Who said for a startup to become a success it must struggle for years? If planned and executed smartly, any startup can sail on the ship of success without any hurdles.

There are many myths associated with startups like ‘It has to be small because it is a startup,’ or ‘You just need an idea and the rest will follow,’ or even, ‘Investing in marketing or advertising for a startup is a waste”. Just because a startup is something new for you, doesn’t mean it’s new for people too.

There are thousands of others with your same idea already out there in the market. Hence, for your startup to climb the ladder of success as soon as you roll the dice, you better get the right figures i.e you better do what you need to do in the right manner and proportion. Confused? Let us make it more clear to you.

One of the most often quoted statistics is that 50% of all startups fail to survive even five years. And the reasons for their downfalls are so silly that later they repent only if they had taken care of it at the beginning itself, the startup could have survived. A post-mortem of 287 Startups was carried out by CBInsights among which, the common reasons of startup failure that emerged out were:

• Lack of focus, motivation, commitment and passion
• The eagerness of scaling too fast
• Floating with pride and spending a lot
• Ignoring good pieces of advice and falling into the wrong company
• Lack of general and domain-specific business knowledge: finance, operations, and marketing and experience
• Investing blunders and running out of cash
• Improper budgeting
• No getting market exposure
• Poor product/service
• No business plan/strategy
• No/Poor marketing
• Focusing only on profit and not on customers

For a startup to succeed, money and ideas are not enough, it needs a lot of input from your side as well to grow and survive, like your passion, commitment, willingness to adjust, patience and persistence, observation, relationship with all and basic knowledge and skill. But above all, professionalism is the most important factor. Starting small and new is nothing to be taken lightly. How you interact with your investors, clients or customers, matters, after all, they are the one who will make or break your startup.

Here are the 4 simple ways that will reflect your professionalism as well as turn your startup into a success:

1. Two heads are better than one

Go get a co-founder. Studies show that a startup with two founders significantly increases the odds of success. How? Because two balanced and fully invested partners can keep the startup going on their shoulders equally well. A co-founder means you will have someone to rely on, share the load, chip in during critical times, handle responsibilities, motivate each other and so on. In the end, so what you will have to share the fruit of success, at least your startup will have a balanced support which will prevent it from drowning in the future.

Take for example the Mistay Founder Pranav Prabhakar who believes that, “Multiple founders with complementary skills bring in wider perspective to the team. While taking key decisions and at high-pressure situations, it’s always preferable to have someone who can provide support and an alternative perspective,” and hence has Sandeep Jaiswal as the co-founder of Mistay.

According to Sandeep, ‘A co-founder makes it easy to navigate through tough times. A partner with complimenting skill-sets and different style of thinking is important to help avoid mistakes one would otherwise make, he stressed. So having a co-founder is like an extra support for your startup.

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison, General Electric Co-founder

2. Get a website/app or both

If you are thinking an investment into web/app is a big waste of money, then hello, it’s 2018 and today from kids to oldies, everyone is constantly browsing either on a desktop/laptop or on mobile. Your potential customers, clients and investors are out there on all platforms and to make them learn about your startup, you must have a website or app of yours ready.

If you are still worried about the budget, for starters, host your site on WordPress which is the most popular CMS of the planet. Its versatility and possibilities are endless which you can take benefit of or go for professional pre-made website templates that easily available at affordable prices.

3. Let people know

Branding and marketing both are lifelines for a business and just because you are a startup doesn’t mean you can survive without them. Branding means establishing a professional presence in both online and offline medium. Make your company logo, colour and other identities visible everywhere as much as possible. Give your clients pens, diaries or other stationary items with your company logo, this will remind them of your great service.

Also, spend rightly on marketing even if you are running a single campaign, make it an effective one that creates an impact on the people. Don’t forget to check whether the market is right for your product/service. Marketing at the right time only will prove beneficial. For eg., marketing your summer clothes brand during winter is useless.

4. Deliver what you promised

Sticking with your word creates your professional image and even a slight slip in it will bring down your startup empire. Nothing is more irritating than a business failing to deliver what it promised. Don’t brag about anything it will only lose your potential customers, stain your reputation and in a worse scenario, get you in legal troubles. First, deliver what you told them you can gradually add and inform them if you wish to serve more. Until and unless, as a startup, don’t try to go overboard and create a mess of everything.

“Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Google Co-Founder

Turning an idea from concept to production is no cakewalk. The eagerness to establish into a giant is understandable, but, why take unnecessary big risks and crash in the end? Better study the market first, define what new you are giving, plan at its best, execute smartly and enjoy the rewards.

Congratulations – you’re here because you have a bright idea. The kind that prompts you to, pause in amazement to ask yourself why nobody ever thought of this before, tidy your desk, and start searching for advice on how to turn your brainwave into a profitable business. But where should you really begin?

Building a business is one of the greatest journeys you can embark upon. You can’t expect success overnight. Behind the meteoric rise of each ‘Uber for this’ and ‘Airbnb for that’, there are rivers of sweat, oceans of tears and months of lost sleep.

The foundation of a viable business is to identify a problem and provide a good solution – or a better one than your would-be customers can currently find. You should begin by thinking through your business plan and doing your market research. Be prepared to make changes to the product and to redefine your target market in response to your findings.

Your next step is to get the infrastructure of success in place. Become an expert by studying up on specialist sector information. Get get a professional-looking website, clean up your social media, contribute to relevant discussions online and in person: you should be seen as an authority.

Select the platforms you’ll use to market your product – does it need a video demonstration, or are you the author and sage behind the next hit eBook? Then, get to grips with Google. You’ll need to produce regular, relevant content for your site to rank highly, and understand how paid ads work in order to run campaigns or instruct an agency.

Think this summary sounds simple enough? You already know the roadmap to business stardom will be peppered with potholes. Here are six tips to prepare:

1. Get to work

Success is directly proportional to the effort you put in. You’ll be competing for funding and customers with many other companies. Most will have more capital and manpower than your business might see for another decade. If you want to get on level footing, the only way is to grind. Use size to your advantage.

There’s no middle-management or bureaucracy to prevent you from experimenting with new tactics or tailoring services to a particular client’s requirements. Bonus tip? Don’t quit your day job right away. It’s incredible how much time you can free up on evenings and weekends by reducing your Netflix consumption.

“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” – Richard Branson

2. Network, network, network

Mingling, schmoozing, hobnobbing – it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Maybe it seems pointless, or pushes you out of your comfort zone at first, but networking is an extremely  valuable use of your time. Polish your LinkedIn presence, go to business networking events, reach out to people you could learn from. Join discussion forums and contribute to them.

You could even consider applying to startup incubator programs such as TechStars, which offer a curated programme of introductions to both mentors and investors. You can’t predict when one of these contacts will offer a helping hand, but relationship building is key to securing support in your hour of need.

3. Tighten the purse strings

Startups don’t secure their founders a steady stream of income. There will be weeks when you’re flush, and months when your dreams of entrepreneurial success are eclipsed by dreams of a dinner that isn’t ramen. Without the privilege of a reliable income, life is easier to navigate when you’re equipped with budgeting smarts and a steely will. Get used to living within your means. Your salary cut will ultimately translate into a runway extension for your startup.

4. The customer is (still) king

Your brilliance and expertise can’t fund your startup by themselves! Customers put food on your table and sustain the viability of your business. Listen to what they want from you. Be prepared to tailor your offering to their needs. If you get an opportunity to deliver results for someone – seize it. You can offer them a perk no big business can match: flexibility.

5. Shortcuts leave you short-changed

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right first time. Don’t give investors a chance to pick holes in your business proposition by spending time and money on work that needs to be re-done. Website bugs or a ‘content farm’ blog can damage the functionality of your business as well as your reputation.

Sure, you’ll get to the stage where your business is ready for a re-brand or an experienced hire brings in the knowledge to optimise your content, but there’s a difference between being keen to improve versus tolerating shoddy work. Get the best you can buy at every stage of growth.

“Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” – Mark Cuban

6. Know your ‘why’

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. But how can you cultivate this toughness? In the early stages, you may not have a co-founder or employee to share the struggle. There will be no team to carry you through phases of crippling doubt. Whether you need to adjust the feng shui of your home office, admit that breaks are crucial to your wellbeing or build opportunities to socialise with likeminded individuals into your schedule, take time to work out the foundations of your mental fortitude.

Understand your ‘why’ – the reason behind your passion that gives you a true sense of purpose. Then, work to cultivate a balance. You can’t do everything, but you can make time for family, exercise, and the little things that save your sanity. The ability to self-motivate will serve you in every area of life, whether business is your vocation or not.

Who said for a startup to become a success it must struggle for years? If planned and executed smartly, any startup can sail on the ship of success without any hurdles.

There are many myths associated with startups like ‘It has to be small because it is a startup,’ or ‘You just need an idea and the rest will follow,’ or even, ‘Investing in marketing or advertising for a startup is a waste”. Just because a startup is something new for you, doesn’t mean it’s new for people too.

There are thousands of others with your same idea already out there in the market. Hence, for your startup to climb the ladder of success as soon as you roll the dice, you better get the right figures i.e you better do what you need to do in the right manner and proportion. Confused? Let us make it more clear to you.

One of the most often quoted statistics is that 50% of all startups fail to survive even five years. And the reasons for their downfalls are so silly that later they repent only if they had taken care of it at the beginning itself, the startup could have survived. A post-mortem of 287 Startups was carried out by CBInsights among which, the common reasons of startup failure that emerged out were:

• Lack of focus, motivation, commitment and passion
• The eagerness of scaling too fast
• Floating with pride and spending a lot
• Ignoring good pieces of advice and falling into the wrong company
• Lack of general and domain-specific business knowledge: finance, operations, and marketing and experience
• Investing blunders and running out of cash
• Improper budgeting
• No getting market exposure
• Poor product/service
• No business plan/strategy
• No/Poor marketing
• Focusing only on profit and not on customers

For a startup to succeed, money and ideas are not enough, it needs a lot of input from your side as well to grow and survive, like your passion, commitment, willingness to adjust, patience and persistence, observation, relationship with all and basic knowledge and skill. But above all, professionalism is the most important factor. Starting small and new is nothing to be taken lightly. How you interact with your investors, clients or customers, matters, after all, they are the one who will make or break your startup.

Here are the 4 simple ways that will reflect your professionalism as well as turn your startup into a success:

1. Two heads are better than one

Go get a co-founder. Studies show that a startup with two founders significantly increases the odds of success. How? Because two balanced and fully invested partners can keep the startup going on their shoulders equally well. A co-founder means you will have someone to rely on, share the load, chip in during critical times, handle responsibilities, motivate each other and so on. In the end, so what you will have to share the fruit of success, at least your startup will have a balanced support which will prevent it from drowning in the future.

Take for example the Mistay Founder Pranav Prabhakar who believes that, “Multiple founders with complementary skills bring in wider perspective to the team. While taking key decisions and at high-pressure situations, it’s always preferable to have someone who can provide support and an alternative perspective,” and hence has Sandeep Jaiswal as the co-founder of Mistay.

According to Sandeep, ‘A co-founder makes it easy to navigate through tough times. A partner with complimenting skill-sets and different style of thinking is important to help avoid mistakes one would otherwise make, he stressed. So having a co-founder is like an extra support for your startup.

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison, General Electric Co-founder

2. Get a website/app or both

If you are thinking an investment into web/app is a big waste of money, then hello, it’s 2018 and today from kids to oldies, everyone is constantly browsing either on a desktop/laptop or on mobile. Your potential customers, clients and investors are out there on all platforms and to make them learn about your startup, you must have a website or app of yours ready.

If you are still worried about the budget, for starters, host your site on WordPress which is the most popular CMS of the planet. Its versatility and possibilities are endless which you can take benefit of or go for professional pre-made website templates that easily available at affordable prices.

3. Let people know

Branding and marketing both are lifelines for a business and just because you are a startup doesn’t mean you can survive without them. Branding means establishing a professional presence in both online and offline medium. Make your company logo, colour and other identities visible everywhere as much as possible. Give your clients pens, diaries or other stationary items with your company logo, this will remind them of your great service.

Also, spend rightly on marketing even if you are running a single campaign, make it an effective one that creates an impact on the people. Don’t forget to check whether the market is right for your product/service. Marketing at the right time only will prove beneficial. For eg., marketing your summer clothes brand during winter is useless.

4. Deliver what you promised

Sticking with your word creates your professional image and even a slight slip in it will bring down your startup empire. Nothing is more irritating than a business failing to deliver what it promised. Don’t brag about anything it will only lose your potential customers, stain your reputation and in a worse scenario, get you in legal troubles. First, deliver what you told them you can gradually add and inform them if you wish to serve more. Until and unless, as a startup, don’t try to go overboard and create a mess of everything.

“Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Google Co-Founder

Turning an idea from concept to production is no cakewalk. The eagerness to establish into a giant is understandable, but, why take unnecessary big risks and crash in the end? Better study the market first, define what new you are giving, plan at its best, execute smartly and enjoy the rewards.

Congratulations – you’re here because you have a bright idea. The kind that prompts you to, pause in amazement to ask yourself why nobody ever thought of this before, tidy your desk, and start searching for advice on how to turn your brainwave into a profitable business. But where should you really begin?

Building a business is one of the greatest journeys you can embark upon. You can’t expect success overnight. Behind the meteoric rise of each ‘Uber for this’ and ‘Airbnb for that’, there are rivers of sweat, oceans of tears and months of lost sleep.

The foundation of a viable business is to identify a problem and provide a good solution – or a better one than your would-be customers can currently find. You should begin by thinking through your business plan and doing your market research. Be prepared to make changes to the product and to redefine your target market in response to your findings.

Your next step is to get the infrastructure of success in place. Become an expert by studying up on specialist sector information. Get get a professional-looking website, clean up your social media, contribute to relevant discussions online and in person: you should be seen as an authority.

Select the platforms you’ll use to market your product – does it need a video demonstration, or are you the author and sage behind the next hit eBook? Then, get to grips with Google. You’ll need to produce regular, relevant content for your site to rank highly, and understand how paid ads work in order to run campaigns or instruct an agency.

Think this summary sounds simple enough? You already know the roadmap to business stardom will be peppered with potholes. Here are six tips to prepare:

1. Get to work

Success is directly proportional to the effort you put in. You’ll be competing for funding and customers with many other companies. Most will have more capital and manpower than your business might see for another decade. If you want to get on level footing, the only way is to grind. Use size to your advantage.

There’s no middle-management or bureaucracy to prevent you from experimenting with new tactics or tailoring services to a particular client’s requirements. Bonus tip? Don’t quit your day job right away. It’s incredible how much time you can free up on evenings and weekends by reducing your Netflix consumption.

“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” – Richard Branson

2. Network, network, network

Mingling, schmoozing, hobnobbing – it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Maybe it seems pointless, or pushes you out of your comfort zone at first, but networking is an extremely  valuable use of your time. Polish your LinkedIn presence, go to business networking events, reach out to people you could learn from. Join discussion forums and contribute to them.

You could even consider applying to startup incubator programs such as TechStars, which offer a curated programme of introductions to both mentors and investors. You can’t predict when one of these contacts will offer a helping hand, but relationship building is key to securing support in your hour of need.

3. Tighten the purse strings

Startups don’t secure their founders a steady stream of income. There will be weeks when you’re flush, and months when your dreams of entrepreneurial success are eclipsed by dreams of a dinner that isn’t ramen. Without the privilege of a reliable income, life is easier to navigate when you’re equipped with budgeting smarts and a steely will. Get used to living within your means. Your salary cut will ultimately translate into a runway extension for your startup.

4. The customer is (still) king

Your brilliance and expertise can’t fund your startup by themselves! Customers put food on your table and sustain the viability of your business. Listen to what they want from you. Be prepared to tailor your offering to their needs. If you get an opportunity to deliver results for someone – seize it. You can offer them a perk no big business can match: flexibility.

5. Shortcuts leave you short-changed

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right first time. Don’t give investors a chance to pick holes in your business proposition by spending time and money on work that needs to be re-done. Website bugs or a ‘content farm’ blog can damage the functionality of your business as well as your reputation.

Sure, you’ll get to the stage where your business is ready for a re-brand or an experienced hire brings in the knowledge to optimise your content, but there’s a difference between being keen to improve versus tolerating shoddy work. Get the best you can buy at every stage of growth.

“Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” – Mark Cuban

6. Know your ‘why’

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. But how can you cultivate this toughness? In the early stages, you may not have a co-founder or employee to share the struggle. There will be no team to carry you through phases of crippling doubt. Whether you need to adjust the feng shui of your home office, admit that breaks are crucial to your wellbeing or build opportunities to socialise with likeminded individuals into your schedule, take time to work out the foundations of your mental fortitude.

Understand your ‘why’ – the reason behind your passion that gives you a true sense of purpose. Then, work to cultivate a balance. You can’t do everything, but you can make time for family, exercise, and the little things that save your sanity. The ability to self-motivate will serve you in every area of life, whether business is your vocation or not.