What are the main points a startup company should consider before launching?
As a start-up company, what are the main points or factors we need to take care of before launching?
Thanks in advance,
Sarfraz Saleem
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Feb 11, 2015
Predefine who gets what (profit) and who will be responsible if things go wrong (liability / the bill).
Get your partner agreements in place, check legal terms and conditions and perhaps consult a lawyer (have one ready just in case).
Whatever you do for someone else (customer) makes you liable and responsible (unless you have your legal stuff in place and signed by partners and customers) ..
Get NDA's, terms and conditions, price-list.. just imagine; what if your work had a negative effect on the customers brand and now they are going to sue you for damages !?
Don't be too happy-go-lucky at the start and think of worse case scenarios.
Good luck
Feb 7, 2015
as a start up you should focus on:
1. Experience you have: it is from your experience that you had in the market that would help you to tackle obstacles.
2. Know your competitors strength and weakness.
3. what innovative idea that you can bring into the market.
4. Market condition: how does the market perform.
5. Break Even Point
6. Rate of return on investment.
7. the profit.
8. you should have good strategies with you the should act as your blue print for penetrating deep in the market.
9. you should know your weakness.
Feb 7, 2015
Certain Points may be a standard spectrum wide however, many are also very specific. If you wish you are welcome to contact me and I would be happy to provide feedback. One of my entities called giving-back is built solely around the concept of helping create businesses for unemployed and underemployed. Though as a part of that is the knowledge, market data specifics etc applying to many industry types, sizes, goals etc. From Inception to Market Domination is the tagline for another of my companies Web2Market
I am always happy to help. Feel Free to get in touch, I do not charge to answer questions.
Mar 1, 2015
Continuation )ran out space lol.
6b. Determine given cost of acquisition, time and type of man hours involved what is the minimum you would need yield en total each day week month etc, in order to survive, in order to grow.
6c. What then given 6a and 6b do you need to charge for _____ in order to achieve the above.
6e. is there a way to monetize that would be benefit you and your endusers to help offset your expenses.
7.If you have. require or desire an online presence, become aware of the rules which govern organic site rank position. What requirements exists your website in terms of actual design, what needs to be in place to be considered site relevant to rank for a given search phrase. What are Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird and how can they affect your ability to be easily visible online
Feb 6, 2015
Hard to say, not knowing your company or what you are doing, but look at 3 aspects:
1. Product/Service - Roadmap to Revnue
2. Relationship Management Strategy - Partners, Customers, Employees, Government
3. Customer Success Strategy
If you can "Check" these boxes, it is a starting point!
Feb 5, 2015
The points listed below are excellent...Make sure your psyche is ready for the ride...Fail forward fast, be sure you like selling, and don't be afraid of rejection...
Feb 5, 2015
"Launching" assumes you have identified and know how to reach your ideal customers with a compelling value proposition that can be easily acquired/adopted. Your business plan should guide you to the optimal use of resources to create, sell, support and grow client relationships. If you are not clear, don't waste time, energy and money. Get it right the launch right the first time and you will have plenty of opportunity to make and learn from mistakes but if you don't create clients in your launch, you don't have a business. Good Selling!
Feb 5, 2015
Due your homework work on business plan be honest with proforma and projections
Feb 5, 2015
Know that the answer may not be contained in your MBA classroom. Be ready for blood, sweat and tear equity. The answers/points/factors also depend on type of start-up. Virtual storefront or bricks and mortar. Software or industrial. Product or Service or both.
reason you started company in first place; a perceived need in your industry
customers who will benefit from your unique offering and know the why
your market
time to market for your product or service
pricing of your product or service; is it competitive within your industry?
know the intangibles of your offering; differentiation
telling your story, informing your selected customers
Focus; do not try to be everything to everybody
Budget; where is it coming from - banks, grants, angels, pending contracts
location of facility/ease of access for visiting customers and shipping/receiving
dedication of your team to this company/buy-in; personal investment in addition to time
your processes/procedures ensuring a quality service/product to your customers
infrastructure in place/development when you open doors
certifications/registrations for your company as deemed required by your industry
verification/validation your service/product meets/exceeds industry requirements
market acceptance
Feb 5, 2015
No doubt, all the suggestions raised are relevant and depending on your business, branding, promotion, marketing and more promotion would be beneficial. However, I believe in certain cases, timing is more important. When it comes to product placement, marketing, promotion and everything else that helps your business off the ground, if the market is not ready for your products/services, you're more likely to struggle. I've experienced it all before...! Good luck with your business.
Feb 5, 2015
You have been given a lot of sound advice. But ---- if you expect to grow, you will need to hire new employees. I am sure you really want your business to succeed and are willing to throw everything you have at it, meaning all your creativity, innovation, productivity, intelligence, knowledge, experience, and energy. The big question is do you know how to lead your new hires to feel the same as you? Do you know the right actions and the wrong actions to take and why the right ones are right and the wrong ones wrong? If not, you need to find out and there are only a very few people who know all the answers.
Feb 4, 2015
Hi, Sarfraz,
Just to add to the rest, as a marketing/market research guy, my answer is the most important thing is to understand your customer:
- what are his needs?
- what are his problems (that you can solve)?
- what does he want?
- who and where is he?
- how can you solve his problems?
- how is this different to other solutions?
- does he recognise his need?
- if so, how much is he prepared to pay to solve it?
- if not, how do you bring it to his attention?
- where does he go/what media does he use for information?
- what information is he looking for?
- where and how does he want to buy?
- which media does he use?
- what is his ideal customer experience/journey?
- what service/support do you need to provide?
- how do you get him to recommend you afterwards?
- how do you get him to come back and buy more?
To sum up: You need to understand your customer so you can promote the right product/service to the most valuable segment(s) using the right message through the right media to the right customers, at the right time, at the right price, through the right channels with the right support.
Get that right and everything else should fall into place!
Get in touch if any of this needs explanation or you need some help with your market research.
Good luck!
Peter
Feb 4, 2015
You have to define your objective in a phases and set our plan and corporate identity, and you to double or triple your marketing budget
Feb 4, 2015
I have a free guide book to going over startups and any other business, or "good idea" for making money at:
http://lulu.com/shop/c-k-yap/1-million-business-ideas/ebook/product-21920607.html
Feb 4, 2015
It is totally depends on your Master business plan,e.g Sagheer Business Plan
STEPS:
(0) Market re-search………………………….why?
(1) Market re-search……………………………what?
(2) Market re-search…………………………..How?
(3) Title or name …with respect to name, with respect to business, with respect to location, with respect to era.
(4) Motto…with respect to business.
(5) Dimensions.
(6) Competitor.
(7) Mission Statement.
(8) Vision Statement.
(9) Location……with respect to positive and negative aspects.
(10)Team…………..with portfolio.
(11)Finance……..Fix and Running.
(12)Finance Management……with feasibility report in the form of chart.
(13)Business Formula.
(14)Business Flow…with the help of flow chart.
(15)Mathematical Model of Production…with cost estimation method.
(16)Promotion Strategy ……..with Probability or regression model.
(17)Risk factor…with your weak points (S (strengths) W (weaknesses) O (opportunities) T (threats) Analysis).
(18)Role of Technology.
(19)Growth Graph.
(20)Break Even.
Feb 4, 2015
These are few factors you need to take into consideration:
a) Are you a ME TOO player or you have a path breaking solution for an unmet need?
b) What is your unique value proposition to your target audience?
This will set the course and action plan on how to reach out to the audience.
As funds are sort and you would be looking for maximum impact - its advisable to know the pros and cons of each option and then choose the ones that you feel you can afford.
Ensure that dedicated hours and resources is allocated towards marketing for awareness creation and lead generation.
Work on building a target list of your prospective buyers to communicate your story. Present it well. Make nececcary course corrections, based on the interaction.
Keep your eyes and ears open.
Reach out to all your friends, acquaintances to let them know a bit about your start-up and leverage the power of your network.
All the best
Feb 4, 2015
From my experience the main three factors are
1. Sell. Sell your backside off! Cash flow will be your enemy so be aware of it at all times.
2. Be flexible. What you think is your destination will most likely dramatically change throughout your exciting journey, I'm sure it already has.
3. Back yourself. There will be so much 'white noise' and people giving you their advise that you might start to second guess yourself. Just keep going until you a) reach your objective or b) have learnt more than you think you ever would and and do it all again.
Check out Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start", http://youtu.be/jSlwuafyUUo, entertaining and some really good advise about avoiding that white noise.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
Matt.
Feb 4, 2015
Capital
Marketing: Who is my customer, where do they go before they come to me and where do they go after.
Feb 4, 2015
This is such a board question it says loudly you are not ready to launch any company.
I spent 5-10 years preparing myself to launch a company by reading hundreds of books, being a manager and Vice President, going to SBA and MIT Enterprise Forum and other venues and far more. The answer is my CEO Boot Camp and years of preparation to understand sales, marketing, operations, finance and product development (your domain/industry). I also created a book called The Startup Manual with a CD-ROM of digital tools to walk you through the entire process of design, launch and grow.
My products are avaialble at www.StartupPlanet.com but I would strongly recommend an experience CEO Coach and/or advisory board.
All that said basic service businesses are simple to run, while technology businesses that are meant to scale are far more complex and require lots of experience.
General things you need:
1. Clear target market or ideal customer profile
2. Clear value proposition and messaging that resonates with target customer - ideally a customer that understand the need and value, not one that needs lots of education, which is expensive in sales process.
3. Business model design (an art very few can do well that requires decades of experience)
4. Financial plan and/or capital to start
5. Team that compliments each other. See my Best practice video here:
http://vimeo.com/airtight/review/106564389/fd0bc40126
All of this together and more is called a "Vision" and I have an article on this here:
http://clevelenterprises.com/articles/What%20is%20a%20Vision.htm
I hope this helps, though it seems you need much time and experience to be ready.
Feb 4, 2015
Safraz, it depends on your product or service an indutry space and where you are on the process. Generally you want to do the following before a launch- proof your concept, define your market and set assumptions to test.
If your product/service is ready to launch- set a clear objective, how are you going to measure success, what marketing tactics if any, and activity timetable for before, during and after launch.
Hope this helps,
Javier
Every business is unique, However i will provide a general outline
1. Determine your purpose? (what is the reason you are going into business)
2. How do you intend to exercise that purpose? (what services do you wish to provide or what product types you wish to sell etc.)
3. What or Where are the greatest opportunities? (who needs your services, or the products you wish to sell.
4a. What is the Vertical or Genre most likely to benefit from your service or products.
4b. Determination of methods and uses of engagement.,Realworld Online or both.( then take it further, this group responds well to blue, or kittens or whatever)
6a. Estimate overall company expense involved. (if you wish to manufacture mattresses for example, this would involve the materials necessary for production and all associated fees and overhead and well as the costs involved in client acquisition.