Many people are thinking to start the start-up in the present world but not all people get success.
After helping more than 1000 businesses we have listed down these 10 most important points to consider before you start your own startup.
Point No. 10 will force you to think twice.
Table of content-
- Understand the scope
- Market Sizing
- Competition Analysis
- Finance Mapping
- Risk Analysis
- Timelines
- Testing
- Marketing Strategy
- Find Proper Talent
- Your Partners
1.Understand the scope-
Just having the brilliant Idea does not mean that business is going to be successful.
No matter how unique your business idea is, you should understand the scope of business before you start it.
Even the unique business ideas fail because of not having a scope in the market.
To understand the scope of the market you need to do the research.
It is very important to deliver what your customer wants, not what you want.
2. Market sizing-
Market sizing is another very important part of a startup. Market sizing is done to understand the potential of the market.
To understand the market sizing we generally use the “bottoms-up-approach” – Breaking down a big number into smaller sets of numbers and then rolling them back to understand the size of the market
For example you can ask yourself these questions –
How many water coolers can be sold in India in a year?
How many people will be needing morning breakfast in the office in Bangalore?
How many people need bike repairing services on doorstep in Bangalore?
While answering these types of questions, at the end you will get to know how much maximum revenue you can generate at the end of the year.
3. Competition analysis-
Before you start any business it is very important to understand your competition as well.
Try to visit their stores or shops.
If they don’t have any physical store and shop then call them and ask all the possible questions as a customer.
Visit the websites of all your competitors, understand their content strategy and get yourself signed up to their mailing lists. By doing this you’ll have an idea about their automation and email campaigns.
Click on their ads on Google, Facebook and other platforms to understand how do they retarget you.
Understand their strength and weakness, & suppliers and customers. This will give a rough idea about your position in the market.
4. Finance Mapping-
Money is a big topic when it comes to starting a business. If you do not map the faniance before you start chances of your failure are very high.
Is it going to be a bootstrap business?
Or are you going to take a small loan?
Should you look for investors in the beginning?
If you want the investment then how much is this?
You should have answers of these questions in the beginning itself.
Borrowing the money for no reason can sometimes lead to personal and professional conflicts.
If your company can grow only with the help of professional investors then start preparing the proper documents and balance sheets. These are going to help you further.
5. Risk analysis –
It is important to analyse the risk before we start any business.We perform this risk analysis activity to identify the possible issues in any startup.
It is not possible to forecast each and every risk in any business but If we recognise and analyse the potential risks then we can save a lot of time and energy later.
6. Timelines –
It is very important for a new start-up to fix the deadline for every work. With every plan you should also make a deadline for it to be executed.
Every team member should know about your plans and the deadlines you have fixed.
Not being able to execute the plan what you have conducted is one of the most common reasons of failure.
Time is equally important as money in startups and people don’t recognise it in the beginning.
7. Testing–
Before you come to the conclusion to start a business you have to test your business model first while you are a full time employee itself.
It is not good to quit your job just to do a business because you want to do it without testing it.
You have to verify and crosscheck the plans and the other parameters what you have decided for your startup.
As we know that business is the calculated risk and calculation should be on the basis of testing.
By doing this testing you will understand that what your customers like what your customers dislike, is it good to go with the same product and services what you have? or do you need to modify your plan a little bit?
Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions is also important before you start your startup.
8. Marketing strategy-
To prepare a marketing strategy for a Startup you don’t need to be a very good marketer. Rather you should have an understanding of your niche.
Keep yourself in feet of your customers and think about where you can find them.
One of the easiest ways to grow a business is digital marketing so you should be focusing on digital marketing more in the beginning depending upon the type of startup you are into.
Make sure that before starting the marketing you have achievable marketing goals that are aligned with the plans and targets.
Without a marketing goal you should never start marketing.
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9. Find proper talent-
It is one of the very difficult tasks of a Startup to find the right talent.
We have seen people hiring anybody to complete the work because they are not finding the right talent.
By doing this you are harming your own business.
Do not hire people who are not aligned to your company values and goals.
You have to interview thousands of people just to get that Core Team of your startup.
Startup definitely depends on the core team members in the beginning so do not compromise in hiring the core team.
10.) Your Partners-
Do not partner with somebody because you are not able to find a partner.
Not everyone can be your startup partner remember this.
Many people boast about themselves and they do not have any proven track record to run a company or to do something great in their field.
They will promise everything and when it comes to execution they won’t be able to do it. That’s when you will suffer a lot.
Try to partner with the guy who has different skills than you so that both of you can use your skills in developing the organisation and your skills will not be wasted in arguing and planning.
Always partner with the guy who wants to learn and doesn’t hesitate in asking for the help.
You shouldn’t be partnering with the people who are not having similar work ethics and lifestyle values like you.
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