To do the first step and build your own business from scratch might be overwhelming. Even though you have a bright visionary definition for your project, yet it may be a risk if you do not have relevant experience. But don’t you worry! Our dev team has a lot of experience working with the startups. Therefore, we know all the possible challenges that you may face and what is more important we know how to deal with them.
Take in mind that the final result and success of your startup directly depends on you. Therefore, we decide that it will be useful to get to know about the main features of how to build a startup that will bring success. So, let’s start...
1. Develop an Idea
Think big but keep it simple! You will have time to expand your idea later when you will be sure about the direction of your business development.
For now, you may brainstorm and write down every single idea that comes to your mind. Think of the unique solution of the specific issue that bothers you or define what are you passionate about. Developing a precise idea of your startup will help you to come up with the distinct definition of your business and identify the target audience in the future.
Get to know your potential customer. It is not enough to know the age and occupation of your target audience. It is crucial to take in mind and have the vision of how their professional life/personal life looks like, how exactly your product supposes to make their life easier. Take into consideration that your business should solve problems and make the lives of its users easier.
In fact, criticism is an inevitable part of every business. Try to be your own worst critique. Try to find out why your idea is bad and exactly what things make it bad. This approach will show you some drawbacks of it and will help you to improve your idea significantly.
2. Market research
Who are your customers? What do they buy now and why? What will make them buy your product? Answers will lead to profound market research which is the core of your startup.
While doing market research pay attention to the essential components, like:
An industry which will include market size, trends, and segments;
Target segment which is based on the demographics and psychographics;
Competitor research focuses on competitor market share, pricing, and product marketing.
The key to future success is to understand the market. Market research aims to understand the reasons consumers will buy your product and consumer behavior taking into account cultural and personal factors. In addition, by researching the market you will know better your competitors because it is quite likely that the similar idea of yours has already been developed or about to launch.
3. Hire a reliable team with a long term perspective
At the very beginning of your startup journey as a business owner, you should have an advisor by your side to help offer guidance to navigate the entrepreneurial labyrinth.
You should take in mind that the startup stage is just temporary, that is why while creating a team you need to concentrate on the long term cooperation. Therefore, build your team in accordance with the organization’s structure in mind. Think of different departments that would be functioning in your business. You may choose pretty basic departments that are included in various industries, like Sales and Marketing, IT and Support, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Production and Operation, Customer Service.
Choose professionals so they will assist you in achieving a maximum result. Thus, dev team or freelancers should be able to build a technologically advanced product, while managers could assist you regarding how to reach people following marketing strategies. You need to be sure in your team in order to cooperate efficiently and at the end produce a top-notch product. Pay attention to the relevant knowledge in tech development and experience in the business.
Read our article about Freelancers vs Web Dev Company.
4. Tech Stack
How to choose the right tech stack for your startup? What to choose for your online product: Angular or React Native? Or perhaps something different? Those questions might sound a bit confusing if you do not have a relevant background and knowledge.
In fact, the tech stack is a core element of your future product, its functionality, scalability and providing a framework for client-side as well as architectures. Nowadays there are multiple engineering platforms and frameworks that are used for building fast and more responsive applications. Therefore, you need to choose carefully from the range of frameworks and libraries, so they can perfectly fit into the scope of the startup. That is why hiring the skilled team will assist you in making the best choice by following the best practices of the specific framework.
However, you should not navigate your way through tech terminology all by yourself. There are a lot of freelance or B2B platforms to make a decision about hiring developers or designers. For instance, you can check out YouTeam, Upwork, SourceSeek or Aciety to choose the right candidate from the wide range of professionals.
5. MVP
It is an essential step to test your product that consequently will help you to improve, add or eliminate certain features. It also will show the customer reaction towards your product. In order to get the best result from launching the MVP, you need to focus on the most basic features of the product. At this stage, the technological approach is crucial so that at further stages of architecture or scaling, there will be no need to waste time on refactoring and starting the process all over again from the scratch.
Read our article “How to Create the MVP: Your Step-by-Step Guide”.
6. Be creative
Taking a startup idea on the next level you need to stay creative and passionate about future prospects. Motivate yourself to grow, taking risks, breaking rules and inventing new solutions even when you’re busy. Find the way that inspires you the most, like go for a walk, read a book, listen to the podcast - the simple methods that may provide you with a perfect feature, a unique solution for your product or completely new ideas to start working on.
Bold thinking, brave solutions, unusual experiments are essential to get started a business, attract the investments and expand users. Do not be afraid to go beyond generally accepted principles and think out of the box. Just be sure in your decisions and try, try, try.
7. Do not forget about risks
To start something from scratch is always a risk, especially if it comes to starting a business. Let’s consider a few risks that you might face:
Market and Product risk. You may ask yourself if there is the right market for your product? If there will be a demand for it? Will people be content with it and pay for this product or service? It is always a certain uncertainty about what features need to be included in the product, what problems are solved. In that case, the detailed specification of your online product and launching the MVP will provide you with the required information to improve your startup development.
The risk of unexpected changes. It is alright to stick to the plan, but be ready to be flexible. There might be times that will disrupt your schedule. For example, the product feature may not have the expected result or similar feature has been already launched recently. Therefore, be ready to change and evolve along with the process.
Financial risk. Do not forget to estimate the primary cost of starting a business before you actually start it. Additionally, if you will be hiring a freelancer or a dev team for the development of the tech stack of your business consider the type of contract before hiring them in order to eliminate misunderstandings in the future. In that regard, you may choose fixed-bid or an hourly rate contract. Both of the contracts have their pros and cons, therefore you should choose which will be the best fit for your particular business.
You may be interested in reading the article about Fixed-Bid Software Projects.
Conclusion
Did you know that most startups fail because of the lack of proper research and planning? That is why you should not underestimate the stages of idea development and marketing research. Hire a reliable team with a long term perspective and a high level of expertise. While the team of developers will help you to choose tech stack for your startup and launch the MVP, the managers could assist you regarding how to reach people following marketing strategies. You need to be sure in your team in order to cooperate efficiently and at the end produce a top-notch product.
Taking a startup idea on the next level you need to stay creative and passionate about future prospects. The most important rule is to set a realistic goal for your online startup development and follow it step by step. Be patient and do not neglect the basic elements that will help you to build a reliable online business.
In case you have left any questions or you have any suggestion, feel free to contact us us and we will help you in any inquiry!
