The Start-up Trend: How to Build and Grow a Successful Start-up

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Working on a new product or service from scratch is commonly known as a Start-up. The Start-up is the new trend for every young person with a dream.  However, within the first 5 years, more than 90% of start-ups fail because they run out of money. Some companies may not have a fully developed business model or revenue model and more crucially lack adequate capital to move onto the next phase of the business. A key attribute of the start-up is its ability to grow in the real market.  Start-ups are designed to scale very quickly. In fact, its growth is unconstrained by geography, one aspect that differentiates a start-up from a small business. For instance, a restaurant in a town or a franchise is constrained by geography.   A Start-up is focused on growth, and to gain growth potential a company must have something that a lot of people want; and reach to serve all those people. That’s why a local business or restaurant or the franchise is not typically called a start-up. In the business world, start-up doesn’t mean a company just getting off the ground. The term is associated with technology orientation and high growth potential. All start-ups have unique struggles, especially in finance areas, and they are usually funded by the founders. The founders always look for funding and investors to get financial support.

It is a lot harder to initiate a successful start up in a developing or underdeveloped country; you may end up being unheard by the world. Start-ups in developing or underdeveloped countries more commonly fail due to lack of innovation toward market needs or inability to find and hire manpower for the required tasks to be performed. Hiring manpower in such places may be costly and get you nowhere in the end. Lack of research experience is another barrier to survival, which can lead to closure from financial trouble. Embarking on a start-up on your own can be difficult if not impossible.  

Success

People may meet financial ruin on the journey, but success and victory are possible. Not every start-up fails.  A team with strong work ethic and synergy has much higher odds for success. Putting together a strong team is crucial. There is nothing wrong with being in a small startup; you can do big things with a small team. Every start up or business has multiple facets.  A founder alone can not do all the tasks, for this, they need manpower to tackle different aspects successfully.  Finding a cooperative co-founder, adding complementary skills, support structure, implementing and fine tuning a hiring process, providing necessary training, and filling role assignments are all aspects of building a successful start-up. 

Team Building 

High powered team building requires certain qualities.  

“Great things in business are never done by one person.”- Steve Jobs 

Team building may be the most valuable investment a founder can make for their company.  It starts with getting the right workers for each task and ensuring each person’s fit on the team. Putting together a synergistic team can be the most daunting but most fruitful task for any business. Collaboration and communication skills are important for every team member.  The next step, which is ongoing, is organizing team building experiences.  These are productive and challenging, pleasant experiences that fuel positive energy and reinforce relationships among teammates beyond work-based projects.

Team Spirit 

Boosting team morale enables workers to tap into their full potential, ultimately leading to project success.  A starter, CEO, or founder has a unique and unreplicable position of initiating and sustaining high team spirits.  

Some ideas for team spirit building activities are: 

• Fun team challenges
• Celebrating and rewarding milestones 
• Measuring the team level accountability 
• Building reflection points on achieved goals 
• Maintaining good communication 
• Staying focused on common goals

Don’t lose sight because a start-up is like a newborn baby, you have to feed it.

“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together” ~Larsson 

That’s why it’s important to build the winning team if you want to go far. 

Inspiration 

Your team inspiration must be you, not some other companies CEOs’ or founders. Not only by words, but it’s equally important for you to inspire the team with your actions such as work ethic, full dedication, discipline and dedication. Team inspiration can also fire up team spirit. Your clear goals and vision can be the inspiration, practicing effective communication with your team every day, giving positive feedback and rewarding them, as well as providing opportunities to the team for their personal growth and benefit can be great sources of inspiration for the team. 

Goals 

Without clear goals you can lose your time and money as well as others’.  A clear goal in your head and known by your teammates is invaluable.  In addition to Awareness, self-motivation, task engagement, and productivity along with team members; researchers found the importance of setting clear and strong goals boosts performance by motivating people to increase their personal effort.  It imbues stronger focus and helps the team prioritize. 

Competence 

This is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.

Competence can easily be influenced by the environment, a person with low skills can hack skill increase by being surrounded by people of high competence.  Competence can be a critical component of achieving essential tasks for a company or a start up.  It is imperative to place the team in a sufficient competence skill zone. New talent, new skills, new capacity, new ability, new knowledge, and experience can be earned in the competence zone. 

Support 

No one is perfect or good enough at anything.  They always need some help, guidance, and mentorship for their betterment, that is called support. Providing support to someone in the form of helping with their task, giving guidance, or providing mentorship is the support system most important for companies and start-ups. With an adequate support system staff, teammates, colleagues, and workers will certainly perform bette.  For instance, if a teacher provides effective guidance and support to a student, the student will develop more than those students who don't get proper guidance and support. 

Motivation 

There is always a motive behind everything.  For the workers or staff in a company, their motives may be to earn more money or to get promoted.  They might be working in that company for their personal reasons.  Whether it is relevant or not the company must respect their workers’ motives because it will be equally beneficial for the company: when workers grow, the company automatically grows. Also, they can create mutual motivation for their work like donating to orphans or helping the needy or providing development opportunities. Every company must listen or shift their focus to customers who have utilized their products or services whether the customer found them helpful or not. Every review from a customer matters because their requirements can be your next step of achievement. Getting feedback and insight from consumers can help in getting exponential growth in sales.  A product or service of a start-up may not be successful on the first attempt but it requires continuous improvement and feedback in the first few years of the start-up.  In the first few years, a company may take a loss; but utilizing customer feedback and insight can lead to a company gradually seeing revenues. Start-ups that require investors must come up with a strong business model and revenue model. Investors don’t care about your effort or hard work or how great your plan can be, they need profits or quick multiplication of their investment.  Your business model and revenue model determines your investment, not your company mission or vision. So it is important to make a strong model. A lot of times you can’t get an investor on the first 20 to 50 attempts, but you should keep on trying. From the investor point of view, no one is gonna throw their money at a weak model as it is the basis for the company. If you get an investment for your start-up from an investor, it is sure that you have got your business model correct.

Abishek R., Nepal https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01d9cfd8269dadb318