2021-08-29 20:23:13
#BusinessEducation
7 mortal sins of a budding startupEvery startup wants their business to grow and improve quickly, but this is the reason why mistakes are often made. What mistakes should you avoid in the early stages?
1. Premature scaling You should not scale a startup if you have not had time to check the product market fit - its relevance among the target audience and market capacity. To test this, answer three questions:
Are startup sales numbers growing?
Do the founders have a common vision of a future startup and a strategy for its development?
Is cash flow positive?
If you gave all three positive answers, your startup is ready to scale.
2. Loss of focus Where do we go, how do we go, when do we plan to come? If you find it difficult to answer these questions, you are making one of the most common mistakes.
Marketing is a tremendous opportunity. The main approaches aimed at growing a startup are brand, performance and product marketing. Each direction is responsible for the implementation of a certain stage of the sales funnel: awareness → attraction → activation → income → repeat purchases → referral.
Chaotic movement from one task to another without working through all stages of the sales funnel threatens with the loss of time, opportunities, investments and profits.
3. Vanity metrics It happens that startups collect an infinite number of metrics, the indicators of which are progressively growing upwards, but at the same time the growth or business goals are not realized: revenue is not growing, the flow of users is relative, product recognition is not targeted.
The problem is that the startup doesn't have a relevant metric base.
Vanity Metrics will show you how well you are at dealing with growing social media followers, page views, and trial users, but not meeting business challenges. For one goal, 2-3 metrics should be chosen and the time frame for their achievement should be determined. The algorithm is simple: set a goal → answer the question "how will we achieve it?" → choose clear assessment metrics.
4. You don't know your customers The key to a long-term relationship with a client is empathy and understanding of his real needs. To understand your customers, you need to answer the following questions:
What problem or need do my clients want to solve?
Why should they choose us?
How can we be helpful in the long run?
5. Don't understand the value of your own product If the product is not validated, and the audience does not see its value, there is no point in talking about marketing. A quality product is the answer to a real user request. No amount of marketing will make your product better.
6. Play short Long-term success cannot be ensured by its individual components: customer knowledge, brand awareness, product validity, and the like. Only a clear marketing strategy can guarantee the achievement of business goals.
7. Don't value yourself and your team Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Be tolerant of yourself and your team, respect the ideals that put you on the startup path, and be grateful for any experience that awaits you.
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