If you are going to start a business, you are doomed to experience failure. Although failure is the mother of success, if you do not clarify the reasons for failure, ultimately will not be successful. This article will explain the seven main reasons that may lead to a startup failure, and if you are on the road to entrepreneurship, at least make sense of what is going on in this article, otherwise the chances of success are really slim.
Reason one: Put the income in front of the customer
Why do most startups fail? That's one of the biggest reasons. Entrepreneurs set up a company and get a handful of initial customers, but after a while they gradually find it difficult to maintain their entrepreneurial journey because their clients have gone away.
Never put the income too heavy, not to put the income in front of the customer. Of course, the author here is not to make entrepreneurs do not value the importance of corporate income, but relative to customer resources, making money seems simpler, isn't it? As long as there are customers, the company always has the opportunity to achieve profitability.
It is not an easy thing to produce a product that people really need. So if you're starting a business, don't put your bets on a revenue model, or a business plan, instead, you need to capture your most important core values and then get customers. So, what do you need to do? First, you need to verify that your ideas drive sales, and that your products can really change people's lives. If all this is done well, there will be a lot of people willing to use your products, and when customers have a demand for your product, they will be willing to pay for it.
If the customer is not willing to spend money to buy your products, then a good business plan will appear pale.
There is also a need to pay special attention, do not on a variety of web sites, or app covered with your product ads, so that you can say that the product of your harm without a profit, why do you say so? Because for any technology product, the customer is more interested in the product experience, if you have a good product experience, Customers are willing to pay the bill.
Reason two: The thinking pattern is too small
Don't develop a product that doesn't cater to popular tastes. You need to make sure you can start locally and expand slowly, but if your product only solves hundreds of people's problems, how can there be a bigger pattern? You need to consider whether your product can expand the size of the user, the next stage, the use of products can reach the million-level number of users. If the answer to the above question is no, then the best thing to do is sell the product instead of building a business.
You have to verify that the problem you are working on is really helping most people, your product should not only for yourself, for the surrounding neighborhood, or your own circle of friends service, your thinking pattern should be more, if you have enough strength, can even look around the world.
Whether your ideas, or your products, need to have a larger pattern, the user group to think more widely. When the pattern becomes bigger, you are no longer simple to sell a product, but will develop into a bigger, more successful enterprise.
Reason three: not careful when recruiting talent
Your product or service is as good as the person you hire. These people include developers, marketers, sales people, and so on. If the quality of your core team is below average, the products and services you offer are not much better.
Be careful when recruiting people, because you are a start-up, so everything needs to be considered complete. If you are passionate about your company's future vision and are able to showcase your job seekers, many good professionals will be willing to devote their careers to your company.
It takes time to recruit employees, but you have to be decisive when you dismiss them. Don't hesitate if you find that the employee you are recruiting is not performing as expected. You have to fix your mistakes quickly. In this world, you don't have that much time, and you don't have the money to give others a second chance to prove themselves, especially when you're starting a business. Sometimes you need to be ruthless, but at the same time you need to have a moral side.
If you succeed, everyone on the team will enjoy the fruits of the establishment and give them enough freedom.
Reason four: Delay product release time
There is no perfect products and services in the world, if you invest a lot of time, constantly tangled, hope to launch a perfect product, then I tell you here, this is an impossible thing.
Products can be launched first, and then after a period of time users, you will receive continuous customer feedback, you can be based on these feedback to improve the product. Do not delay the release of a product for one reason or another. In fact, you have to develop a prototype product, a beta product, or a minimum viable product (MVP), and then deliver the product to the user as quickly as possible, and then let the customer decide whether the product is valuable or not.
Most startups are unable to deliver their products on time, and they waste a large part of their resources to develop their ideal perfect product. Do not feel that their products are not perfect, save a little time and money, hurriedly develop a customer want products.
Reason five: adaptability is too poor
The vast majority of entrepreneurs fail in their own entrepreneurial path because their adaptability is too poor and they will not change flexibly according to customer requirements, market conditions and so on. So, the first thing is that you have to adapt, and the second thing is that you need to adapt quickly.
As the leader of a start-up, an entrepreneur, you need to be able to make quick decisions and, if necessary, to change your decisions flexibly. Yes, you can make a plan when you start, but don't rely too much on planning. In fact, the vast majority of startups in the middle stage of development, will completely change their own at the beginning of the whole plan.
In most cases, this change is determined by your client. When you decide to change, do not be a vast collision, foolhardy, not to bite the plan before, a road to black. As a start-up, the situation is not workable. The real solution is to follow the customer needs to make changes.
However, this does not mean that every change requires the company to start over. Therefore, a basic business framework is very important and you need to make changes in a timely manner under the company's business framework.
For example, the author previously learned that a company, they are a product-oriented enterprise, but after the launch of the product six months, the company found that the need to improve service levels, so they have a rapid transition, but the entire company's basic business framework has not changed, is still based on the product line.
Reason six: failed to optimize resources
You're the founder of a start-up, and unless you've got a lot of investment, the resources on hand are limited. And the vast majority of startups encounter a real problem, that is, lack of money.
It is because of the limited resources that you do not have too many chances of trial and error. So you can't put all your time and money into the development of a "perfect product" because there is no such thing at all.
You need to know what the key business is and allocate the resources accordingly. For example, if you are a product type company, you should build a core product and develop your own users. If customers are comfortable with it, they will be willing to buy your product and you will make money and then develop better products.
For a company, do not expect to play an advertising blitz, in fact, you need to build a user community, which is very good for the long-term development of the enterprise, but also very cost-effective.
Reason Seven: marketing is not in place
If you want to make the product a great success, one word is very important, that is, marketing. Of course, the author is not denying the importance of the product itself, but many excellent products can not reach the end user's hands, if you can understand the marketing of the way, it will give your start-up company to bring great success.
Many founders of startups just stare at the ads, but in fact, there are plenty of ways to help startups sell. Most entrepreneurs don't really know how to use technology to attract people's attention.
Social media, for example, is a very good marketing channel, not only to create a community of users, but also to enhance influence, so you can build on the social media before the product is launched. Good marketing doesn't need much money, but it takes time to do it. If you want your product to reach more people, you need to spend a lot of time serving them.
Once you have a larger user base, you can use them to create a snowball effect. In fact, 1000 customers are a very important indicator, which means that your startup can be called a business.
Everyone wants to be successful in their own business, but to be honest, successful people are a minority, so when you first start a business, do not give yourself too much pressure. What you need to do is focus on the right things, focus on your clients, make sure your products and company can live, and enjoy the game.