Advice for Aspiring Startup Founders

You may be a young, aspiring entrepreneur and want to make it big with your business. It is not that easy to achieve business success. Industry experts recommend such entrepreneurs to follow their passion. You need to take on the risks/ challenges that come with the business and come up with a viable plan. You also have to overcome your fears of facing loss. Other advice for startup founders includes ‘conduct thorough market research’ and ‘identify your target audience’. But following only these bits of advice will not allow you to survive in today’s growing competition. Passion and motivation will not suffice to keep afloat your business. You will need experience and immense knowledge.

Related Post: Tips for Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs

Top advice for startup founders

• Start only with small companies in the beginning: Try to develop relationships and your portfolio with small companies. Increase your monthly revenue further. Being a fresh startup, you are likely to spend more effort, energy and resources to deal with bigger companies. You may be faced with issues like ‘comply with our company policies’, insurances, delay in communication, legal issues, etc. Hence, deal with small companies in the beginning.
• Focus initially on sales: You need to focus on attracting potential investors and fundraising. However, fundraising requires fulfilling certain conditions and also is much a slower process. In case, your product is already researched upon and has a ready market, then why waste precious time. Reach potential customers immediately and start selling. This way, you can earn revenue that can be used for further development.
• Network: It is crucial to develop social and professional contacts. Spread awareness about the existence of your company by reaching out horizontally and vertically. Identify valuable assets and benefactors.
• Stop catering to bad customers: Some customers may not be easy to be dealt with or be satisfied with even if they are good payers. They require your product/services and you of their money. It should be a win-win situation for both. In case, your client obstructs work or fails to make timely payments, then reconsider this relationship.
• Develop an anti-crisis plan: Crisis may affect your business at any point in time for which you need to be properly prepared. Although it is not possible to prepare for everything, it will be wise to be ready with some emergency scenarios. This way, you can pull your company from the doldrums.
• Content marketing: This is an efficient, quick and affordable method to reach potential clients in huge numbers. But it requires making consistent efforts and is slow in bringing results. Doing it correctly will mean impressive results.
• Fire fast, hire slow: When it comes to hiring employees, be very choosy. This advice for startup founders is quite helpful as employees mean more expenses to deal with. Budget is also a constraint for many start-ups. Select only experienced people who are eager to learn. They should be ready to face extreme work pressure and meet tight deadlines. Fire workers who do not live up to your expectations.
• Get to know about taxes: Pay taxes on time to be on the good books of the law. It is also your responsibility. Figure out your correct tax amount to avoid paying less or more. You can also outsource this task to a professional.
• Learn from your past mistakes: Being a new entrepreneur without much domain experience or a large budget, it is quite natural for you to commit mistakes. Try to avoid repeating them. Each mistake will mean losing your precious money, client and profit. Learning from committed mistakes will allow you to have mental peace and achieve success quickly.

Following the above advice for startup founders will enable you to enjoy success in your new venture.