The reality is that most startups never make it to full-blown company. This is not always because the idea isn’t great or the passion from the entrepreneur isn’t there, or even that the money wasn’t available. Around 90% of startups fail and that is just the way it is.
But why? Surely there must be a way to avoid this fate. Thankfully, there is. You need to learn from the mistakes of others. It’s still not a guarantee, but you have a much better shot at getting off the starting line if you don’t let history repeat itself.
Focus On Your Customers
A business is not about you. Sure, your idea might be great, and you might be the driving force that gets that initial concept into a full-blown business. However, you are not the most important element – your customers are.
Without customers, your business will fail. It doesn’t matter how great the idea is or how well you’ve executed your business plan. You need to make sales and you need to win over the public with your sales pitch.
Don’t Take On Too Much
It can be hard to separate the person from the idea, but you have to if you want your company to succeed. It’s highly unlikely that you have the capabilities and the capacity to do all of the things that you need in order to build and then run your company. Delegation to people you trust who are experts at what they need to do will help the business to bloom.
It’s also very lonely and difficult to go it alone. Once you have the support of a team, you can feed off their energy on the hard days. It’s also great to have input from other people who aren’t as close to the idea as you are.
The key is to find other people who have different skill sets to you so that you can complement each other. However, you also need to have the same vision for the company. If you are misaligned, you are doomed to fail because you can’t work as a team.
Focus On The Right Things
Too much of startup culture revolves around going out for coffee to talk about great ideas or talking about what’s fun for the sports fans or your other preferred target market, rather than focusing on research and development. Yes, it is good to build up a network of people who can help you by investing or boosting word of mouth once your company goes live. However, those people are of no use to you if you don’t have something to sell.
In the very beginning, you should be focusing on what you are going to sell and who is going to buy it. Your research should look into market demand for your concept, as well as how much and how long it is going to take to get it to that market. There’s no point in creating business if no one wants to buy what you’re selling, or if it is going to be impossible to get it to market without investing too much into it.