There is more than the thrill and excitement to do something new in startups. Working for a start-up is a learning experience and career building opportunity for professionals like me. It is also a training ground for professionals to learn and pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. However, there are many pros and cons that come along with it.
In place Go-to-Market (GTM)
Whether a Start-up or a large organization, without a thoughtful strategy to market none can succeed. With the constant need to get to market quickly and rapidly, it might not be a good decision to launch the startup or product or service without having a solid plan in place. Although you may manage to reach short-term milestones, but, in the long run, the success diminishes. Taking time to strategies and developing a vision before launching will ultimately lead to a better experience for the organization and its customers. The ocean of business is infinitely huge for a startup, but knowing which sea to tap is the actual question. What are your customer needs and what are you and your competition is offering is the answer. When your tapping larger business markets with an emerging product or service, you need to segment your audience and understand their needs and build for the segment which is in the coral’s of the ocean. (Example – In the media industry space, you have segments like traditional print media, television, radio broadcasting, film entertainment, video games, advertising. See which one is convenient to reach and easy to please and have a sharp focus on that segment).
Make a name
Start-up means nobody knows you. You do not exist until you get an identity. Brand identity is one of the crucial aspects for a start-up, especially in the B2B area. If you do not carry that Identity of the brand, nobody is going to buy anything from you even if they are in desperate need. Now building a brand doesn’t mean the organization starts spending huge amounts of money in commercial advertisements and get an eye candy of its users. Now that just doesn’t work! Building an internal brand identity is more important than external sources. Startups always tend to have the minimum resources with a knowledgeable expert in each domain, for example, finance, sales, marketing, legal and operations. It is the resource, which will always play a crucial role in building the startup. If a start-up sees a lot of attrition during its initial couple of years, it’s an alarm. Something is going terribly wrong.
How did it get so late so soon?
Stitch in time saves nine – An old proverb, but very useful. Time is a constraint in a start-up. Startups tend to be lean and mean when it comes to time management. With a minimum number of employees necessary to run the business operations, each employee is expected to give 200% of their actual potential. And with the rapid growth in the market, there is a lot of competition, particularly if you are a start-up in emerging business growth. Working hours may vary. Though you might leave office on time, but you still have to enjoy the burden of working on weekends and every waking hour of the day. I must say though that burden too has its own sweet taste when the fruit is ripe.
Trial and Error
While starting anything new, there is always this dilemma whether it will work in one’s favor or not. Startups, in the beginning, phase, gets afflicted to such dilemma every now and then. What works for you and What doesn’t work for you is always the question. What might have worked for an organization already in business, might not work for a start-up, what has worked for a start-up might not work for a fully operational MNC. This is where I learned the actual concept of Trail and Error. Although I would say Trial and Error is no way to make a strategy, but one only learns from his failures and experiences. There is always a need of someone who can dedicate his time to determine what to do, how to set it up, and verifying and implementing the results of the trial. Even if this technically doesn’t actually require much of “Time” it does consume a lot of mental bandwidth of the management which is actually the scariest part of any organization.
Together everyone achieves more
The most important part while working for a startup is to never give up. The team needs to repeatedly try and try till they achieve results, success is a different story altogether. The road to success milestone is a long journey for any start-up. A Start-up only achieves excellence through the passion and dedication of its hard working resources. Labor omnia vincit – Hard Work Conquers All!!!
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