The startup bug has bitten the youths of today to the core. Bored of following the daily monotonous work routine? Looking for freedom and money? Lets start up! This is the general trend that we are witnessing nowadays. The result? 90% of them either fail massively or are back to square one. Starting up cannot be just another career alternative since one puts almost everything at stake- money, time and what not! One can’t just afford to fail although petty mistakes are always permissible.
Following are the most common mistakes one should avoid before it’s too late to turn back the ship-
- Market timing
A startup can make it’s presence felt only by capturing it at the right time.
Sometimes, startups launch products which are far beyond the existing marketing and technological conditions. Or it might happen that the crowd is just not ready for it as their mindset has been nurtured in a different way.
Even if these startup people are highly intelligent and creative, sadly enough, they fail. So, timing is very crucial which is a complete game of proper strategy.
- Poor Management and marketing strategies
Innovation and creativity is at it’s peak nowadays. Entrepreneurs are bringing ideas on the table that had never been thought before-so there’s risk both at the management as well as technical side.
Team members may have core technical knowledge and may lack the skill to convert it into business. More often than not, bad managing and marketing decisions also lead to failure even if the product/service is good enough.
- Chasing investment at ideation stage
“Chase the vision,not the money; Money will end up following you”
-Tony Hsich, CEO, Zappos
Ideas come to almost everybody but the real courage lies in executing it. Startups fail even before making their first move when the need of money overpower the need of a good product/service. If a product is strong enough and out of the box, then funding will automatically follow. Hence chasing only investments before acquiring few customers is one big mistake.
This itself shows one is not confident enough!
Also Read: How is bootstrapping better than fund raising?
- Weak team
A team is the basic foundation of any organisation. Great team is just not about hiring smart and talented people. A great team is the one which also compliments each other’s strengths and mitigate each other’s weakness.
So a team which lacks what it takes to launch a successful venture can not simply sustain. The reason being in this highly ambitious market, it is clearly the survival of the fittest!
- Arrogance
Launching a successful venture comes only to those who are confident enough. Often team members become boastful in an arrogant way only when they have achieved very little. Ultimately, this leads to imbalance resulting in lack of concentration and wrong abrupt decisions.
Overconfidence and arrogance have led to failure of several startups time and again.
- Turning greedy and overconfident
Most startups start falling apart just after raising money. They start burning cash till the last money is hoovered out of their account just for the sake of quick success. Overconfidence starts dominating and the result is flamboyant marketing.
This may successfully create short term presence in the market but greed for money and success can never keep startups going in this highly competitive atmosphere.
- Not considering customer viewpoint
The most common mistake that startups make is launching something which they feel is important. They do not research enough to understand whether it is actually needed by the masses.
This mistake has often seen years of hard work and large fortunes going into vain simply because the market had no demand for it.
- Wrong product/service
Simply because a product/service is unique doesn’t imply that they will be accepted. Many a times, exceedingly luxurious products are launched which can be affordable only by a small segment of people. Moreover launching products/services which have already reached a saturation value is another reason of failure.
- Lack of passion
Most people whom we revere are the ones who work hard,really hard. We worship them because we know them. They are renowned because they were passionate about what they do. They work round the clock, 24*7 , but are still not the hardest working individuals on the planet. You know why? Because they love what they do, they are working to bring a real change and so what they are doing can’t be termed “work”.
When there is no passion and lethargy sets in, there is no place to shine in this world.
- Lack of research
Many people have started assuming that starting up is very cool and startups is synonymous to luxury. They fail to realize how strong nerve is required to make one’s presence felt.
So often people without doing complete analysis of their competitors launch their product or start working on it. The result is quite obvious! Loss of time, loss of money and ultimately unfulfilled dreams!
