As a serial Entrepreneur, I know what it takes to be successful. I have had my failures and I have had my success. By failing 5 times my startup ventures I came across some habits that led me to succeed in my sixth startup. Here is some habit that you can use to keep your start up sustainable right from the start and succeed while you go your way up to the top.
Launch with a great product
Seth Godin in his bestselling book “The Linchpin” said ‘Launch your product and make the necessary changes later on.’ This doesn’t mean launch a half-cooked product. It means start executing things. Execution gives you the confidence to come up with a great product. The more you execute, better your product will get. And the better your product will get, easier it will be to correct it later on.
Select the right name
They say what is it in a name? But when going for your startup name it is important to keep it simple, memorable and sticky. If you pick a name that is difficult and people are unable to relate to it people might not be able to connect with your brand
Business plan is important
Every Entrepreneur has their own style of making a business plan. And a good business plan is a key to business success. The business plans us simply listing down your long term vision goals and targets on paper and set time bounds to achieve those goals. Strategies are devised on how to achieve those goals and changes are made accordingly.
Hire slow but fire fast
I have learned that putting the right people on the bus is one of the most important things you need to do right from the start. Secondly, you need to put away wrong people off the bus too. Do not hire people on the first interview. In fact, do technical interviews along with HR interviews. And if the candidate successfully manages to understand your company culture and goals hire him instantly. And if you realize somewhere that the person is now misfit for your company, fire him fast and move on with the next hiring.
Scale fast and scale smart
WhatsApp wasn’t acquired at the initial level. In fact, the owner applied for a job on Facebook and got rejected. After a year the owner and Mark were in the same room discussing buying WhatsApp. In fact, if you willing to go for an e-commerce venture, the first step is to come up with a powerful eCommerce web development site. Nowadays focus is on the usability of the website. Next, comes the strategies which are working for you. Adopt those early and pivot your startup as you grow. Dismiss the ones that are not working for your business.
Generate the buzz
Learn the art of selling your brand. Your brand is a personality and your job is to sell that personality to some like-minded people. Once you have done that, those people will themselves market your brand for you. If you give them experience that is awe-inspiring they will surely remember you and if you treat them with respect they will share your mission with others or free. This to me is the right type of marketing. People doing marketing for you, and this is only possible when you give them something solid to talk about
Learn Social Media Marketing
Most of the startups do this mistake of hiring some external resource to do social media marketing for them. But I understand and can tell you for the fact that best marketing can be done by the owner himself. Because owner will market with a passion. He knows what he is talking about. When Zappos was started, Tony Hsieh started managing its Twitter handle for a year. This built trust among people. People knew someone was listening on the other side and sales tripled from Twitter. You can do the same. In the start do it yourself and after a year hire someone to do it for you but make sure he follows the rules defined by you.
So here it is friends. My journey as a startup. I have failed a lot and learned a lot. And these 7 tips were the solid foundation based on which my 4th venture was successful. You can follow to and make a dent in the universe.
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