Starting a business isn’t always a walk in the park.
Unless you are a child of an already established business magnate, media mogul, powerful politician, or an influential bureaucrat, your chances of succeeding in your own business are embroiled with challenges.
On the bright side, there is a plethora of business possibilities if you are consistent, dedicated and hardworking; you surely can fulfill your dreams.
In this unpredictable world, where some businesses succeed, and some don’t, where some founders become billionaires while others have to do part-time jobs just to make their ends meet, what dictates success?
In this blog, we will find these critical factors that directly dictate the success of a startup business and try to see what impact they create and why.
Let’s get digging.
Table of Contents
Product
Your product might be great. But if it isn’t helpful to people, it failed at achieving its purpose.
Here is how Henry Ford defines a good product.
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one. – Henry Ford
A good product has a reputation in the market. Its promotion spreads like wildfire, and when it spreads, customers flock in. It is the parameter of a startup’s success. We have tons of examples in front of us in the shape of Uber, Careem, Go, Instagram, Snapchat, and many others.
What made them different from the rest?
Their product-market fit.
These products weren’t made to counter other businesses. They were made to fill a gap in the market. And, that’s what made them succeed.
Leader
In the startup world, leadership is especially important. Not only it will help your startup grow, but it steers your success, defines your vision, and creates a product from scratch.
Here is how great leaders define leadership.
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight Eisenhower
What makes a leader a leader? Integrity, rules, choices, selflessness, and the ability to say no. These are some suggestions according to Inc. magazine.
A good leader will take a business from ground-level to the skies. Similarly, a bad leader will take the startup back to scratch but will also incur a mental and financial loss on the company.
Team
Good things can’t be achieved alone. You need a team to achieve those dreams. Just like a basketball coach understands that he needs the right players on his team to win the league matches, a successful businessman understands that he/she needs a talented team to create a remarkable product and sell it in the market.
A good team is like your hands; it helps run the business, achieve your yearly targets, and bring innovation to the team.
But finding the right team is like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to scroll through dozens of resumes before you can pick the right candidate for your startup business.
Processes
There is a saying; success is not luck, not hard work, and not even magic. It is a process. And, those who master this process become successful in whatever they want to achieve.
In Get Things Done, David Allen, a business expert, writes that it is the process of a company that takes it from point A to point B.
There is a whole subject on this concept called ‘Business Process Re-Engineering.’
If your business doesn’t follow a process, it will die out more quickly than other businesses. Even if you have a lot of funding available for your startup, it won’t help you excel unless your processes are in place.
Budget
The next important thing for a startup is its budget. Without having enough budget, you won’t be able to do much for your startup. This means less marketing, less execution, and a poor quality product.
Although many startup founders enroll in incubation centers to find investors who can provide funding for their startup, this is not always the right approach. Unless you can monetize your startup without external help, taking external help will only leave you with more liabilities. So, when creating a startup, make sure to use your resources or the resources of your relatives.
Go Pro founder started with only a couple of thousand dollars borrowed from his father. Today, Go Pro is a billion-dollar company!
Execution Strategy
Your startup plan is just an idea. You need to execute that idea to get a sellable product. This requires an execution strategy. An execution strategy defines the decisions you undertake, the operations you follow, and the actions you perform to turn your business idea into a viable product.
Your execution strategy will include everything from operations strategy to management. It should be written down and become a part of your business plan. Only then it will be able to affect your eventual success.
Marketing Plan
Once you have an execution strategy in place, you will have to create a marketing plan. Your marketing plan will describe how you market your business to your customers.
Remember, an inferior product, if marketed well, can sell even faster than a well-thought-out product. That’s because perceived value matters more than the actual value. Unless your brand is appealing, exciting, and offers a unique approach to marketing, your brand won’t succeed.
Funding
Finally, you need to find investment/funding for your startup business to make it scale. Most investors are looking for startups that are already generating money. They can’t trust only startups in the inception stage because ‘ideas’ are vague.
So, the most important thing that dictates the success of your startup is if your startup has already started generating money. Once you are past that stage, it is time to get funding.
Find potential funders who will be interested in your product before you ask for money. For example, if you have a leather jacket-online store, you should find investors who have already invested in similar startups previously.
Remember that there are thousands of Venture Capitalist (VC) firms out there, and not everyone is a good fit for everyone, so make a wise choice.
Bottom-line
Combined, these factors derive the success of your startup. Each of these factors is crucial for any startup business because they help the startup meet all business objectives.
If any of these factors tend to become weak, you need to fix it by investing time, resources, and making adjustments that can help overcome that weakness. Only then you will see your startup moving from idea to inception to growth stage.
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