Starting a Startup requires a number of success-oriented character traits such as drive, dedication and a serious sense of commitment. Founder & cofounders willing to make sacrifices, put in the time necessary, and face challenges head-on if they want their idea to be successful.
We all make mistakes and nothing is wrong in making mistakes because trust me very few try to make mistakes & very very few are trying. Its just one should be aware of them while consistently working on them and of course learning from them. The following are a few mistakes I have seen till now in my way or learned them from crossing my friend’s way.
Startups are usually a group of 2-3 people if you are with 1 wrong guy around you then it’s your 1/3 team. Startups should look for people who are passionate and hungry.
We realized skill can be taught who is willing to work and put it what it takes.
The environment & culture, startups provide is very different from traditional companies. You have to be dynamic in your role and always ready to step-up. One will get the best people when you hire them based on culture. We recommend having two round of interviews when you are hiring in your startups. One should only focus only on what work environment you have and see whether they are a good culture fit or not. Than your technical round. This way you will find the right talent with the right mindset who will enjoy working in your awesome work environment. Look for 4H in everyone (Being Happy, Humble, Honest and Hungry).
When founders start his or her journey of building startup they think, eat, sleep with their idea and a lot of features are floating around.
They believe adding a lot of features will add value to their product but they underestimate the time it will take. In this process, they forget about the actual problem they were trying to solve in the first place. Initially launching a product with multi-features also confuses their end-user. I see this pattern in mostly freshers, they are like they want to deliver all that they can but they don’t understand initially that they should only focus on the solution they are offering to solve the problem of the end-user.
Most of the startups are formed by a single person. A founder may be willing to learn how to be a jack of all trades, but it doesn’t have to be that way we all know. Effective delegation can be one best way for startups to build their business. It’s not always you need to hire people around you, you can think of sharing employees with other startups or you can outsource work, you can even rely on technology for basic tasks like accounting, managing posts on social media there are many tools available for free online.
If you don’t delegate work to others you start burning yourself. You have to wise enough to understand how you are spending your time and on what you are spending your time. Founder should keep some time in a day for himself/herself where he/she can evaluate their day and how effectively they can use their time.
You can work hard, day & night to make the business grow but if you need to build your empire you start delegating. You startups should free up their time for activities that require their unique expertise and build a team positioned for future success.
This is common mistakes done by a lot of startups, mostly where core members are a techie. Usually, startups spend a lot of time and money on building product, they put more focus on the selection of platform, servers, processes which is good but to a certain extent.
Mostly they end up their seed funding on creating a product and when it comes to marketing or sales they ran out of money. We all know the sales department drives the other departments. And what is the benefit of a good product which could not even see light in a day?
One should be very calculative about the cost they are investing as startups are always low on resources. Startups should create base MVP as mentioned above and first try to see are they able to sell it. You should know it very well how to convert your prospects to customer and customer to a loyal customer.
Once you have a good client base and if now you facing technical issues in handling them then now my friend now you are in a good problem to solve.
Timing can be defined as launching the product or service at the right time in the right place. As a startup, it is ok to be early to market as long as you are massively early to market. As I learned from quantitive analysis done by Mr. Bill Gross, Timing matter 42% whether your idea will make a mark in the market or not and not only that but he put Timing on top of team, idea, business model and funding.
Startups should ask this question to themselves first: Are your consumers ready for what you are offering? You have to be honest with you and your cofounders. Market timing is a critical element in the growth and success of any business.
Airbnb had timing on its side. Launched during the recession when people needed extra cash. Uber benefited from launching during the recession as well. Drivers were looking to pick up some extra money to supplement their income. So, let’s assume that your idea is fantastic, you have a strong team in place and even there is sufficient funding at disposal to scale it. However, if the market is not ready to buy your product, nothing else matters or works.
If you have made some mistakes like this or still making, no worries you are still the HERO of your story as you are trying to make a difference.