By: Jason Kay
Submitted: 2011-10-26 06:52:34 | Word Count: 539
When starting a business, most people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what they should be doing in order to become successful. Unfortunately, they do not take the time to look at what others in their industry (both existing and prior failures) to learn what should not be done. There is no reason to start a business if you are going to make the same mistakes that the company before you made. To that end, here are some business start up lessons to remember.
Business Start Up Lessons to Remember
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1. Manage Your Customers
The first thing that a start up business wants to do is find or create the product that is going to lead them to success. The problem with this is that early on, it is much more important to manage your customers first and your products second. A great example of this that was discussed recently was Devver. After 2 years, they had to close up shop. During these two years, they spent nearly all of their time developing their product, while minimizing their contact with users and customers. Without customers, there zero chance for success.
2. Don't Undermine Your Value
It is critical that you can create a value proposition for your product. This means that you must not only promote a product that has some type of value, but also that it has a specific value to your customers. Just because your product can solve a problem, it doesn't mean that your product addresses a problem that most people have. It is critical that you show customers that your product is solving a problem that they are currently having.
Additionally, it is important to not undermine the value of your product once you have created it. The easiest way to ruin your value proposition is to give away your product for free. Instead, free trials, and similar discounts and promotions, can achieve the same goal, without ruining the value of your product. Along these same lines, if you are dealing with a buyer who is pricing your product way to low, then move one. Once you make a deal, everyone is going to find out about it and want the same deal.
3. Stay Honest
One of the biggest mistakes that young companies can make is overselling their product. They are so eager to make their first series of sales that they over-promise and under-deliver The best way to gain credibility is to over-deliver Plus, if you over-promise, not only will buyers see your product as unreliable, but it will also damage your companies brand as well, which can take years to fix.
Another issue when dealing with sales is focusing on the wrong thing. While celebrating a big sale is great, it is much more advantageous to see your product used. Nothing can kill a reputation like making a big sale, only to find out that your product was never used.
There are hundreds of other business startup lessons to remember, however these 3 are the primary reasons for a lot of failures over the last decade. While every business is going to make mistakes, it is important to limit those mistakes by learning from the mistakes of others, rather than commit them yourselves.
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