When starting a new company, it takes hard work and effort to drive the business to high levels of success. Thus, entrepreneurs need a startup growth hacking strong network to grow and be successful. A startup’s network is composed of several components that interact together to form one system which creates and sustains the company. What does it take for a startup to grow? For a startup to thrive, the network must be highly developed in every area of its components.
This system that seeks to be self-sustaining must be founded on 5 pillars. The pillars help your startup to grow in a sustainable way:
Finance
Capital is considered the lifeblood of a startup. Access to funding opportunities is one of the key pillars for your startup to grow. You need sufficient capital to survive and grow. You can turn to various sources for funding, including your own funds, investor funds, grants, loans, etc. Choosing the wrong funding source can hinder your startup’s growth prospects. You must be very diligent when raising funds for your startup. To increase your chances of landing into good funding for your start up, you need to connect with different people. To grow your network, you can check out Validus.
Likewise, when it comes to measuring the success of the business, the first thing that comes to mind is the profits generated. Is your business generating enough returns? An important requirement for running a successful startup is your ability to know the numbers.
You must be competent at handling numbers. You must be able to keep a consistent check on your performance by driving revenues up and reporting on it to know which direction your business is heading in. Creating and running a successful business can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience. Thus, you as an entrepreneur must consistently read, plan, grow, and understand your financial dashboard.
Customers
You would be amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who are so focused on building their brands and business that they exclude customers from the business model. It is okay to build your website, print your cards, design your logo, etc. However, it is not ideal to focus your resources on building a business with no customers. Customers must be at the heart of your daily objectives.
Successful entrepreneurs know who their customers are and what they want. They then go ahead and create a customer-centric experience around their product.
“Know what your customers want and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet” – Kevin Stirtz.
People
For your startup to succeed, you need a proficient team.
Steve Jobs once said, “The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.”
No matter how clear your visions are and where you are going, the reality is that the growth of your business depends on what your team does on a daily basis. It is therefore important to note that if you want to build a successful business, you must build a strong and efficient team. Find the right people who have excellent skills, and are better managed.
You can also provide your team with access to information and resources needed to understand your business and their responsibilities within it to help fortify the company to endure the changes and strain of innovation. A startup can accomplish many things when its team is hardworking, inspired, competent, and believes in the company’s vision and goals.
Product
The product you develop is another pillar for attaining growth for your startup. Does your product fulfill a need in the marketplace? How is your product different from the competitors? Is there a demand for your product? Having a great product offering is essential to facilitating growth in your startup. If your product fulfills customers’ needs, is revolutionary and the customers enjoy it, they will turn into your very own brand ambassadors.
During the early stages of product development, you should keep the product features simple and the team agile. Do not spend all of your time trying to build product features. You should also talk to your target audience and understand their pain points. At this stage, potential customers will be the ones to help you innovate and grow as they offer feedback.
Ensure that you create a system where you can listen to customers and immediately act on their feedback. Today, social media provides a great forum for gathering customer feedback. The social media tools available allow you to monitor your brand mentions, messages, and posts. Additionally, from general feedback, you will also learn more about what customers like or don’t like about your products.
“Our digital future is about enabling better productivity and decision-making to enjoy a better quality life.” – Yacine Baroudi.
An effective online support system provides an avenue for customers to air their opinions, views, and ideas for future product tweaks.
Marketing
Despite the fact the popular saying that “A good product sells itself,” you should know that without a good marketing strategy, your startup is dead.
Marketing is a great tool for success in 90% of startups. How do you attract new customers, as well as retain and grow existing ones? New leads are key to success and your startup growth model should be formulated around them.
The best way to measure the effectiveness of marketing is to monitor customer growth. Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to build a brand and enhance product awareness. Use informative, compelling, and entertaining stories that people will like and share.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories, you tell.” – Seth Godin
You can also invest your time in building email lists of your prospects. Use simple and direct language when developing content. An effective marketing strategy that increases return on investment and profits makes a huge difference in your startup’s ability to grow and survive. Remember, it takes time to get educated on best practices so that you can stay abreast of new opportunities.
Overall, growing your startup requires a strong foundation. The pillars mentioned above are important for sustainability and growth in your business. These pillars are a complete guide to structuring your business to foster growth and best practice.
You must understand that it takes more than good ideas to be successful in business. It takes efficient planning, effective systems, and customer-oriented services to grow your startup today. By working through each category, entrepreneurs can master operations across the key functions and focus their efforts on improving revenues and what they want to achieve for their business.
How Pressfarm can help with your marketing strategy
Do you need help building an effective PR and marketing strategy for your startup? With an experienced team of PR specialists and creative designers, Pressfarm has what it takes to create quality content for your brand. Once you sign up, we craft an effective press release to share your news with journalists. In addition to that, we develop engaging feature articles to inspire your target audience. Our design team also develops a media kit that not only represents your brand but also helps you make a memorable impression in the media and among the public.
Beyond creating this content, we are also skilled at developing personalized media outreach strategies to push it out to the right people. To this effect, we build curated media lists for each client, with contacts from their niche. We also grant all clients access to our media database of over 1 million journalists across industries.
Our media outreach strategies are designed to help you connect with the right journalists to share your news. Our PR campaigns are also supposed to boost your brand visibility online by helping you feature in relevant search results across search engines. If you would prefer to do all this by yourself, we have templates to help you to write your press releases and design your press kits. However, if you’d like to leave your public relations to us so that you can focus on product development, then you can reach out today. Let us help your brand earn the publicity it deserves.