Rahul Varshneya is the co-creator of Foster.fm, a platform that helps startups grow their business through social media.
If you start, you are doomed to failure. This is not a primer to make sure you succeed, because there are many factors that may contribute to failure. But these are the main reasons why most startups fail.
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When you start, make sure you overcome all these seven reasons which will increase the chances of success in multifold.
Reason 1: The Putting revenue before customers
This is the main reason why most startups fail. Entrepreneurs start and get the first customers, but are unable to support their businesses over time simply because customers see through.
Never put income before your customers. I'm not telling you to ignore revenue opportunities, as money is the easiest. There will always be enough opportunities to monetize.
Make a product that customers want is difficult. So if you start, do not put your bet on a revenue model or business plan, instead get the core offering to clients. Check if your idea leads to sales. Check if your product is truly changing the lives of your clients. If this really life changing and for many people, they are willing to pay what you ask them.
Your business plan is absolutely worthless if customers are not willing to pay the price of a product.
Yet a little caution. Do not compromise your product experience with crazy ads all over the Web site or application. Customers pay for the experience in a high-tech product.
Reason 2: Thinking too small
Do not create a product that does not meet a wide public. Of course, you can start locally and develop later, but your product solve the needs of a few hundred? Your idea is scalable to the hundred thousand next? Otherwise, you're just selling an item and not building a business.
Check if the problem you are trying to solve is really the problem of the masses. And not just yours and some neighbors and friends or network. Think big, think global if you can.
Base your idea or product to a large audience and you yourself have a product with the potential to turn into a larger and more successful business.
Reason # 3: Being complacent about hiring
Your product or service will only be as good as the people you hire - people grow, people who market, people who sell. If your core team is poor, so will your offer.
Do not be complacent in hiring and do not settle for anything less thinking you are a start-up. There are many excellent professionals who are willing to invest their careers in your vision if you are passionate about your business and those that show.
Hire slow, but rapid fire. If you feel that you made a bad hire, do not stick with them. Make a quick course correction. You do not have all the time and money in the world to give people chance after another to prove. Not in a start-up. Be ethical, but ruthless
If you manage each of your team will enjoy the fruits and be liberal in offering them.
Reason # 4: Procrastinating your start
There is no such thing as a product or perfect service. If you spend all your time just tweaking and supposedly improve your product, it will never be.
Products evolve over time through constant feedback from customers and use. Do not delay your launch for that reason alone. In fact, you should build a prototype, beta or a minimum viable product and leave it in the hands of the customer. Let your customer decide whether the product is of value or not.
Most people do not receive their products in time and spend much of their resources to try to build it a perfect product. Save yourself the pain, time and most of all, hard money and build a product that your customers want.
Reason # 5: Do not adjust
Most entrepreneurs fail in their startups because they fail to adapt to the dynamics of the changing rooms, customer requirements and market. One thing is to adapt the other to adapt quickly.
A startup entrepreneur has got to be quick in decision making and change course when there is a need. Do not attach too plan you started with. Most startups end up taking a plan to amend the general plan with which they started the completely different halfway society.
Most often, your customers will determine the change. Do not be reckless at this point and stick with your plan or original vision. Startups do not work that way. You must follow the needs of your customers.
But this does not mean that you start completely new each time. What you need to do most is to build on the basic framework of your business as you go.
A company I know started as a company's products and six months on the line realized his strengths are in services. They quickly adapted and shifted gears, but their company's basic framework remained the same :. Their offer
# 6 Reason: Optimization of resources
You are a startup entrepreneur and you have resources limited. Unless you are over-funded, which in this case is not so good. But I'll stick to the problem of many - a tightening of funds.
You have limited resources and you do not want to jump on the bad things. Now, it will tie-in with many of the above reasons, you do not want to spend all your time and money on building that one perfect product (which does not exist in all cases ).
Chalk what's important to your business and allocate resources accordingly. If yours is a product company, build a product based on supply and obtain customers. If your customers are also excited, they would even be willing to pay at this stage. And bam, you have more money to build further.
Do not take the easy route in the blitzkrieg advertising spending. Instead, build an engaged community of users, who pay you more in the long term and will be much more profitable.
Reason # 7: Marketing
One word, but has incredible weight in the success of a product . I do not deny that the product is important, but most good products fail to reach out to the largest mass that can make an incredible difference in your boot.
There are many opportunities that are available for startup entrepreneurs who market their startups other than to blow money on just advertising. Most entrepreneurs do not know how they can best use technology to get more eyeballs of the user.
Use the power of social media, create and engage with communities, reaching influencers, start even before your product is launched. Good marketing does not require money, but time. If you want to reach a larger mass, you must be willing to invest a good amount of time to go to them.
And once you've made a significant user base - ie the first thousand customers - leverage on them to a snowball effect. The first thousand customers can turn your startup business.
Everyone wants to launch a successful start, so in the end, do not put too much pressure on yourself to make your first start a success. Just focus on doing the right things and your customers to ensure that your product and your startup remains alive and in play
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