Get Your Start-Up off the Ground Using These Steps
With so much changing within a COVID filled world, its no surprise the market had taken a beating, pushing the model to shift and adapt to a new world quickly. To instantly get your new idea off the ground without wasting time and money, try following these steps:
Use design thinking
Design thinking is a development process that helps teams understand their consumers’ needs, pains and intrinsic motivations. The process forces you to challenge assumptions, reframe issues, and find unique solutions for your buyers.
Ask yourself:
Does your product or service provide a practical solution for your customers, and do they even need it?
Determine your proof of concept
A proof of concept is more sophisticated than a simple UI wireframe –
The primary purpose behind it is to get the evidence you need to either continue developing the idea or drop it and move on to the next thing.
Having a proof of concept allows you can test out new feature ideas, without having to burn through money and the time it takes to build them out ultimately.
Do in-depth market analysis.
Showing that you know the state of the market and understand what you need to do to succeed is critical in a business plan.
Your overall objectives should determine the scope of your market research what do you want to learn about your market and the outside factors influencing it?
The basic questions you should try to answer with your market research include:
Who are your customers?
What do they buy now?
Why do they buy?
What will make them buy from you?
Try Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is all the buzz in Start-up circles. It’s a fantastic way to find supporters; believe it or not, the internet is full of people eager to finance new concepts and products.
There are three main types of crowdfunding:
- Equity-based crowdfunding includes multiple people investing in the business, receiving equity in the company in return.
- Reward-based crowdfunding is the where people pledge money in return for rewards.
- Debt-based crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending is similar to a bank loan, except you’re lending from a syndicate of separate people, often backed up by various corporations and government schemes.
Leverage Social Media
With over 3 billion active users worldwide, social media proves to be the best platform to grow your business. Ignoring it can become fatal. It’s quick and cheap to digitally connect and interact with your target market 24/7, which allows you to create a loyal community for your brand.
Best Practices:
- Build your brand as people and not just a business.
- Take social media as more than just a status update.
- Establish expertise and thought leadership with original content.
- Jump into trending topics that are relevant to your business.
- Explore video marketing.
- Experiment with new content formats.
