Starting your own business can be a very exciting adventure, and with the technology available today there are many ways in which to turn a business idea into a profitable company with products, processes, and clients.
But owning and operating a startup also comes with its own set of challenges and difficulties. In fact, data shows that 50% of all startups fail to solve these challenges and disappear after 5 years.
The good news is that there is a lot of information about why these companies failed, and so there is no reason why you should not know about their mistakes and be able to avoid them completely.
Here are a few of the most common mistake’s startups make and how you can avoid them:
Launching too soon
When inspiration hits you and you get a fantastic business idea, getting excited is part of the process. But entrepreneurs make the mistake of letting this excitement drive their whole strategy. They become too eager to get into the market and so they simply launch their startup immediately.
A better way to go about harnessing the energy boost that comes with a new idea is to use it to make a solid plan. Before launching you should be completely sure that the idea is one that is worth spending time and money on, and you can only determine this through gathering a lot of information about the market you are trying to enter, your potential customers, your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and the investment your company needs to have a chance to succeed.
Launching too late
On the other hand, being too cautious and delaying the launch is also a mistake you should be careful to avoid. Sure, planning and researching are very important, but excessive planning and research can be a waste of your resources and can ultimately lead to bringing a product to market that nobody wants, is too complicated, or is already obsolete.
To solve this issue, it is better to make a goal of bringing an MVP to market and tweaking it based on your customer’s feedback than to spend all your time on the drawing board and never having a product.
Being overprotective of your idea
Ideas are worth exactly $0, and no VC is willing to ever sign an NDA to hear your business idea. What really matters is the implementation of an idea, and by hiding it you are missing out on valuable advice, opinions, and feedback from people around you.
So instead of keeping everything under wraps, be sure to share your idea with the world and use the information you get to tweak your product or service.
These are just a few mistakes that startups keep doing again and again, and if you are looking to build a successful business it is a great idea to inform yourself as much as you can so you can succeed where others have failed.
