Many young professionals are moving towards business, ditching their 9 to 5 jobs these days. Most of them are seasoned professionals, highly skilled, and have excellent business ideas. But do they all succeed? The answer is a big NO.
All startup entrepreneurs start their entrepreneurial journey with absolute enthusiasm without knowing the challenges awaiting them. But, how many businesses withstand the competition and run successfully? Most startups fail within one or two years of their launch. Why so?
Of course, the reasons vary with each startup, and there is no one fool-proof strategy for startup success. However, by observing many failed startups, it seems most of them have made repetitive mistakes.
Let’s focus on the common mistakes these startups make. By avoiding such blunders, your success percentage will surely improve. Let’s get started.
Some Common Mistakes that Emerging Startups make:
1. Do not Jump off the Cliff before you are ready:
Are you having an innovative business idea and can’t wait to transform it into reality? Enthusiasm is important, but it will eventually fade out if the idea cannot live up to the expectations.
Often, startup entrepreneurs were not able to meet the technical or design specifications. Most of the time, they realized it after a few months of investing in significant money and time. Thus, the money invested in the business idea is all gone now.
So, it is crucial not to hurry up launching the business until you know how to carry forward with your idea. Take time to think and live the idea, do a market study, learn about your target audience, analyze your competitors, and determine how your product is unique from others. After research, list down your technical specifications.
Now, after a few months into it, if the idea still sounds assuring and innovative, it’s time to get into the game.
2. Do not Delay or take too much time to Launch:
Delaying too much in launching your business is as harmful as starting it early. You may find millions of excuses and wait for that one magic day to launch your business. However, even after doing extensive planning and research, you have to convert your business idea into reality one day to get started.
Too much perfectionism also may lead to delay, and you may end up making the perfect product that your customers don’t need. Yes, most often, entrepreneurs worry about perfecting their product to please the customers.
Though it is a good idea, launching your business on time and taking your product to as many people as possible is also equally important. Also, this way, you will get feedback from your customers as well. Thus you can improve your product accordingly and launch the best final product matching the end-user requirements.
3. Feel free to Share and Discuss your Business Idea:
Some entrepreneurs hesitate to share their ideas, fearing someone else may use them. But, it doesn’t matter as it is all about implementation. For instance, we had social networks before Facebook and search engines before Google. But they become top in their niche. All they did is they outsmart their competitors by rendering better service.
So, if your idea has a weightage, you need not bother about competitors. The whole point is implementing the idea perfectly and confidently. The audience will take care of the rest, that is, making your product a success.
Hence, feel free to share your idea with reliable resources and take their advice, feedback, and opinions. You may get valuable ideas and suggestions that will give new perspectives and insights. You will not know where you get help until you share your ideas and views with others.
However, we don’t suggest you sharing every detail elaborately with everyone. You have to be responsible and act smart with whom you can share your ideas.
4. Don’t Handle Single-handedly, Delegate Tasks:
Startup entrepreneurs often indulge in too many tasks simultaneously. It could be tempting to take control of every department, but eventually, you will burn out. No founder can be a marketer, developer, and designer. You can’t juggle and toss everything at once.
Often, startup owners spend most of their time on unessential tasks like hiring, payroll, and other administrative tasks that don’t generate revenue. In the entire multitasking process, only your results will take a toll at the end.
So, how to handle the scenario? Rather than focusing on every single department, do what you like to do. If you are a marketing expert, do that. If you are a designer, focus on that while delegating other tasks to the respective experts.
That will allow you to focus on crucial tasks like engaging with prospects, analyzing reviews from existing clients, focus on accelerating business growth, and so on. So, at the end of the process, your business will prosper, generating significant revenue.
5. Accept the new ideas and Adapt to the changes:
Initially, you might have had a specific idea about your final product. However, as you move forward with the project and start interacting with other experts, they may come up with new ideas. Also, when you start discussing with your clients, your concepts will further change depending on their needs.
So, always be flexible and adapt to the changes that come your way. Ultimately, you want to build a better product beneficial to the audience. Staying adaptive and being open to the views will help you create an innovative product that adds value to the customers.
6. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP):
Rather than investing time and money in building a full-fledged product, come up with a minimum viable product first, covering only the basic features and necessary functionalities. Upon releasing your MVP, people come with their views about your product. That way, you will understand the requirements and feedback of the end-users precisely.
Once you are confident about your product, you can keep adding secondary features which will enhance the primary aspects. Hence, your product will gain more customers over time. However, always focus on building an intuitive and user-friendly product instead of going for a product with advanced features.
7. Focus on Development:
Most startups indulge in developing their product by themselves to cut costs. Of course, having an in-house development team is a good idea. But, your team may not have expertise in all technologies that your product might need. That is why opting for a reliable and reputed software development company is crucial.
Often, the company will have multiple professionals with diverse skills; who have been in software development for years. They can recommend supportive features and suggest suitable technology stacks for your product. Moreover, the entire development process will be hassle-free as the third-party development team will handle everything. Thus, you can focus on other business activities.
8. Do not Skip Design:
Design plays a vital role in any product as it creates the first impression among users. Regardless of how technically sound your product is, the design also plays a crucial role. No one prefers a poorly designed product as it will not be appealing, and it also makes the product usage complicated.
Whatever your product is, be it a mobile app or web app, or website. Design is not only about visuals and looks. But, it is about intuitive, interactive, and user-friendly design with easy navigation. Saving on design costs will only end up losing potential customers.
So, dedicate time to find professional web designers from a reputed web and app development company. As these seasoned designers take care of your product’s design, you can accelerate your product launch. Thus, your product will reach the market on time or much sooner than you thought.
9. Market/Promote your Product:
So, now, you are ready with an innovative product that will be beneficial to the audience. It has the best design with prompt features. But, how does your target audience know about it? How will anyone know that your product even exists?
There comes the need for marketing. Thanks to digital platforms, you have many channels to market your products. But, many startup owners fail to put effort into promoting their products. Marketing is as important as design and development.
Digital marketing is the best way to take your product to the audience. It opens up the door for global customers. Digital marketing involves building an online presence like responsive and visually appealing websites, established social media presence, posting high-quality content, improving SEO for your website, and so on.
In case if you feel overwhelmed to keep up with the digital marketing/SEO trends, as they continue evolving, you can always outsource it. Many reputed software development companies provide digital marketing and SEO services. You can rely on them to promote your brand, products, or services.
Final Thoughts:
If it is easy, everyone would be doing it. Entrepreneurship is not easy. It is not a job, but it is a responsibility and a mindset. That is why only some succeed, and sadly many others fail. We have focussed on providing some handy and simple tips for startup owners that help them avoid common mistakes and grow into a successful organization.
Are you a startup owner looking for development, design, or digital marketing services for your upcoming product? Cypherox Technologies is a reputed software development company offering website development, mobile app development, web designing, digital marketing, and SEO services. Hence you can get all services under one roof. Feel free to reach us. Our panel of experts will be glad to assist and support you from your product development to launch.
