What makes a successful start-up?
Research suggests that 50% of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years, so why do half of start-ups never succeed?
An interesting fact is that people who have had previous failed attempts at starting up new businesses have a higher success rate than first-timers. 20% of people who have failed at a previous business are more likely to succeed with their next venture, compared to just 18% of first-time entrepreneurs.
This is because there are certain qualities that successful entrepreneurs have; tenacity, the ability to persevere, and the ability to learn fast. Failure often teaches more than success, and struggle leads to growth.
One typical reason first-time entrepreneurs fail while their second time around, previously unsuccessful counterparts go on to succeed is their desire to scale too fast. Ambition, drive, excitement, passion, and the desire to be successful are all great qualities to have in an entrepreneur, but they must be controlled. Often when left unchecked, these great qualities can themselves be the downfall of a potential great new venture.
Targets and visions are set too high, the amount of runway needed is often underestimated, and the confidence in the market immediately adopting the product or service is over-estimated. Timing is everything. It often takes someone with the experience of failure to understand that things don’t happen in our time-frame. And this is where an experienced adviser is necessary. Someone who can come in, who is not part of the company culture and can reign back on the leash when it is needed.
Starting up a new company is exciting, launching a new product is exciting, developing a new technology or service is exciting. And it is this excitement that often gets in the way of the reality of launching a new product or service and getting those first few customers or clients on the books. Too much time is spent perfecting, and not enough in planning.
Start-ups should be well aware of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept, and should look to launch this well before any product or service is perfected. Another overlooked aspect of launching a new business is marketing. As new businesses focus on product or service development they forget to plan and detail their route-to-market. What does the customer journey look like? What routes and steps do prospects go through to becoming new customers? What high growth segments exist within your target market? This is most important.
You can have a great product, the best, but unless you have put as much effort into planning how to acquire new customers as you have in developing the end-user experience, then your chances of succeeding are significantly reduced.
Having a solid marketing campaign in place prior to the launch of any new product or service is crucial. However it is evident that start-ups can`t survive on digital marketing alone and if they are to get the most from digital marketing techniques they need to be combined with traditional marketing values and methods.
Today, its easy to see that traditional methods of marketing have actually evolved to co-exist alongside digital marketing techniques and that digital marketing would not be where it is today without the values of traditional marketing methods being what they are.
The Digital Marketing Toolkit provides businesses with every task and action needed to be carried out by new companies to incorporate traditional marketing methods with digital marketing techniques in order to increase their chances of success. Important key aspects of marketing such as product & service analysis, market analysis, customer acquisition, buyer personas, customer journey maps, branding, and content creation tools combined with SEO, online advertising, email marketing, the use of customer relationship management software, social media and landing pages to help new start-ups lay the foundation for success.
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?Richard Downs, 3x failed entrepreneur