Master the 10 skills required for a startup and be successful
We are in a world where a startup is easier than ever, so think about what makes your startup special?
Friday July 14, 2017 , 5 min Read
Most entrepreneurs believe in following their million-dollar dream. There is no one big reason for the startup success. It is a combined effort. Below are the most valuable pieces of advice to learn from successful entrepreneurs before you kick-start your startup idea.
Let us summarize the findings from all great entrepreneurs. These qualified and quantified suggestions guide you start and successfully build your business.
1. Start Early:
“It is never too late to start”. But this saying doesn’t fit in all cases. Many fresh graduates wait for the perfect opportunity to begin business. And there comes the time, when the opportunity survives and disappears as well. So it is best to do something, ideally in your field and start learning. All these things bring up the real interest and uncover the true opportunity.
The longer you wait, the harder it will become. Not anytime, but now is the perfect time to try your luck as an entrepreneur.
Learn to carry out the smallest idea possible and validate it often. Good timing is better than good luck. The right timing trumps team, idea, execution, business model and financing.
2. Real-World Experience:
Every experience teaches you something or the other. One must pay attention to what’s happening around in order to apply it in the business. Real-World experience gathers immense courage. Share your idea and concept with others. The feedback you receive is worth noting. Transparency definitely builds trust and loyalty. Being transparent even adds more innovations to your current idea which you would have never thought otherwise.
3. Innovative Idea:
You should start with an idea, not a company. Your idea may not be new, but make sure it is innovative. Your idea, purposely shouldn’t be unique and fresh, but you should be in a position to execute it in a way you thought it must be.
Approaching a person’s problem and solving it by building a product is always going to be in top-notch innovative idea list, no matter what. Building the best possible team to execute your idea efficiently is also critical. This will ensure innovative thinking.
4. Understand your Customers:
Marketing is an important function of a business. Never underestimate its prominence.
Don’t assume you know what the customer wants. Startup founders who don’t truly understand their customers will fail. Customer acquisition is the biggest challenge in the path.
5. Support Players:
Lawyers, accountants, and tax consultants are the greatest support players in any business. A successful entrepreneur never underestimates the prominence of these support players. Accounting and law firm might sound too big for your company during start, but they definitely enable enough credibility and professionalism from the beginning.
Legal Counsel and Legal issues are at the end of the day, business issues. Lack of legal counsel, from the beginning, might result in serious issues later. Eventually, a good law firm will make you go public.
6. Do not compromise:
As yours is a small company, you tend to go for smaller resources. But, instead, surround up yourself with the best. Do not hesitate to go big. Never compromise on the excellence, make courage and acquire excellent partners, thereby professionalizing your startup.
7. Bring in Senior Management:
Senior Manager and good executive with an experience must be brought into the company as early as possible to analyze substantial equity. Experienced management team adds a unique value to the company’s success. Bringing experienced manager early will be a culture-defining moment.
Sometimes, they might own complete control of your company. Prepare yourself for the moment of transition to avoid problems on the way and sustain the vision of your enterprise.
8. Board of Advisors:
Board is one of the important resources of an enterprise to execute critical decisions of the company. A board brings complementary skills to the company. Get the most demanding advisors you can get. Board members must be well-known in the industry as this provides additional credibility while raising money or hiring people. Never hesitate to hand over the responsibilities to expertise team members.
If yours is a visible and interesting company, it will definitely attract well-known advisors. Many senior advisors out there are very likely to involve with promising startups.
People are definitely going to evaluate your venture based on who you are with.
9. Team Effort:
Building a company doesn’t solely depend on one, it is a joint team effort. Control defines the value you bring to your business, not a number of shares you own. A smart entrepreneur realizes it and gives an equity share to venture capitalist. This brings in tremendous benefits to build a bigger business.
The team includes Managers, employees, Director of the board, advisory board members, technologists, accountants, legal professionals. As an entrepreneur, you are worth what you deliver.
Have a strategy. Occasionally, take out some time to analyze where your strategy is going.
10. Be Patient:
Every business is meant to see ups and downs. It would definitely, take years to achieve success. Sooner or later it is surely going to happen. The time in between is the best period to learn from losses and plan for future strategies. Passion and patience are what keeps you alive in spite of all the hurdles. Seek advice and confidence from your role models. If you hang around with what you are doing passionately, success might not seem long for you.
Eventually…
Startups that scale decently grow about 20 times faster than premature scaling. Startup founders will be highly successful if they aim to achieve these skills.
All the above approaches, when applied correctly, will surely lead to success. For an enterprise to be successful, all these things must come together.
Author Bio:
Sirisha Paladhi possesses love and passion towards writing, which brought her into this field. Presently, she is working as a Content Writer at Mindmajix. During her career, she has written many articles on technology innovations. In her pass time, she relishes in making handy-crafts.
Twitter URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paladhi-sirisha-74987881/