Startup trend growing in India

I am from a non-business background and I work for a corporate. I wish to start a small business but I’m not confident if I will succeed. Please can you give some guidance? -Joy Fernandes

A startup is one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs. Manifesting an idea into a commercial undertaking is the fast growing trend in India. These startups face many obstacles to keep it running and profitable. The key pieces that accompany in starting a business are:

It starts with the most important challenge and i.e. ensuring and managing a healthy cash flow. Executing creative and innovative ideas need money and funding is the major setback that startups face in India. You can refer the site http://www.start51.com/what-is-start51, which is one such platform that claims to fund and help convert unique ideas into reality.

They support all projects from different sectors of the industry that meets their project guidelines. Once the required cash is ensured then comes the managing of the cash flow. The money going out should come back in at the same rate.

For this you will have to plan ahead to face the cash flow problems by allotting at least six months of costs for all possible situations whether good or bad. The costs include paying the rent, salaries, lead generations, marketing, payroll, inventory, merchandising, etc. If your business is seasonal and is likely to see a seasonal drop off, plan ahead for it and see that you have a smooth cash flow.

Appropriate monitoring of your cash flow i.e. supervising your expenses will help your business to run stably even when the business is slow and you will successfully complete one milestone after the other without getting out of sufficient flow of cash.

The next challenge is customer acquisition and marketing. It is not easy to acquire customers however interesting your website, your product or even your services are. Keep a watch on your competitors, market trends, new attractive products, etc. Be innovative and create a USP for your product because what you want to sell is already being sold by hundreds of other companies.

The marketing should be such that they convince people that the product/process they need is what your business provides. Even though cost effective marketing and branding strategies are required initially, it is said that you should be ready to spend on marketing because brand reputation gets damaged by cheap ads, low quality content and budget SEO. Work closely with your marketing team and the HR department to maintain a steady pace of growth of your company.

The staff: Startups generally face the dilemma of finding a right team which has a significant mix of talents. A visionary has quoted that for a successful entrepreneur it is not from ‘where’ he starts but it is with ‘who’ he starts. He should start by getting the right people aboard the bus, the wrong people off the bus and getting the right people on the right seats.

Have faith on people you hire and it is the sole responsibility of the employer to create an atmosphere that helps generate dedicated staff. To conserve cash the ideal startup team initially comprises of the founders, the product development team and one or two sales persons. You will need your funds until you find a workable model and this can involve as many experiments as possible.

Once you get an evidence of a product/market fit and that the sales persons are selling effectively you can think of expanding the sales and marketing team.

In a nutshell, the other significant points to be considered would be: Evaluate your skills and experience and check whether they relate to your proposed business.

Create a comprehensive business plan and this will help you investigate everything from suppliers to rates. Apply for business licenses as required by city, state and central agencies.

Thorough study of the industry so that you are all prepared of what can happen or should happen once you launch your business

Stand behind your promises and never over hype and under deliver. The approach always has to be customer centric and customer focused. Be in constant touch with your customers and get continuous insights. A research at Forbes says that 80 per cent of startups fail mainly due to lack of direct communication with the customers.

Fear of failure has been the biggest fear that holds entrepreneurs back, but you have to remember that whether it is Steve jobs or Thomas Edison or for that matter any other successful entrepreneur all have been through failures. They stayed determined to come back stronger while considering failures as momentary setbacks.

Plan ahead, have a foresight on problems before they turn into real problems. Keep a close tab on the competitors, their products and their services

Develop a set of key metrics that will provide you with enough information whether the organisation is on track in achieving its objectives and its progress on cash flow, hiring, customer acquisition, project development, investment prospecting, etc.

For a smooth sail, reduce the risk factors prioritizing tasks is also imperative. Steve job would ask his team to come up with ten features and then would cut down seven and ask them to focus on the top three.

The key factors would be unparallel dedication, hard work, a tough and flexible mind state to exceed and excel.

Owning a business definitely has to face difficulties and challenges but what matters to overcome them is taking a chance and just doing it. Successful people know how to delay gratification and this separates them from the unsuccessful lot.

By no means have the above stated points covered possible ways for a successful startup and avoiding pitfalls. You might face other difficulties but these are most common and most preventable.

All the best!

By: Shehre Banu Kagalwala