Six Secrets Behind Successful Startups

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber and the successful startups that are frequently talked about didn’t make it to the top by mistake. There are quite a number of things in common about all the successful. In this article, I will share with you the research I have done about what these startups do differently from the thousands of other startups worldwide that fail almost every month. The secrets that I am going to share can be implemented by any startup and small business worldwide and methods that have been tested over time. Most of them sound obvious but they will need some creativity and effort to be executed properly. Let’s dive in …

Secret #1: Successful startups make people happy

Successful businesses always focus on customers and satisfying their needs. When customers are happy, they will come back for more of your services and even recommend their family and friends to do the same. So as a startup, your first customers are very crucial to your success. Ensure you give them your best so that they are pushed to come for more and also refer others to use your service/product.

Secret #2: They get free customers

Getting repeat sales and free referrals is one of the reasons the customer base of successful companies expands exponentially.  This all goes back to the quality of your product/ services and how you meet the needs of your customers. Paying for more of your customers is not sustainable and if your business is not making repeat sales, you need to re-engineer the way you serve your customers.

Secret #3: They have clarity of the product vision and strategy

Boats move much faster when everyone is rowing in the same direction. Successful startups always make sure that everyone on the team has a clear picture of where the company is heading. Whenever there’s a change in strategy, all team members should be aware and ready to take this direction. Absence of clarity regarding the company vision and strategy will often lead to micromanaging. This kind of management is not sustainable and will often lead to inefficiency amongst your team.

Secret #4: They start with one product and diversify along the way

Most of the successful companies always give their full to one product at the start. Once that product picks up, they always diversify by building other products that are always related to their primary product. For example, Microsoft started with Windows and later integrated into other products like Microsoft office to make improve the user experience while using windows

Secret #5: They either have a unique idea or execution strategy

Most of the successful startups always have unique ideas or a unique execution strategy. And some lucky few actually have both. So here is a thing; don’t expect to start a food delivery company that use the same methods that the likes of Uber Food and postmates use. You will surely be out of business before you notice. This is because these companies enjoy economies of scale and they also have a bigger and more organized team than you. So as a startup or small business owner, you need to ensure that you either have a unique idea of a unique execution strategy. That’s how you will beat your competition

Secret #6: They pay attention to the small details

Successful companies always analyze critically how their customers behave while using their products or that of their competitors. For instance, if you own a website, you will need to closely pay attention to google analytics data and ask yourself why customers behave in a certain way while on your website. You may realize that some pages will get more views than others. So always need to analyze the cause of such scenarios and then make changes based on this analysis. This applies to any form of business be it a retail shop. Closely looking at the behavior of your customers has will have a lot of impact on lots of decision you will take as far as growing your business is concerned

Conclusion

Succeeding in business as a startup does not come easy and will need putting a significant amount of effort. But learning from those who went through the same path will make your journey a little smoother. The above secrets have been used by many successful startups over the years and using them in your startup will help make your startup journey a little easier. No matter the industry you are in, most of the rules for entrepreneurship and business will always remind the same. So, if you are already in business planning to start one, ask yourself how many of those strategies are you implanting to grow your business. Most of them do not require money to implement for the start. All you will need is to pay attention to every detail and put in extra effort to fix anything that may not be going right