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Whether you’re using fun promotional merchandise to spread your message or doing it by word of mouth, starting a business is both thrilling and daunting. Passion provides strong motivational fuel at the start, but turning a big dream into a thriving company requires a hefty dose of strategic planning as well.
Leverage these six unorthodox approaches to make early progress while setting yourself up for long-term success:
Avoid Perfectionism
Business owners putting their resources and reputations on the line want their launch to be perfect. They nitpick branding, design, marketing, product specs, and everything else to ensure it’s flawless. All too often, however, that desire for flawless perfection results in the launch never launching. Instead, analysis paralysis takes over and delays go on indefinitely.
Combat that perfectionist urge by launching your minimum viable product early on to see if it satisfies core customer needs. Then, allow customer feedback to guide the evolution.
Don’t Silo Your Startup Responsibilities
Although trying to do everything can create its own set of problems, it also has some unique benefits early on. That’s largely because doing the opposite—dividing teams into tightly siloed departments, for example—can lead to communication breakdowns which result in strategic misalignment.
Must Read: Grafting For Growth: Taking The Next Steps With Your Startup
At least in the early phases of launching a business, resist the urge to separate sales, marketing, finance, product development, design, and other functions. Instead, cross-collaborate on decisions from an integrated point of view until the complexity of scaling requires a more siloed structure.
Keep Your Business Plan Simple
Conventional wisdom says that you should craft a meticulously detailed business plan right from the start. However, rigidly planning everything takes away your ability to be nimble, which newly launched businesses need when trying to gauge new ideas, product viability, and customer demand.
Instead, write up a simple business model canvas. This highly influential one-page plan captures essential assumptions around target demographics, value propositions, distribution channels, revenue generation, cost structure, and competitive advantages.
Refer to this fluid blueprint to run small-scale experiments that prove or disprove key ideas. Then, gradually build in more detail and structure around proven concepts.
Forgo Large Injections of Capital
Eager first-time entrepreneurs often seek out banks, angel investors, or venture capitalists to secure the capital they need to scale quickly. Although understandable, securing a lot of funding too early in the process can be a burden because that funding comes with enormous pressure to deliver rapid returns.
Instead of seeking huge injections of outside capital, consider turning to crowdfunding campaigns, loans from friends or family, or personal savings to test the market and develop a minimal viable product. If it works, the early traction you build will attract external capital on better terms later on.
Keep Your Day Job for a While
When you’re passionate about a business idea, it’s incredibly tempting to leave your job to pursue it full-time. However, there are benefits to having a stable income during the incubation phase when so much is in flux.
As your business grows, pay close attention to key performance indicators to know when it’s time to part ways with your previous employer.
Expect Difficulty Early On
Although people tend to mythologize overnight success, that kind of instant growth is rare. Launching a successful company usually takes an intense commitment over an extended period of time with plenty of challenges along the way.
Also See: 12 Marketing Mistakes that Could Kill Your Startup
To better adapt to the difficult road ahead, set realistic expectations but continue to keep your passion stoked.
Launching a business is thrilling but rarely easy. Keep the above unconventional tips in mind to build the resilience and strategies necessary to see yours thrive.
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