By biztree
Building a startup is not simple. Building a successful startup is even harder.
I started my business five years ago. In 2020, I achieved $2.7 million in annual revenue; my goal for 2021 is $10 million. Building my startup took hard work, dedication, sleepless nights, money—and, of course, some failure before I succeeded.
In five years, I’ve made a bunch of mistakes that delayed our growth, and I wish someone would have shown me an article like this one. So now, I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help you get through the startup process and make fewer mistakes when building a startup than I did.
15 things every entrepreneur should know before building a startup
1. Leave your comfort zone
We started making sales and getting traction early, which allowed me to hire a team. However, when you experience success, you can either become comfortable and lose your fire, or you can continue working to get to the next higher level.
It turned out I was the first type; we ended up not growing and we stagnated for over a year. We had been doing the same things for so long I couldn’t remember the last time feeling happy about achieving something significant. My work life was good, but it sometimes also felt boring doing the same routine.
Over time, I realized that I needed to step out of my comfort zone, and now I’m a big believer in you need to have a “hunger for growth.”
When you achieve success or have a period of inactivity, ask yourself: “Why am I procrastinating or working less?” “What is driving this behavior, and what is the fundamental reason for me avoiding success?” “What steps can I take to grow further?”
2. Look for funding early on, but don’t rush
Finding the right people to support your business is something that takes time and patience. But the thing is, you may not need someone to invest in your business at the very beginning. You may be able to make this money on your own.
In our second year, we were not in a good place and took funding: $60,000 for 17% equity—it was a horrible move, I have to say. I could have closed a few deals or done consulting work and gotten the same cash.
Giving up equity in the early stages is very expensive. Try to delay it for as long as you can.
This point is especially relevant to those who are non-tech founders as I am. When I started a marketplace of vetted offshore engineers, I felt unsettled and kind of lost since I didn’t have the essential tech expertise. I hired two CTOs, and they were a disaster. Finally, I invited a partner to join our forces at the end of the third year, and our growth has gone up since. It absolutely was one of the best decisions of my life.
4. Surround yourself with the right people
At some point, you’ll realize that you need some help with your brainchild. So, where do you start?
When you’re hiring, don’t bring in new people too quickly, and don’t just focus on how much they will cost. Instead, pay more attention to their soft skills (e.g., communication skills, emotional intelligence, curiosity, desire to learn).
Your early hires will likely need to be jacks-of-all-trades at the beginning, so hire people who show great potential. For example, we hired a copywriter with zero copywriting experience, and because we could see she had huge potential, paid her double the salary we could afford. Today, she is a great CMO.
Keep in mind that experience doesn’t always guarantee great performance. A person with little or no experience can offer a fresh perspective and tends to be more willing to ask questions and participate.
5. Increase your visibility
You won’t get very much attention if your company isn’t visible. To acquire your first clients, partners, and investors, you will need to become very active on social media. Once you know who your audience is and their preferences, you can choose the best social media platform to grow your community. For example, I prefer Twitter.
My key advice when using social media is to be genuine and helpful. Answer questions and provide feedback without expecting anything in return.
6. Become a marketing expert
If you don’t know anything about marketing, you need to learn it. Your marketing efforts are a crucial component to launching your startup.
When we didn’t do any marketing, we had no growth. Then we hired an agency, and still, nothing changed. Finally, when I took over the marketing, we saw a 4x growth in just a year.
Although delegating marketing can save you a lot of time, by doing it yourself, you may try new things, such as testing new ads, reaching out to new audiences, trying out new platforms, etc. Also, you probably already know what converts best in your niche. As a rule, marketing agencies may not have knowledge within the field you work in. That’s why they may not be as successful in promoting your brand.
Here are some of the marketing tactics I used:
- Answered questions on Quora
- Created and distributed valuable content, such as articles on niche blogs and articles for our target audience
- I was active in niche communities, such as the OG Slack community, the BAMF group on Facebook, and many others
- Wrote copy for our landing pages
- Introduced my startup on Product Hunt
- Posted ads on My First Million podcast (brought in 25% of our new leads)
7. Diversify your marketing efforts
For over a year, content marketing on Quora brought in over 80% of our new leads, but we were unable to find another channel that worked as well as Quora. I was constantly worried about Quora banning us, and us ending up with zero new clients. It was a nightmare.
Recently, however, we diversified our channels and saw a big change. From November 2020 to January 2021, we got 54 new contracts (+20%!). Today our top acquisition channels are:
- Google organic—26%
- Podcasts—26%
- Google Ads—17%
- Product Hunt—7%
- Referrals—6%
- Quora—5%
8. Give preference to teamwork over agencies
We hired two agencies (PPC and SEO) in the early days. That cost us around $50,000 and a lot of time. Later when we did the same work ourselves, we ended up with better results. This point is especially relevant for early-stage startups that can’t afford to hire agencies.
9. Become an influencer
When you have a business, you can choose to collaborate with influencers or become an influencer yourself. When my company turned five, I finally realized that a company founder must be a startup’s biggest influencer. So I’ve been answering questions on Quora, writing articles and distributing them over the internet, becoming an active member of niche communities, and posting on Twitter. I started out with almost no followers, and I have gotten a lot of attention. Imagine if I had started doing this from day one.
10. When building a startup, find a mentor
As an entrepreneur, you know that it’s super exciting to create something on your own. However, sometimes you may not see things the same way that others do. I joined a Mastermind group last year, and this was a significant shift for me as I have surrounded myself with peers who are on the same level as me and I’ve received a lot of support and valuable insights.
11. Talk to your customers regularly
It’s no secret that feedback is an essential component required for growth. However, as a busy business owner, I was delegating most of my sales functions (e.g., prospecting and sales calls), so I had become isolated from our clients. For two years, I’d been trying to target the wrong audience, even though they brought us 10% of our revenue. And this is when I realized if you have no feedback, you are operating blindly.
12. Learn to delegate
When I first started the company, I was doing everything myself. And even with my first hires, I controlled their every step and even completed their tasks instead of giving them guidance.
As a leader, you should be focusing on the most important tasks. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should allow things to slide, but try to delegate as much as possible. Take time to onboard new employees; create documents explaining how to do different jobs. Trust your employees’ decisions and let them make mistakes.
13. Be transparent with your team
Accept the fact that the bigger your team gets, the more difficult it becomes for everyone to know what’s going on. Ensure that every team member knows where to turn when they need information or support. In our company, we use OKRs (a goal-setting framework), one-on-ones, and personal weekly planning.
14. Plan and prioritize
Plan and prioritize tasks. The most important things should be handled first, otherwise, you risk ending up doing nothing at all.
In the beginning, I couldn’t decide on what I needed to do, what I didn’t need to do, and when I needed to focus on certain tasks. Everything seemed important to me. Since then I’ve come to realize that when you’re first starting out, you need to say “yes” to everything, and to scale, you need to say “no” to everything.
15. When building a startup, don’t overdo it
Stress does not equal success—and vice versa. I was miserable for three years. I worked overtime, I wasn’t sleeping well, I wasn’t exercising. If you do the same, you will burn out quickly.
I’ve come to realize that sometimes less is more and success doesn’t happen only to those who operate at an uncomfortable pace. After three years of working at an insane pace, I started to take care of my mental and physical health by working less, and in the end, accomplishing more.
Source: allbusiness.com
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