Tech Startups in the Dutch Market

What is a Tech Startup?

A tech startup is a company starting up to provide technological products or services to the market. Tech start-ups are the most lucrative businesses to enter markets, they do encounter challenges and are difficult to start but with the right guidance and tools tech startups could be gold mines.

According to Eric Ries’s book “The lean start-up”, a radical guide to getting a low-cost technology business off the ground before cash flow is worn out. Here are tips for keeping a low-cost tech startup with a manageable cash flow:

• Do not create an LLC immediately, this has a lot of unnecessary legal baggage and this issue comes with organizational structures and taxes to be paid before products/services are available
• The tech is more important than the structures that support it, for example, Apple and HubinIT
• Non-technical founders will need to sell their vision to a prospective CTO, tech costs nothing but time

Here are 7 steps to building a successful tech company:

1.?????Shortlist the core features of an MVP.

Refining the value proposition by listing core features, collecting feedback, and validating the concept is critical to ensure the product roadmap is heading in the right direction.

The focal point should be providing a minimum set of features users need to achieve a goal or realize value; project management apps need attachments uploading more than it needs support for custom emoji.

Mistakes to avoid when building an MVP:

1. Overcooking the MVP: Get a small, highly targeted segment of the market to buy into the idea and revenue streams open to expand an MVP and take it to a broader market.
2. Choosing the wrong market segment: Knowing your target market is important to build an MVP with the market fit.
3. Refusing to pivot if the MVP won’t stick: MVP could be marketed to the wrong customers or missing features that persuade customers to buy.

2.?????Pre-sell the MVP

Customers with a financial stake in the success of the product are willing to help co-develop the product /service in return for the features asked for.

Sales=Validation

The types of MVP pre-selling strategies to validate the concept:

• Single-feature MVP: Focus on nailing one user goal, to validate the need for the feature.
• Piecemeal MVP: Keeps costs low by combining existing services to come up with unique offerings.
• Concierge MVP: Do most software work manually and work closely with customers for example HubinIT works closely with their customers for understanding how best to improve.
• Wizard of OZ MVP: An MVP is deemed as a software service, but its results come from manual work, this can validate the results of your app.
• Crowd-funded MVP: A video demonstrating a prototype or representation of a service with this aspect you can generate “havoc” an get feedback and this keeps costs down.
• Smoke test MVP: Validate demand for your idea by sending paid traffic to the pre-release signup page.

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3.?????Source talent with Equity

This can further dilute equity, giving away a chunk for CEOs looking for investment. This can further increase expenditure on seeking talent and further harm the company.

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4.?????Acquire Customers

Knowing where your consumers or target market is likely to browse online or “hang out” is vital such as platforms like online communities and social media.

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5.?????Look at the numbers

Evaluate how many order flows or signups are received. Creating a shortlist of this metric is important:

• Active users and how to calculate active users.
• Retention rate: How do the numbers grow or improve active users if retention is low the company has a better chance of generating leads.

6.?????Stay Agile

This means making decisions based on limited data.

Here are some tips:

• Working in sprints
• Taking feedback seriously: It is a vital aspect Create specific tags in your support ticketing tool that describe the feature or aspect a user is talking about (#feedback -sidebar-ui), or at least diligently upkeep a Google Sheet with the latest snippets of feedback.
• Killing features or campaigns that don’t move.

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7.?????Fund and scale

This aspect comes last once the company has a product-service market fit, and a valid MVP this then is easier to determine areas needed for scaling.

Here are funding options:

• Crowdfunding
• Angle investors
• Accelerators

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Technology in Dutch Market

The Dutch IT sector is common around the world for its rapid innovation and adoption of new technologies. Companies focal point should be on cybersecurity. IT service markets will be powered by progress and amalgamation of the business sector applications, demand for integrated IT solutions and an increasingly layered framework. Growing demand is expected in the market within the IT field, trend seen is the rapid increase in AI, machine learning, blockchain. Dutch deep tech and the potential in tackling the status quo and boosting innovatively.

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What is a Deep Tech Startup?

Deep knowledge-intensive startups in the academic world are companies that leverage new?technologies. These startups can come directly from universities, or they brainstormed from existing companies and research organizations. Deep tech startups have high potential due to scientific breakthroughs thus having the potential to revolutionize the industry by creating new industry verticals. However, they are also characterized as capital-intensive and risky due to their longer runaway to market application.

The realization of Dutch deep tech startups' potential can only happen through strengthening collaborations between universities, knowledge institutions, start-up hubs such as HubinIT, incubators, government, and investors. Various projects to tackle deep tech startup programs and efforts to strengthen science to impact are currently underway.