There are mistakes start ups make could lead to pre mature death .
Fortunately there are guidelines.
Reverse engineering the process in the early days of business could prevent foreclosure .
Very few start ups use problems as a starting point .
Guy Kawasaki calls it the “pre morterm” analysis where buy you create problems and fix them before they happen to avoid note mature death if your company .
Reverse engineering the process .
This is going to help avoid investing years of your hard earned money into developing products and services that you assume will sell .
Get Public consultation and feed back to help reduce the chances of failure come launch time .
Have you ever heard of the “lean start up approach ? “
- Build
- Measure
- Learn
The lean start up approach doesn’t delay launch time, it allows you to save time and money .
In addition to that it allows you to develope based on evidence presented to you in the market .
The technical aspect of a launch is one piece of the puzzle .
Most start ups need seed money and in return have to give up substantial percentages of their profit margins.
They have to contend with Having limited access to technical resources a banking connections.
Small business owners like Micro managing and controlling everything .
When you are starting you want to build a team of people around you consistently.
Being nimble and innovative , unconventional and responsible fiscal management will help position you for growth ?
Competing on product is another issue that I see the smaller brands having trouble with .
The reason why it’s an issue is because the the bigger brands can manufacture more at a lower cost.
So that means the smaller brand would have to mark down their inventory which would mean
A Thinner profit margin
B Loss
Depending on the cost associated with acquiring the products.
Then you have situations where by companies come in and disrupt the market .
Brands like No limit used unconventional marketing techniques to carve and out and gain market share .
When you are operating with a tiny budget you have to think outside of the box .
Thanks to social media smaller brands can take advantage of the landscape that organic traffic provides.
Organic reach will get you in front of a certain percentage of people further more It doesn’t cost a penny.
If your content is t good people will share it and it will go viral meaning you will get more exposure free of charge .
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Knowing how to sell is going to ease the burden on you tremendously .
So ,I say build with the people and use the insight as foundation to build upon .
Another thing I would advise you to do is design uniquely valuable products so that you don’t have to compete on price.
Trade marking helps but that’s not going to prevent a competitor from designing something similar .
Some businesses have an economic moat around them making barriers of entry difficult to enter .
The larger more established firms have much more leverage.
They have a team of people which means they can produce much more than you .
Every advantage that a big firm has over the smaller ones I truly believe theirs away to offset that.
No limit records founded By Master P is a prime example of a smaller company that broke in the market and gained big market share in the music industry.
No limit knew they had to be unconventional and innovative which means thinking outside of the box in order to grow .
Daymond John founder of fubu closed down three times before finally succeeding
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. Daymond wasn’t going to borrow excessively and put himself in a hole .
He kept his job while building his business ,now Fubu is a billion dollar brand.
With that being said you can’t be slow or conservative .
The bigger firms have the capital to deploy funds in to boost their marketing .
On the flip side growting rapidly will attract the attention of the bigger firms .
Mark Zuckerberg saw the growth Instagram was making and he couldn’t ignore it so he brought it .
With all that being said the skillsets are the most important aspect of growing a brand.
Conclusion
Never assume that you know what consumers want especially if you are new to the market.
Start ups come and go but the ones that remain like Amazon Facebook came to the market with unique value.
Amazon came into the game and focused on Faster delivery and better Prices.
Facebook focused on communication and family experience.