Speed is Key To Startup Success, but how?

As an advisor to young and growing companies, there’s one major mistake I see inexperienced entrepreneurs make time and time again – moving too slowly.

But the need for speed in launching a startup has little to do with being the first to market, and everything to do with having the necessary resources to actually GET your product to market.

Often new entrepreneurs spend so much time trying to get everything perfect that they run out of money. To launch a startup, you need to be agile and you need to be quick. Slow and steady will, almost certainly, not win the race. You need to be efficient, decisive, and ready to learn and adapt. But for people unfamiliar with founding a company, moving at such a fast pace can be scary. After all, it’s your dream on the line and you don’t want to drop the ball in your haste.

But there is a way to launch a startup quickly and successfull whilst minimising risks to your business, just remember the following 3 pieces of advice:-

1. Understand agile startup principles

   The traditional business startup process is normally all about planning. You decide what your company is going to be about, refine your idea, develop a process to make that a reality, hire employees, and go through a thousand other steps before even starting to create your product or service.
   Whilst this is fundamentally correct it assumes you have all of the resources you need to go through this process including all the investment you might need.
   In most cases Start-ups in the TMT space need to evolve in a totally different way and instead they adopt the principles of being an agile startup.  These principles allow you to develop a quick framework for the business with a number of steps you need to get through to meet your end goals.  The agile part comes because you should aim to simultaneously release versions of your product or service along with each of the steps you’ve just identified.
   There is no concrete plan, but rather a series of tests that prove or disprove assumptions about your company and product. The results of each small test allow you to refine your product. This method enables you to see what interests your target market and what doesn’t, and from there you can decide what the next step of development is.
   Since you’re learning as you go, you don’t need to worry about sticking to an absolute plan but you can work within the framework  or even change it as you go along,  and if something unexpected pops up, you can continue to move forward instead of going back to the drawing board.

2. Embrace mistakes

   Many people equate mistakes with failure. They worry that one wrong decision will mean the end of their company. As a result, they begin to worry and overthink each step they make, which slows down the process.  Unfortunately, that fear of mistakes can actually lead to failure because of the delays it causes. Instead of worrying about each possible misstep, accept the fact that you will probably falter at some stage. Give yourself and your team permission to make mistakes, as long as they approach them as a chance to learn and do better. Iterate and test small aspects of your product. If something doesn’t turn out like you had hoped, understand that it’s better to find out after spending a week working on that feature rather than six months down the line.
   Also, know that when you’re adopting the agile startup principles, you’re focusing on small aspects of your company. If something turns out to be a mistake or not resonate with the market, it’s on a much smaller scale than a traditional launch process. Just analyse what data you’ve gathered and make a new decision based on that information.

3. Don’t over develop or expand

   Great startup ideas have plenty of room for growth and development. However, great startups know every possible feature or product does not have to be ready from the very beginning. The same thing goes for hiring staff, there is absolutely no point in hiring sales people unless you have already achieved sales.  The basic message is if you continue to develop beyond the bare minimum, you’re wasting time to get to market and generate revenues as well as spending too much cash.
   Get the core of your company out to your customers first. See what they have to say about the product, what new features they’d like to be added, or what else they’d want from the company. Then use that information to prioritize your next steps of development.  Performing A/B testing after you’ve gone to market will let you see what the true possibilities are for your startup. For example, say you’ve released the basic version of an app and you have an idea for what feature you’d like to roll out next, but aren’t sure if it’s worth the time and effort. Create a button for that feature that leads the user nowhere. If nobody clicks on the button, you just saved yourself a lot of time and resources developing a feature no one would use. But if the majority of users are interested in the button, you know it’s worthwhile to develop that feature.

When it comes to building a startup, the secret to success is speed. The quicker you get off the ground, the quicker you can prove your concept to others and the quicker you can begin to see some money rolling back into the company.

Follow these tips and you’ll see your business take off sooner than you could have ever imagined.