneurs in the future and this thought has made me write this article. Hopefully, this article can help people in any way.
If you like my article you can follow me on Linkedin or connect with me to discuss for any assistance.
Thank you
Rohit Kumar S.
