A Simple Guide To Creating a Startup
Intro & Idea
When it comes to creating a business from scratch there are so many pathways you can take. We work with lots of startup companies and organisations within the startup world. Based on our understanding we thought we’d share our words of wisdom. With some professional insight, this guide gives you a general overview of what to do and what to expect when creating your very own startup.
So, we assume if you’re reading this guide you’ve got an awesome idea for a company that the world needs? But your only problem being you don’t know where to begin? Well if that is you, this is the perfect guide for you, my friend! The first thing you need to do is have an idea, obviously! Then you need to flesh it out. Think about the numbers for the business, the practicality of it and do market research. Once you’ve got a fairly detailed business plan you need to critique it. Be brutal, judge the business from a customer’s perspective. Then when you’ve finished critiquing, get your friends, family, colleagues and your neighbour’s dog to critique it. The harsher the better. Don’t let someone tell you everything you’ve planned is amazing and perfect in every way cause chances are they are talking a load of, well… you know…
Once the feedback from everyone is complete this is where you can start to get the ball rolling.
Planning & Strategy
You’ve had the feedback. You’ve made changes to your original plan. Whether that was changing the name, the brand, or the target audience. You will have a better plan than you did the first time around. Now it’s time to build on that and create a more in-depth plan followed by a strategy of how you want it to pan out. Here are 5 simple things you should consider when creating your in-depth plan.
- Branding The Face Of Your Business – Branding is important for any business, especially startups. What people see when they see your business. Consider your name, logo, branding, slogans or taglines. Take everything at face value, because people do!
- What You Do – An in-depth description of what it is you or your product will do. The benefits of your business and why people need it in their life.
- The Numbers – Your in-depth plan needs in-depth numbers. All the facts and figures you can think of you need to take into consideration. These include your costs, how long till you start making a profit, be realistic and work out ALL the numbers.
- The Market – This is a very broad aspect of your plan. Not only do you need to research your own market i.e who will be using your product. You also need to research HOW you’re going to reach them. Ads? Networking events? Social media? There are so many ways to reach people and you need to figure out the best way to reach your customer. As well as this you need to check out the market in your industry, who are your competitors? Are they a huge threat? What are they doing wrong? What are they doing right? You can take inspiration from your competitors, learn from their successes and failures.
- Plan Of Action Strategy – So, you’ve researched and created a detailed plan. Great! now you can create a strategy on how you are going to launch your business. Things like finding your HQ, building your website, getting funds if you need them. All these things need to be in your plan of action strategy.
Don’t just take advice from us. Wil Benton, the Programme Director at Ignite, an accelerator programme for startups, says
‘Build a network of people with more experience than you. Try startup meetups. Talk to people who’ve been there, or done that. Twitter’s a great place for joining conversations and building relationships. Ditto for some of the better LinkedIn networks. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!’
Test & Measure
Once you’ve acted on your plan and implemented your strategy your business should be up and running. Although this is a great achievement and you should give yourself a pat on the back, you need to remember your job is just beginning! Put your business to the test. Examine your business inside out. The good the bad and the ugly. You need to make sure everything is as great as it can be. The product/service, your brand, your website.
To quote Wil Benton again – ‘Don’t fool yourself by spending money on advertising your product until you know your product is what your target customer (or the market) needs. You can subsidise growth after determining your product’s value, but any money spent before you’ve done that is likely wasted and no one likes wasted resource!’
In summary, make sure you perfect your product, service and target audience first. Only then can you really start to make an impact with your business. Which leads me onto my next point, promotion!
Promotion & Growth
You’ve cemented your business in the startup world. You have customers, a defined brand and now it’s time to expand on that and GROW. There are countless ways you can promote your brand depending on your product, audience, and budget which will affect all these elements individually. We could ramble in this paragraph with self-promotion on how amazing STKRS is for brand promotion. Don’t worry we won’t do that. We’ll use the next paragraph instead!
In all seriousness, STKRS are genuinely an awesome way to spread your brand like wildfire, hence why SO many startups use us! Event giveaways, product branding or even stick them on yourself, whatever floats your boat! It gets your brand out there for the whole world to see, so go order some and start to #BRANDEVERYTHING – https://stkrs.io/