Like any other project, a startup starts with an idea. And, interestingly, this idea doesn’t have to be brilliant. It is often enough to create a solution that will outperform the existing analogs. But how to implement the idea and create a product that is attractive to consumers and investors?
Team
Gather people who will like your idea: at the stage of starting a business, the potential of the employee and “burning eyes” are of great value. The success of the project largely depends on the kind of people you attract to work on the project. It is not difficult to identify such people from the rest of the masses. They, as a rule, are energetic and initiative.
Market
Try to estimate the size of the market. If the market for the services you offer has not been formed, try to analyze data from similar and related segments. To determine the return on investment in your project, you need to understand how many potential customers there are. Study your competitors, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and based on this formulate your unique advantages.
Concept
At this stage, you will create a short description of the initial hypotheses about your business. It is worth starting with the formation of a goal: what, why, and, most importantly, for whom you want to create. It is advisable to support this information with numbers. Furthermore, it is important to research the target audience in detail and draw a portrait of the prospective client based on the information received. This will help to more clearly define his needs and correctly form an offer. The conversion rate of a user to a regular consumer directly depends on the correct choice of the target audience.
Describe how the company’s income will change over the course of three years? What traffic should be achieved during this time in order to achieve the indicators you need? Once the income is clear, start forecasting costs for the same period. Based on this, estimate the possible profit. If you plan to attract investments, then determine in advance their share in the project.
Prototype
Don’t start attracting investment in a startup without building a prototype. Create a product project with a set of basic characteristics. The prototype should be easy to understand and use. These can be page diagrams that show what information and controls should be located in sections of the site. This way you can see how the startup will work before programming it.
Testing
Once the prototype is ready, ask someone you know to start using it. Your job is to determine if you have correctly identified the problem and whether your proposed solution meets the needs of the potential user. Prototype testing allows you to improve some elements of the service.
Alpha version
This is the stage at which the project is ready, but not tested yet. In the course of internal tests, some minor adjustments are made to the interface that was not taken into account when developing and creating a technical task. Negotiations with the first clients begin.
Closed beta
The project has a small number of followers attracted to test the product. After testing, your work on the errors should be done. During the closed beta testing, you analyze for example the color preferences of the audience and the need for a website redesign.
Public beta
There is a moderately active attraction of users interested in the services that you offer or users who are constantly in search of something new. The number one challenge at this stage is to turn the founders’ original hypotheses about the market and consumers into facts. In parallel, work is underway on errors.
Launch
The start of the project, its promotion, and registration of a package of legal documents. Even after the full implementation of the initial idea, a successful startup continues to develop: the technical and ideological components are improved, and pop-up errors are corrected. This also raises the question of registering a trademark. It makes sense to apply for registration of a trademark in the case when you have invested some funds in your name, realized that it works, but it has not become popular yet.
Finding investors (can often follow the prototype stage)
It is important to understand what part of the business you are willing to give to the investor. In order for the project to have a chance of life, some experts recommend giving no more than 15-25%. Arrange meetings with a large number of investors, find several potentially interested partners, and proceed to negotiate the structure of the deal and its closure. Do not be afraid to challenge investors’ proposals and offer your terms. Clearly define the boundaries of the investor’s control and options for exiting the business. Be sure to write down these questions.
The right tools
Communication
Communication within the team and with potential investors and clients is one of the essential things for any startup. You will need a messenger for group projects, a service for video conferencing, a tool for effective work with emails, etc.
A lot of startups use Slack for communication, but you could use alternatives to Slack that will combine all your needs in one.
Design
You will definitely need to make a cover for a website or social media. You will also need a good logo and design of an app. Of course, you will have a great designer on your team, but Canva or Fiverr may come in help.
Finance
Don’t forget to keep track of all the incomes and expenses of your startup. There are a lot of tools that will make this process easier for you. Use Wave or Abukai if you need to draw up reports.
Managing
It would be easier to work and very convenient if you have a tool that will organize all your tasks in one place. Use Quip, Tacoapp, Asana, or alternatives that will suit your team.
Conclusion
We hope that this guide or a checklist will help you bring your project into a business, or at least it will come in handy to close individual questions or find new ideas for the development of a startup. After all, each project is unique and cannot have universal tools or advice. Therefore, test, experiment, record the results and improve!
