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Learn The Key Things A successful
Startup Needs
Today, in our 3rd
part of the “Startup Week Series”, we focus
on the Fundamental needs of a Startup. The article will be
extremely helpful for all those looking to start their own Startups
/ business, Entrepreneurs and people from relative field of
interests.
Starting a business is hard. There are many reasons why small
businesses fail, even if they have a great product or service and
plenty of funding. According to a study by Shikhar Ghosh, a
senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, as many as 95% of
startup companies never see their projected returns on
investment. So, what are the keys to startup success and how
can you know if a startup is likely to succeed?

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There are some things that entrepreneurs can do to help boost
the likelihood of success and here they are!
1. Product
Your product must cater to the unmet needs of your customers.
Stay laser-focused on solving that problem and don't confuse the
solution with a lot of additional features or messaging that
confuse or dilute the value of what you're providing. Sometimes
that simplification comes in the form of fewer manufacturing
steps in order to make producing a product easier and more cost
effective. The costs (monetary, learning curve, disruption) all
need to be low enough that there is still a net value to taking up
your solution, compared to the nearest alternative (value =
benefit-cost).
2. Customers
Fundamentally you need to start by identifying a prospective
customer and an unmet need or desire that the market has not
sufficiently addressed. You need to find your customer-base and
ideally your choice of customer will represent a market that
matches your own needs and ability. Think both in terms of
satisfying a need and whether this is the right market for you to
address.
3. Willingness to Adapt
Successful startups are flexible. They can sense the trade winds
of the marketplace and learn to adapt along with them. They
need to watch and learn from customers, competitors, and even
developments in other industries to find better ways to deliver
valuable products and services.

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Sometimes adaptation means more than simply improving an
existing product and service. It might mean expanding product
offerings or exploring new areas. It might even mean throwing
out the original plan and coming up with something new
altogether. Ultimately, knowing when and how to change focus in
these ways is crucial for flourishing as a startup company.
4. Your business on Cloud
Here we are talking specifically about cloud computing.
Obviously, technology is a big need (and cost) for startups, but
these days, cloud services are particularly necessary for a
number of reasons.
Startups need to think about how best to protect their digital
business assets, like using a hosted private cloud for document
storage, offsite backups, and other on-demand applications.
Cloud services are customizable to meet a startup’s specific
business needs, and they are scalable to allow for seamless
growth when expansion is necessary. In the highly interconnected
world of today, cloud services can provide much of the
technological heavy lifting startups require.
5. Funding for the Future
Making your entire processes run requires money. Whether it’s in
the form of loans and credit lines or dedicated backers like a
venture capital firm, startups need access to some form of capital
to build a foundation for their business, especially before they
start making any sales or charging any fees.
There are far too many variations and options on how to get
funding to cover them all. In general, successful startups need to

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make hard and honest calculations to ensure they don’t
overextend themselves. Balancing the need for funding with an
appropriate estimation of how much a product might be expected
to earn is perhaps one of hardest but best thing to know for a
startup.
6. Attracting the Right People
Finding the right flock of people to help create and operate a
startup is critical to ultimate success. Success means growth all
around, with new positions being created as individual tasks
become too big for a startup’s founder(s) to complete on their
own. Finding competent, knowledgeable people who have the
enthusiasm to offer new insights and improve the business model
is absolutely essential to success.
7. Timing
Every market has a lifecycle, and every opportunity thus has a
limited window of time before it expires. In the beginning of a
new innovation, markets are easy to enter, and a technical
solution is the primary challenge. Anyone who can solve the
problem can find opportunity. Conversely, there is also a risk in
being too early to a market, since chasing unproven markets can
lead to dead ends, or worse, a viable opportunity that will not
bear fruit for years to come. The typical startup is best served
with a "fast follower" strategy, where you identify a new interest
by a set of customers that is already occurring.
Conclusion
Every startup that wants to establish itself as a respected brand
will need to focus on all of these factors at a bare minimum.

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Figuring out these key elements will put any startup in a good
position to grow into a thriving business.