Why Being Simple is Key to Startup Success

If you are launching a startup, you should understand that there is only a ten percent chance that you will succeed. One of the reasons why 90 percent of startups fail is that they have tried to be many things to many people. Perhaps they are not aware or have simply ignored the concept of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Why Keeping It Simple Is Important

It goes to say that, if you want your start up business to succeed, you should simplify everything at the start. Keeping everything simple will allow you to concentrate on your goals. You will also have a few things to worry about.

If something happens that seems to scuttle your efforts, you will be able to isolate the cause of the problem and solve it easily and not let it hamper the speed by which your business will take off. You will not have this luxury if you have many things going on simultaneously in your startup.

Don’t Follow This Example

Early on, you should understand the things that you must absolutely avoid. Don’t try to do many things at the same time. For instance, a company which seeks funding for its startup listed many things that it says it will do to convince the financiers to provide its needed capital.

The startup company claimed that it has the capacity to engage in the following business niches:

• • ad sales network
  • app and software development
  • human resource management
  • consumer brand marketing

As you can see, these market niches are themselves wide and varied. The startup entrepreneur will be spreading himself too thin in all these varied business niches. He is trying to be many things to many people. As his concentration suffers – so will his business.

Here’s An Important Thing That You Need to Understand

In business, you need to be specific and detailed. For instance, B2B marketing is entirely different to B2C marketing. Many business pundits believe that B2B is more about getting the sales, while B2C is more on promoting and marketing your products or services.

In the way that their businesses are run or operated, some B2Bs are even different from other B2Bs. Take for example a B2B technology business and a B2B services company. The B2B tech company is driven by software coding while the B2B services company is more human driven.   

As you can see, these differences even in B2Bs will make things complicated for a startup entrepreneur, if he tries to eat more than he can chew. The need to be simple is really a key to your startup success.

What You Should Do

The best thing to do is for you to assess your present situation. Look at your strengths and your weakness. This will be a good time for you to emphasize your strengths and to downplay your weaknesses.

It is only logical for you to engage in a business where you can take advantage of your strengths. Don’t try to involve yourself in a business just because it has the potential of earning big money.

But suppose you have already involved yourself in a particular market niche. For sure, this market niche is already populated with many competitors. What you need to do is to try to find out the aspect of the business that you can use to distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Let’s take the example of a furniture maker. In any community, there are lots of furniture makers that can supply the needs of homeowners, business owners, restaurants, and the rest of the public.

One way to differentiate your startup company from your rivals is to offer something that the others are not offering. This is where your due diligence comes in. You really have to find out what it is that will make you stand out from your competitors.

Once you discover that thing, make a big splash out of it. Attach that thing to your brand and always repeat it until your market or your customers get the clue. Once this particular thing is established in their minds, it will be as if you are the sole owner of it.

The Next Thing to Do: Develop a Simple Startup Business Plan

Even if you are just a startup, you still need to develop a business plan. The one thing that will direct your planning is the word SIMPLE. Your business plan is like a roadmap. It will help you make decisions, move forward and help you reach your business goals.

Try to develop a simple business plan. That doesn’t mean that you’ll always stay simple. You can elaborate on your business plan as you achieve success in your initial goals. You will need this plan especially if you will ask help from financial institutions to fund your projects.

There is such a thing called Lean Business Planning system. This will help you formulate your plan without straying away too much from your idea of being simple and lean at the start. This plan should help you define what you want from your startup business, what your customer wants, and how you can optimize your business.

You will also need to design a simple expense and sales forecast. If you have an accounting background, you can also include a profit and loss projection. Don’t forget the initial stage of your business plan which is the pitch or your Mission Statement.

This MS should define the solutions you are providing that will solve the problems of your target market. You could only arrive at this solution after you have done a decent market analysis. You have to first analyze your market so that you can better understand your market and its needs.

Conclusion

Keeping it simple at the early stages of your startup will enable you to flex your wings as you achieve your initial objectives. In this regard, picking just one business strategy which is the most lucrative for you to pursue, will also help you succeed. By keeping it simple, you may be able to join the ranks of the 10 percent startups that were able to succeed in business.

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