Make Sure Your Startup Doesn’t Fail with These 25 Tips

TechInAfrica — It is no surprise to learn that the majority of startups fail. But there is research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, you can at least put a number to the failure rate, about 75 percent, and hopefully avoid becoming part of the failure. With three-quarters of venture-funded startups failing to succeed, here is startup success tips to make sure that your new business won’t be one of the failed ones.

Know your purpose

What need does your startup attend to? Why will people care about your business? If you can answer these two major questions you’re already well on your way to success.

Do something you love

You need to put your heart into the business. If your heart isn’t in it, the temptation to bail during difficult times will be high. If you’re able to do something that you love, you’ll have much more motivation to keep persevering. Startups require more than a 40-hour workweek so make sure this is something you’re willing to do around the clock.

Believe in yourself

Self-doubt can be paralyzing, so it’s important that you believe in yourself. If you know that you’re putting 100 percent into making your business a success, you will find that self-confidence often follows.

Surround yourself with supportive people

While you don’t want to surround yourself with “yes” men, it’s also important that you don’t have to constantly match with people putting you and your business down. Don’t waste your time or energy on the defense.

Learn from criticism

Merciless negativity won’t take you anywhere, but thoughtful criticism can be very valuable. Any opportunity to improve an aspect of your business should be warmly welcomed.

Challenge conventional wisdom

Learn to spot when helpful advice is only a suggestion to conform to the popular paradigm of the times.

Keep learning

Be careful when you think you know it all. There’s always more to learn, so be wary of becoming too complacent. Everything you learn is an opportunity to improve your business. That goes for mistakes as well. All startups will suffer from mistakes, but the entrepreneurs that learn from them are likely to be the successful-25-percent.

Pick a good name

“Good” can be a subjective qualifier, so you should try making your decision based on what your target audience would enjoy. Choose a good name that suits your audience well.

Serve your customer, not yourself

While you should rightfully feel ownership of your startup, remember that ultimately it’s there to serve your customer and not you—vanity projects won’t last long. With every decision you make, keep the customer in mind and you’ll build a product or service they can get excited about.

Find out what your customers want

Blindly assuming you know what your customers want could prove costly. Fortunately, researching it first doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many things you can do to conduct simple research; you can search forums, ask questions on social media, or, to avoid mistakes, spend some money on surveying opinions.

Raise the right amount of capital

While you need enough money to give your startup every chance of success, keep in mind that having too much can make you lazy and all too willing to separate with your cash. Of course, you may want the option to access emergency funds, you’ll just have to make sure you can stick to a strict budget and define what exactly an emergency situation is.

Plan thoroughly

A business plan is much more than necessary to help you get funding; it can act as a guide and keep you focused on the task at hand. It’s easy to get caught up in the minute details and lose sight of the big picture.

Don’t plan forever

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that since you’re planning it means you’re being productive. Planning must make way for doing. The planning phase is preferably sooner rather than later, so use your time wisely.

Carry on planning

Once you’ve done a little work, go ahead and go back to planning. Constantly re-evaluating your business and the direction it’s going in can help you find opportunities for growth.

Anticipate the future

Nobody can know for sure what tomorrow will bring, but if you keep yourself informed and learn how to spot upcoming trends, you’ll be much more likely to successfully predict the future. You’ll also be more prepared for the next strategy.

Adapt

However, no one can predict everything, so make sure you and your business are flexible enough to react to surprises quickly. Don’t follow in the footsteps of movie rental company Blockbuster, the latest business to have failed in recent years because of their inability to adapt to changes.

Network online

Utilize the power of social media to help connect you with potential employees, partners, clients, providers, or people that can promote your product or service.

But don’t forget offline opportunities

Step away from the computer, put away your smartphone, and find people in real life at conferences and networking events. The connection you can make with a person face-to-face is naturally stronger than one mediated between screens. And of course, don’t forget a professional business card to turn your encounter into a relationship.

Surround yourself with the right people

Networking is a means to an end. You need to establish who is worth your time and who isn’t. Don’t underestimate the value of someone useful, and similarly, don’t underestimate the destructive potential of someone who isn’t.

Be dedicated to work

Launching a startup is not like having a regular 9 to 5 job where you get your on and off work schedule on time. If you want to avoid failure, you have to be prepared to fit your life around work. It may seem like working for yourself will mean better hours, but to be successful, you’ll most likely be going way over the standard 40-hour workweek. But look at the bright side, whatever results from your hard work is entirely your own.

But find time to relax

While any entrepreneur must expect an increased workload, you still need to find time to unwind. Without being able to occasionally relax, you’ll inevitably suffer from burnout, causing more damage to your business.

Negotiate everything

Whenever a price is quoted to you, remember that a healthy proportion of that is profit margin. Can you lower that margin for your benefit? You might not always be able to coordinate a discount, but it’s worth remembering one of life’s most important rules: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Develop an elevator pitch

If you want to convince the vital people that you’re worth their time, you’ll have to capture their attention within 30 seconds. If you can develop an elevator pitch that will intrigue people and show your idea has potential in that amount of time, you’ll inevitably be afforded more time to discuss matters with them later.

Start marketing

If people don’t know you exist, you can’t expect positive results. Whatever your budget, there are things you can do (like tip number 17) to start getting the word about your startup out now. Use the power of digital media, tweet, contact blogs, and tell everyone willing to listen about your new venture.

Don’t give up

In the majority of cases, startups don’t actually fail, it is the people behind them who give up. One most effective thing you can do to make your startup a success is to refuse to give up and keep on believing.

Source: articles.bplans.com