Realizing your startup / young shoot project, making it live over time and finding its viability requires solid skills. Discover our 10 tips to avoid the most common pitfalls.
1. Identify the Motivations of Your Project
Creating a startup can be like an obstacle course. Bringing your idea to market can take time. To face the difficulties, motivation will be your main driving force. Know how to clearly identify what drives you to get started . This will be an essential point of support.
2. Don’t Go Alone
Very often in startups , complementary key skills are necessary: the first relating to technology and the product, the second to business and marketing. Choosing your partner(s) should not be done in a hurry. Choose people you are used to working with and whom you fully trust.
3. Observe the Competition
Become an expert in your market. Observe your direct and indirect competitors. Identify customer dissatisfaction. A good knowledge of the target and their expectations will allow you to develop your products or services in a relevant way.
4. Ensure the Balance Between Products and Services
A service startup tends to develop more slowly than one that markets products. To avoid this risk, think of associating the offer of products and services, by having recourse if necessary to external partners to ensure the totality of the offer.
5. Encourage Membership
Whether with your team, your investors or for your clients, the key is to get all of your targets to adhere to your vision. You must be able to explain your project in less than a minute, with conviction, in a clear manner.
6. Think “Growth Hacking”
This growth technique, diverting traditional marketing methods, generates good results without advertising costs or traditional marketing expenses. Hiring a growth hacker or using the services of a specialized company can help you find your market without excessive costs.
7. Anticipate Your Financing Needs
A startup must move quickly to succeed. Capital is key for both R & D (research and development) needs and business development. Identify potential investors close to your vision .
8. Break the Rules
A start-up must be able to reverse, if necessary, the rules established in the development of a traditional company. Do not hesitate to break the codes to organize your value chain, your commercial practices, your modes of communication.
9. Control Your Growth
Keep in mind that controlled growth will ensure greater sustainability . The growth of your teams implies new financial means to deal with new projects. You must move forward by constantly mastering this unstable balance!
10. Stay the Course
Practice “ lean startup ”: learn while innovating and validate your concepts through customer feedback. However, avoid changing your project along the way because of the opinion of a single major account. Stay the course.
