The most successful multimillion-dollar companies, such as Apple, are able to thrive for decades simply by predicting the needs of their consumers. By providing them with products that they want before they actually know that they want it, they’ve set certain standards in the contemporary world of business that everyone wishes to reach. Having a unique and practical idea is the Holy Grail of a successful startup, and for a long time a lot people thought that starting a startup automatically means that someone has a weird idea that might just work. In a constant search for that Holy Grail, and encouraged by Apple and similar examples, business owners have really tried pushing all sorts of inventions on the market, with no luck whatsoever.
According to the founders, this is the main reason why startups fail. Business owners simply make products that nobody actually needs or want. But while a great number of entrepreneurs fails during the third year of business (44%), and especially within the Finance related industries, hundreds of startups are launched every minute.
Almost 200 startups launched their business during the time you spent reading the past two paragraphs.
46% of startups fail due to their incompetence. 30% of them fail due to their lack of experience. So if you are at the very beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you might want to take some advice from the following bullet points.
Developing a Sustainable Business Model
Without a clearly defined business model your startup is bound to fail. Although as little as 17% of startups fail because of an inconsistent or/and a non-scalable business model, that doesn’t mean that the rest of startups succeed despite not having a business model. On the contrary, most of them don’t reach the point where their business model will fail them. There are plenty of applications that can help you with defining your model and your strategy through intuitive canvas platforms. When you are developing a strategy, establishing a business model and your infrastructure are vital points. Address them as soon as possible and run them through every scenario possible. Defining your business plan is crucial for avoiding mistakes, staying objective and for raising capital.
Overpowered by Competitor’s Advanced Strategies
The business world is fierce and unforgiving. This is old news. But while most companies are staying competitive, 19% of the companies are too worried about other factors to pay attention to their competition. Which is a mistake. A good strategist will always mind his, or her, competition and learn from their success and mistakes. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were always grateful for the fact that they have a worthy advisory to keep them motivated and engaged. In the modern world of business, you can utilize and mimic every campaign and every tool that could help you in running a business. With API integrations and simplicity of a great mobile app builder, you can implement your CRM and ERM trackers, develop them for your particular industry and market, and keep a company always on point and profitable.
Investing in SEO and Digital Marketing
The majority of business owners are very skeptical when talking with marketers, and often worry about the non-transparent ROI. Nevertheless, 14% of startups fail because owners don’t want to invest in their marketing. The somewhat popular belief, that the great product will market itself, is a controversial approach at least in the contemporary world of ecommerce. You simply need a marketing strategy. The basic SEO has become a standard in the world of marketing, and almost 40% of small businesses started investing in their SEO before the year 2013. And as little as 16% of the companies are not investing in their SEO. But those companies aren’t neglecting their online marketing, on the contrary, they are investing in other aspects of Digital Marketing, like social media marketing. And this is something that E-MAILiT can help you with, as an innovative social sharing platform which always provides customer service and delivers both desktop and mobile tools across social web - with the highest customization possible, so that the sharing buttons any publisher selects, matches the website's design.
The Conclusion
So apart from understanding that you have to invest in your marketing, embrace the technological progress and always rely on your business model, remember the first point – answering the need. If you are in the business of demand generation, make sure that that demand isn’t obvious only to you and your friends and family. While the above mentioned are only the basic questions that you should answer before starting a company that is only the beginning. There is always a question of timing, investors and of course, the talent.
Nate M. Vickery is a business consultant and Editor-in-Chief at Bizzmarkblog. His passion is helping businesses reach their highest potential through smart management and marketing planning.