It’s no secret that starting a business can be extremely daunting. Stories of sleepless nights and anxieties that come with putting everything on the line to keep businesses alive are common. Yet entrepreneurs continue to build businesses. The prospect of helping people and making money in the process is enticing. Startup dedicated developers are a rare breed.
While starting a business is not easy, there are a set of best practices that you can follow for a higher chance of success. These are time tested, evergreen strategies startup dedicated developers can follow. There are no algorithm-specific strategies here or content types that will garner “viral growth”. Rather, a quality set of actionable strategies that anyone can follow for sustained success.
So, like the entrepreneur said to his co-founder – “let’s begin”!
What To Avoid And Why Some Startup Dedicated Developers Fail
1. Lack of Research
“Do your market research”. This quote is heard time and time again in entrepreneurial circles.
There is no point in developing a product or service if there is no demand out there. Or if there are too many large competitors saturating the market.
Considering what features your product has is as important as understanding your competitors.
Before starting a business analyse the market and the competition by answering these 5 questions:
- How saturated is the market with competitors?
- How easy is it for new competitors to come in?
- What is the power of the buyers? Is there a lot of demand?
- What is the power of the suppliers? Are there many or few?
- Are there substitutes for your product or service?
If the market has few competitors, a high barrier of entry, many buyers & suppliers and no substitutes – you’re on to a winner.
Whereas, if the market is saturated and there is a low barrier to entry with few buyers and suppliers and many substitutes – you’re better off applying your efforts elsewhere.
2. An Il-thought Out Business Model
Not choosing the right strategy for your business or not choosing a strategy at all can have serious ramifications.
While financing a startup is important, don’t jump into series rounds just yet. Remember, the more money you try and raise, the more of your business you will have to give up.
- Do you intend to compete on price or quality?
- Are you planning on adding specific features that can’t be found elsewhere?
- Do you intend to disrupt the market with your product to create a loyal fanbase?
- Or will you strip away all the frills and offer a bottom dollar product with an acceptable level of quality?
Choosing a cost leadership model – cheap and cheerful with high volume – vs a differentiation strategy – unique features – should be the first question startup dedicated developers answer. Move forward without one and your business will end-up floating in limbo.
3. Financing
While financing a startup is important, don’t jump into series rounds just yet. Remember, the more money you try and raise, the more of your business you will have to give up. Bootstrapping your business is a great way to test your ideas while retaining 100% equity.
How much you’re willing to invest can be a determining factor in how quickly your business can scale. Yet, it’s a great way to test your product while still retaining a full-time job.
But, bear in mind that business expenses come in all shapes and sizes. In the early stages of startup development, the majority of costs go on R&D and marketing. However, don’t be surprised when unexpected costs dent a hole in your budget from time to time.
4. Poor Management Structure
Directed at startups that have scaled to a point of having a small team of employees and managers. At this point developing the right company culture is crucial to motivate a team to push through the long hours and tough projects.
Without a management team that is willing to get their hands dirty projects can easily wilt. Assisting all employees, giving out praise and appreciation is important to success.
As business owners, bringing in managers who are a good fit for your culture is often just as important as those that have the knowledge to manage and lead.
5. Not Developing A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
An MVP is essential for any startup dedicated developer. Trying to build a fully-featured product without first testing user behaviour can lead to failure quickly.
One of the best ways to develop a quality MVP is to hire a startup app development company. Check out this blog post for more information on the benefits of an MVP.
6. Doing It All Yourself
Along with not developing an MVP, trying to do everything yourself is another quick way to ensure failure in your business. Startup dedicated developers are a stubborn bunch. You may think you know a lot about your market, but do you know how to build a quality lead generation website? Or how to write copy that will make people buy? How about analysing your analytics to make the right decisions or coding on HTML?
A business is the sum of a thousand moving parts. Even the most successful entrepreneurs of the past 2 decades surround themselves with teams.
DIY is dead. Build a team instead.
7. “If I Build It, They Will Come”
Whoever said this, obviously never started a business. Relying on this marketing strategy is a HUGE mistake.
Customers rarely specifically seek your particularly business out. It’s up to you to inform & educate them on what you do and how you do it.
It’s your job to convince your future customers to choose your product or service over the competition.
As a business owner, you should be constantly listening to your customers and improving your service. This will increase your customer lifetime value and decrease your customer acquisition cost.
Relying on word of mouth or the “philosophical” quote above is not only bad advice, it’s lazy.
What You Should Know
1. You Don’t Need To Raise Money
While it can be difficult to do, it is possible to start and manage a business by bootstrapping it (using your own cash) and retaining 100% equity.
This will require significant sacrifices depending on how much you can afford to invest. Bootstrapping allows you to keep total control over your business without feeling the strain of investors.
Taking a business loan is also an option for some entrepreneurs. While taking a loan will still allow you to keep 100% ownership of the company, unlike raising money from investors, credit has to be repaid.
Before applying for a loan, be sure that you can make the repayments should something go wrong. Maybe don’t bet the house against your line of bottled water for dogs.
2. Do Comprehensive Market Research
While not doing market research is one of the worst things you can do, the opposite is extremely beneficial for your business.
As discussed earlier, analysing the competition is important. Can your product be imitated by a large company? Big organisations routinely analyse the market, searching for ideas that they can either buy or make themselves.
Can your product or service easily be replaced in a matter of weeks by a bigger company?
Do your research and find out
3. Don’t Immediately Start Coding
For technology startups, don’t immediately begin coding your product, especially without talking to a Startup app development company first.
An integral part of the MVP development process is mapping out your initial idea and designing a wireframe to test the user experience and branding.
Agile and SCRUM methodologies have allowed developers to be more flexible. Yet it’s important to consider other areas of your business first such as strategy, finances, branding and market research.
4. Make Sure You Can Explain Your Idea in Less Than 30 Seconds
We’ve all heard of an elevator pitch. While the idea of selling to an investor in an elevator is more likely a dramatised version of reality, it is actually good practice for yourself.
If you can’t describe your business and its core functions in less than 30 seconds – it’s too complicated.
Refine what you do and who you do it for so you can deliver it in one line. Imagine you’re at a party and someone asks you what you do. You should be able to respond in one line so they are able to understand your business in an easily digestible bite.
Doing this will not only make you more confident discussing your idea with people, but it will help keep you focused on your goal and the business’s practices.
5. Never Stop Testing
A successful business is the product of thousands of tests. The biggest companies in the world today are still continuously testing their products, services and features to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Understanding this concept early will save you a lot of pain later on down the line.
Never stop testing
6. Start Now
“What makes an entrepreneur successful? They’re the ones that begin” – Marc Randolph, co-founder of Netflix.
If you’re waiting for the perfect time to start a business, you’ll be waiting forever. You have to be willing to take risks, start building and start testing ideas.
Building a team is one of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur, but networking with others in your industry is a close second.
Don’t allow your ideas to get lost among the thousands of other thoughts you have daily.
If you’ve ever wanted to start a business, the best time to begin is now.
Don’t delay.
Where You Can Begin
1. Network
Networking is a great way to increase your professional circle and meet peers in the industry. It can open you up to investors, mentors, potential collaborators and employees.
It also allows for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience. If you’re not networking, you’re missing out on a key component of the startup experience.
Building a team is one of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur, but networking with others in your industry is a close second.
Start by checking for local events online. Build a professional network on LinkedIn or join groups on Meetup & Facebook.
2. Reach Out To Friends & Family
The early stages of startup development can be a lonely place. Friends and family are important for developing a support network. While you burn the candle at both ends, you will need those that can help you relax and provide a life outside of the business.
Friends and family provide integral early support that helps a lot of entrepreneurs to keep pushing in face of adversity. Make sure you set up a network of those you can trust to turn to in times of need.
You never know, they may want to become early-stage investors in your business.
3. Work With A Startup App Development Company
We spoke about the benefits a startup development service can have for startup dedicated developers here.
Not only can they provide expert advice and service, but they can free up your valuable time so you can work on other important tasks.
Working with the right startup development company is important, it just so happens you can find one here.
Final Thought
I hope this post showed you simple errors to avoid when starting a business. Strategies that will stand the test of time.
Now I want to turn it over to you:
- Which of these mistakes have you made when starting a business?
- Which of the things that you should do will you start today?
- Are you going to network more?
- Or hire a Startup app development company?
Whatever you choose, the most important thing to do is get started.
The question is. Will you?
