How to Ideate, Build, and Scale your Startup !!!

"No Mountain is unconquerable, if you not only plan well, but also prepare well."

For a passionate soul, it's easy to fall into the romance of starting up, building an idea from scratch, and scaling it up to deliver a deep impact that lasts for long. My first startup attempt was in 2008 when I declined the job offer from a renowned IT company. Though the startup failed, and I took an exit from it in 2010, I ventured again into the startup world in Dec 2018, putting all at stake.

I have poured the experience from my two very serious attempts at entrepreneurship and the mistakes I have made, into a tentative roadmap that I wish to share with you to help you climb the mountain -of building a successful startup- faster and better. You can either watch this video or can read the article below.

Before you start your startup, you need to be crystal clear on the "WHY" and "HOW" of your plan. In a country with more than 1.35 billion population, you can't be alone with a unique idea and your team can't be the only one to deliver it. But you and your team can certainly exhibit tremendous perseverance, complacency to learn, adapt to changing situations and innovate to finally build your vision.

The decision to launch a start-up is a big one. What differentiates a startup from a business is that a startup focuses on impact, solves a problem, and is scalable. Business, on the other hand, focuses primarily on profit-making, not on scale or impact.

A Startup is envisioning something of the future which has a deep impact and a big scale.

Entrepreneurs frequently underestimate the amount of time, resources, and energy required to establish and build something from scratch. A successful startup is not built in a day. In my opinion, the first 2 years are the introductory phase for any founding team, to connect all the dots in its business ecosystem and develop the ability to make strong strategic decisions. Passion to build a deep impact is what keeps the team rolling for years. To bring an idea to reality, therefore, takes much more time than it seems as it requires proper development to transfigure into a successful business venture. In this article, I outline the ten critical steps for entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

Step 1: Ideate

The majority of startups are based on a problem statement. They seek to solve problems that are being faced by consumers today. For example, Oyo identified that the quality of services being provided in budget hotels at that time was not up to the mark and worked towards achieving customer delight by standardizing services.

Some of the startups are born beyond the problem statement. They envision the future differently and build products/solutions that redefine the lives of the customers. Such startups have the capability to redefine the market or rather open frontiers of a new market.

Step 2: Secondary Market Research

The founders should acquire the maximum possible information concerning the identified problem statement by undertaking secondary research from authentic sources such as industry reports, journals, magazines, research reports, etc. As the next phase of secondary research, validate the problem statement by utilizing the gathered data and confirm that the problem statement has a scale, that is, it should be a problem faced by a lot of people, not a few.

Step 3: Stakeholder based Open Market Research

Define your customers (segmentation and targeting) and the product. Divide this step into two phases. In phase one, drive knowledge from customers by conducting at least 30 deep questionnaires (in case of a B2C / B2B2Cstartup). A typical questionnaire may last for 40 min to 60 min. Every discussion should help you grow, testify your assumptions and learn something new. You should have the thirst to go deep in the discussion and unearth the hidden knowledge.

An important point to be noted is, though the customer is the king, she/he may not know everything. This is where the second phase comes in where in-depth interviews of other stakeholders such as investors, trade unions, suppliers, creditors, retailers, etc. are conducted to get a broader picture. Always look for the opinion of business experts from the same field.

A great mentor/expert from the same field can save a lot of your resources and the most important of all - your time and your positive energy.

Record these interviews, draw inferences and streamline your product definition.

Step 4: Competitors' Analysis

One should focus on the competitors only after one has satisfactorily conducted the preliminary phase of market research and has outlined its differentiating value proposition.?Scanning the competitors shall help you unearth weaknesses in your value proposition and identify new threats. This activity should help you either validate your business proposition or redefine it.

The founders need to scan the existing players, their financial statements, map their journey, talk to their stakeholders, and even use their product to gain a better understanding.

Few very important points to note here are:

• Do not get lost in your competitor analysis to the extent that you end up copying some of your competitors' features.
• If you are in a market with no competitor, maybe there is no such market at all.?

Step 5: Redefine the Product Offering

This is critical. By now you would have collected ample information from research, competitor mapping. At this stage, you need to recheck your product offering and, if required, redefine it. The focus should be on how you can build entry barriers in the future or how you can build a monopoly. In the end, your startup should not only see the light of the day but also prove itself the best in the market for long.?

Step 6: Customer Survey

This is the stage when one should conduct phase-2 of market research. By now you would be rock solid on your product/solution features. It is the stage when you need to conduct a close-ended customer survey with well-defined answers among a large set of customers. The sample size varies from business to business, for instance, to launch an FMCG product, a sample size of at least 300 target customers is suggested whereas, for a B2B product, a sample size of at least 30-50 companies is suggested.

Step 7: Build Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

MVP is a basic model demonstrating minimum required features that serve the problem statement. Launching MVP saves time and investment. To understand MVP better, I suggest you read a short book by Pieter Thiel "Zero To One".

MVP serves as the litmus test for your startup. Do not hurry up in offering your MVP for "Free". Rather make sincere efforts to sell you MVP. Sales is the most important validation of business success. This is the first test of your startup idea.

Step 8: Build GTM Strategy

This includes the entire marketing plan and sales efforts that ultimately bring revenue and distributes the product in a scalable and profitable way. Define your market plan in a phased wise manner. Do not rush to build a long-term GTM plan right in the beginning.

Once you've built the MVP, build a GTM strategy for the next three months to sell the MVP and collect customer feedback. Post that, redefine your GTM and now build it for the next 6-12 months. Sales and customer feedback are the biggest parameters to validate the success of your idea.

Do not be in a hurry to showcase yourself as "Big".

Step 9: Prepare B-Plan

After 3 months of your MVP launch, I am sure you would have gained sufficient expertise to build a strong B-Plan. A plan that works. For more on the format of a B-Plan, I'm sure you can google and easily find a format.

Step 10: Adding Resources (Funds / Accelerator)

To raise funds or to join an accelerator, you will have to pitch the idea, the progress, and the road ahead by using a pitch deck. A pitch deck is a short presentation of 9-10 slides that encompasses Introduction, Problem Statement, Solution, Market Validation, Product, Business Model, and Unit Economics, Competition, USP, Team, User Testimonials, and Financials of the startup. To know more about the Pitch Decks, check this video

You might require preparing a teaser pitch that explains the product in 3 slides if you wish to share the pitch deck later. I would also suggest startups join an accelerator once they've built an MVP.

Last But Not the Least:

Entrepreneurship is all about resolving issues and creating new products and startups are one of the most promising approaches to address the world's most pressing issues since they can respond to problems much more quickly and invent solutions more freely than traditional organizations. It's your turn to make your mark in the world!

Go and Climb your Mountain!!! But before you do that, remember to Plan well and Prepare well!!!

Note: Do not hesitate to contact me for advice, regarding your startup. I do offer pro-bono (FREE) startup consulting to students or founders who are in the early stage of their careers and can not afford it.

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Note: Special Thanks to Shivani Bhardwaj for assisting in writing this article.