The internet is littered with detailed advice on how to steer a startup to success – but how exactly would you define success for your own company? As warned in an Inc. article, few businesses soar to multimillion-dollar status within a year of being founded.
In the corporate world, even supposedly ‘overnight’ successes can actually be companies that were bubbling under the surface of mainstream respectability for years beforehand. How can you sow the seeds of a business likely to achieve high but sustainable – rather than fluke – results?
Address a problem you passionately want to tackle
If you look up why many of the best businesses were started in the first place, you will notice it was often because the founder or a co-founder saw a problem they felt no-one was else was doing a good enough job of tackling – leading the new kid on the block to try their own luck.
If you gear your startup towards rectifying a dilemma you find genuinely irritating, you will have the required passion to overcome rough spots on your corporate journey.
Put together the basics of your roadmap
You could break out in a cold sweat at any mention of creating a ‘strategy’ for your business – but actually, to a large extent, such a strategy probably formed in your head when you first came up with the idea for the business.
The Lead Grow Develop website advises that you consider both short-term and long-term goals for your startup. For the near future, think about what you are likeliest to do and how. Your longer-term plan can be more flexible.
Consider how you will fund the business
It would be good practice for you to reserve up to half of your company’s funds for marketing, promotions, focus groups and building the business.
While you might be able to do just fine running your business from home initially, renting a serviced office – like one of the serviced offices provided by BE Offices in the UK – could give you access to lots of business essentials, like internet connectivity and telephone calls, at an attractive price.
Approach the edge of your comfort zone
In doing so, you can help your startup to make significant breakthroughs – the kind that could have eluded you if you had played things a little too safe. This is why, from time to time, you shouldn’t be afraid to set big goals – like the aim of attracting 4-5% more customers in just a week.
Don’t expect success to happen overnight
As Billy Ocean sang in the 1980s, when the going gets tough, the tough get going – and, no, not through the exit door. So, don’t hit the panic button if your company hits a few stumbling blocks.
Consider the example of Apple – which, though founded in 1976, did not become a big name in the tech industry until the Macintosh computer arrived nearly a decade later. Metaphorically speaking, you need to spend a lot of time planting and watering seeds before you can expect to see growth.
