Prerequisites for a successful startup. Three prerequisites for building a successful startup. Attracting investors to startup

Startup creators - who are they? Active and multifaceted individuals capable of thinking outside the box? Unique people who know the secrets of success? Yes, these abilities are an advantage, but they are not the basis.

A successful startup creator must perform uncharacteristic duties, have knowledge in the field of PR, development, sales, product design. Such a person should aim at lofty goals and do everything to achieve them.

Let's talk about 5 important qualities that a startup creator should have. They are essential for effective planning and development of a new business.

1. Activity

One of the key qualities that every startup creator needs. The activator turns thoughts into actions. He is impatient and strives to quickly test everything in practice. The activator resorts to friends to say: "Let's create a company!" He is the initiator of the development and launch of a new business. A person with activator abilities is the core of the team. It is he who finds the main idea, necessary resources, organizes meetings, etc.

The activator does not know in advance what the result will be. However, he is able to act decisively, despite possible difficulties and setbacks. He seeks to experience something new and encourage his friends or partners to participate in this business.

2. Strategy

The presence of such a quality as strategic thinking allows a person to determine various development options and highlight those that will lead to success. Such a person is looking for information that can improve work efficiency, plans alternative ways of development, selects profitable models.

The strategist is able to choose the right niche and correctly position the product, think over the name of the company, develop a sales proposal and choose the promotion channels. The startup creator must be able to see the whole picture, identify weaknesses in the business, and find ways to coordinate the company's efforts. He is obliged to capture the intricacies of the startup and offer consumers what they want.

3. Adaptability

A successful startup must have the ability to adapt to market demands. If external circumstances change, you should react quickly and correctly to new situation... This is the only way to achieve success and change the direction of development in time. The ability to "turn" the business back on track is a prerequisite for an effective startup.

It's good to have a dream company in your mind. However, one cannot follow one outlined plan if the events taking place around them necessitate adjusting the planned strategy. If need be, the leader should change the focus of his product. It is important to adapt to consumer marketso that new business proved to be in demand and successful.

4. Discipline

For effective promotion a new business needs the ability to clearly structure and discipline. The process of starting a company can throw the team into chaos. It is important not to get lost in the variety of activities and to be able to organize yourself and the company.

Discipline allows you to prioritize work, create an action plan, think over the necessary activities for every day. Discipline contributes to maintaining order in the team, team building. This is the basis for efficient and dynamic business development.

To achieve the final result, it is important to build competent work and discipline plays an important role here.

5. Focusing

The ability to focus on a goal - important quality the creator of the new company. People who are able to focus on the subject can follow the plan, adjust the strategy as necessary and choose important directions development. They set priorities and then take action.

Success in developing and promoting a startup can be achieved if you have the ability to focus on key tasks. This ensures resource savings and intelligent allocation of opportunities. It is necessary to focus on what is important at a given moment in time and on what will ensure the achievement of the final result. If you waste time solving non-essential tasks, you may not achieve the main goal of the business.

Startup creators are unique people. They must have special qualities that help them become successful and achieve results in a new business.

Startup (start-up - start, run) - general conceptuniting organizations and projects at the initial stage of development. There is no clear time interval. Terms vary from a couple of weeks to several months. Further, the idea receives investment support and develops, or, if the direction is unpromising, it is closed.

Many have heard this word, but not everyone can give it a definition. To better understand the issue, consider its features.

1. A short history of existence. Few people have heard about the idea, it is practically not mentioned in the media. Therefore, it is difficult to make development projections.
2. Establishing processes. This is the period when the company occupies a niche, develops an audience.
3. Startups embrace innovation in managerial and organizational processes. The world's best companies have been pioneers in their field.
4. The project is based on the enthusiasm of the creators and new ideas. Many are inspired by the problem: commercial, scientific, social.
5. Authors use all sorts of ways to promote: professional forums, thematic conferences, media to find.
6. Commercial basis is optional. The sphere can be social, humanitarian, informational, scientific. This does not include research that affects the interests of a small part of society.

Hundreds of business projects are created annually. But few survive the initial stage, continuing to develop successfully. According to statistics, about 70% of young companies stop working in the first year of their existence. To gain recognition from target audience, it is important to create a sought-after product.

The history of the concept of a startup project

This word appeared in 1939 and was first mentioned in the area information technologies... It was associated with the emergence of companies seeking to present to the audience what competitors have not yet managed or have not guessed to create. The peak of active growth of organizations occurred in the period from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. This time was called the "dot-com bubble" as many Internet companies were created. Therefore, many people mistakenly call all projects that appear on the Internet startups.

Then the concept migrated to other areas: scientific and social research, culture, entrepreneurship, economy. The scope has expanded, as any newly created organizations have come to be called.

The number of government programs under which funds make investments in startups and support business ideas is increasing. But don't underestimate the importance of your initial capital. Without the right financial base, even with an innovative idea and team enthusiasm, it is difficult to achieve high performance.

The ingredients of a successful startup

There is no one size fits all formula for success. Every sphere has its own laws. Economics doesn't always work in science. External conditions are changing rapidly, you need to be able to adjust to them in time. The team, niche, idea, features of the promoted product - all these factors determine the fate of a startup.

Consider the general principles that will keep the company afloat:

• professionalism of the team. If the management has minimal understanding of the promoted product or does not understand the issue, the idea is doomed;
• innovativeness and attractiveness to the audience;
• competent promotion: PR, publications in the media, promotion on the Internet;
• friendly team. Disagreements within the team will lead to an early closure;
• high level of training. Work through all the details before starting the idea. The gaps will make themselves known, which will affect the attractiveness of the product for sponsors and target audience;
• search for investors. Without financial support business will not develop.

Success is impossible without labor. Even for interesting idea will have to spend time, money and effort on finding the best ways for its implementation, development and planning. Therefore, a project is often founded not by one person, but by several partners.

Attracting investors to startup

One of the ingredients of a successful startup is investment. Among the founders, sites are popular where you can not only, but also accumulate valuable information. There are many opportunities to get material support:

• foundations conducting investment programs (contests), each of which has its own conditions of participation, amounts, financing terms;
• venture capital companies;
• business incubators offering premises for work, administrative, information support, access to databases;
• technoparks uniting universities, research institutes, business centers;
• business accelerators - express training programs for startup founders with further support in exchange for a share in the company;
• often, the investors are relatives or friends of the initiators, especially when it comes to small capital.

Project presentation for startup

Prepare a smart business plan no matter where you turn for support - a bank, fund or private investor. It is being prepared for a group of people, but it is possible that it will be focused on one person.

Don't miss our new article about Oleg Tinkov and his transfer.

Sponsors are familiar with many of the proposals, so boring startups are quickly forgotten. The project must "hook" with novelty and competitiveness. Even if you find it innovative and entertaining, someone else might have thought of it. Leave a brilliant impression of yourself and your idea.

Write down in detail all the details, from the relevance of the topic to economic calculations. At the presentation, do not go into details that potential investors do not have time for. State the topic succinctly so that the other person can understand how the idea is profitable. Good startup has a practical value.

A project made up of promises, not backed up by visual results and forecasts, will not win credibility. If you want to get to know him in detail, include in the presentation real numbers and facts, and not loud statements.

No one will support the first business plan they come across. A presentation is enough for investors to understand how promising a startup is, whether it is worth spending time and money on development. Make your presentation interesting, clear, and concise.

The activity of SEO specialists makes it very difficult to access the information that a budding entrepreneur needs. You can hardly find a recipe for success or a formula to launch a successful startup. Don't naively assume what you get ready solution, only by typing a certain magic combination of characters on the keyboard and providing a summary of further actions to the search engine. The rapid spread and popularization of full-time business trainings and seminars in this situation seems to be quite natural. In fact, the theorems and axioms of the initial stage of a startup, which may eventually be successful, are simple. Businessmen, for the most part, remember them not earlier than starting work on the third project. We have tried to highlight the five most frequent misconceptions "Market sharks", which they got rid of empirically.

It's not enough just to make a “cool” product

Perhaps you are a reincarnated Bell or Popov, and your innovation will later become a landmark. You might even ask:

Then why the hell do I and my team do marketing?

I answer: in modern world When promoting a startup, one cannot rely only on word of mouth and an uncompetitive price-performance ratio. If you don’t start promoting your product, competitors will do it for you, but then the notorious word of mouth will play on the side of rivals. And not only that.

Let's imagine for a second that a popular blogger, delighted with the service you provided, wrote a post of praise about him. Perhaps his readers will even want to buy your product, but this is not the main thing, if only because you did not take care of search engines and offline outdoor advertising... People just don't know how to find your product. And the most important thing in this situation is that “business sharks” do not sleep, they “monitor” people like you 24 hours a day, and when they find them, they quickly eat them. You won't even have time to understand anything - the engineers of the conventional "Samsung" or "Apple" will very quickly test your creation and find a way to get around the copyright issue. Do not rely on the fact that with this development of events, the giant will pledge to feed you for the rest of his life.

Those.

If the world of advertising and PR-technologies disgusts you, it seems boring, deceitful and unnecessary, grind your teeth, get your wallet, pay for the work of a professional and forget about it. If you want to control everything yourself, then remember that you must be able to correctly convey information about the product, as well as understand the psychology of the consumer.

First of all, people in your product are interested in the benefits they received in return for money. That is, if you have invented a flying folding car, every person should understand from commercials and banners that the lucky person who has already bought a car will never again stand in traffic jams and frantically look out for parking spots shopping centers on the weekend. At the same time, it is absolutely not necessary to notify the consumer about what material the car body is made of.

You need to listen to the market

How wonderful it would be if any original idea brought income to its author! Or maybe, in order to earn a million, it is enough just to qualitatively implement its technical side and hire creative advertisers, with the help of which the brand will be remembered maximum number of people? Yes, this will really be enough, but only if someone needs the product.

Certainly if you have any curious innovative ideasit is worth developing them no matter how profitable they can become. However, if you want to become a successful startup and become rich with your idea, its ability to meet a specific need of people should be the most important criterion for its potential success.

Finding an unoccupied niche is very difficult, however, it can be done without the help of specialists in sociological and economic issues. It is enough to have an inner instinct (the same "fourth factor of production") and pay attention to the little things. For example, having come to a family dinner with neighbors, you can pay attention to those everyday problems that you also face, but you cannot get rid of them due to the absence in hardware stores necessary inventory... The introduction of the desired device on the federal or city market, or its creation can be your gold mine.

Strike a balance between investor and market!

Building the trust of those at risk by investing heavily in you is one of the essential ingredients of entrepreneurial talent. However, there is not so much magic in this process (at least in comparison with the almost complete unpredictability of the success of a new product on the market). Bison cannot be conquered by the charm of knowledgeable people alone: \u200b\u200byou need a flexible strategy and a clear business plan. You should understand that the investor may not be satisfied with almost any point of the project: from the idea itself to the planned time of preparing the product for sale.

Despite this, the opinion that the majority of investors begin to dictate their own rules and are actively imposing their views on startups is a common belief among start-up entrepreneurs - a myth. If an investor knew how to conquer the market, he would be promoting his own ideas, and not financing others. Each startup is individual in the sense that there is no proven pipeline for processing innovative projects.

A startup must be able to meet the needs of both parties: the market and the investor. If you are sure that the proposed adjustments by the investor will lead to the collapse of both, do not be silent about it. You need to work hard and have a lot of patience in order to explain to the investor why this particular scenario will bring him more money.

Getting an investment is not a guarantee of success

As soon as the startup gets the money, he thinks it's in the bag. In reality, this is just the beginning, the first step towards creating a successful startup. An investment should be treated like a loan - with the same responsibility. If, before receiving money, an entrepreneur can still afford to spend time on studies or third-party earnings, then after the investor's trust has been won, complete dedication will be required.

The most likely reasons for the potential failure of a promising startup are the inefficiency of the team selected by the startup, the inability to respond to changes in market conditions, and lack of flexibility in marketing. You can continue to recall all sorts of pitfalls, or you can try to look at the long process of preparing a product from the outside and find the root of all these hypothetical problems. Then it becomes clear that the dedication of the leader, his "burning eyes" and cold calculating mind are able to cope with any of the difficulties that arise.

Successful Startup: Startup Must Be Resilient

Has your business partner, and also a friend, become disillusioned with the project and left it? Is an investor drowning your brainchild with his unreasonable actions? Did the techie leave you? Or maybe you yourself began to feel that nothing from the project you are working on will not work?

A coincidence cannot drown any of your undertakings, and a startup is no exception. Almost everything can be cut off from the existing layout - only the core should remain in it. This core can be the belief that you are the one who will make the world a better place or the one who will definitely make a million to provide for your parents. The main thing is not to betray your ideals and not to be led by emotions.

Do not be afraid to experiment: the only thing that you cannot change is the terms of agreements already signed, and you can try to revise them together with representatives of cooperating enterprises and investment funds. ⓂⒷ

Any business should be based on market knowledge, this is especially true for a startup, because you need to grow efficiently and at the same time as quickly as possible. So, we started talking about the technology at the stage of product development. Already at this stage, many were ready to pay for it. When potential customers do not even see the product yet, but are ready to buy it, this indicates that the demand for it can be enormous and a solution is really needed.

Before founding CallBackHunter, my partner Ruslan Tatunashvili and I were engaged in site conversion for a very long time, studied the market, and in practice (we have solid experience in business), and not through articles in industry media, we communicated with clients, considered, tried different formats ... Only when you know the market from the inside can you find solutions that meet its needs.

But that is not all. At the start-up stage, when the product is still "raw", it has to be constantly changed, sharpened according to the needs of the client, and for this it is necessary to constantly test. Testing with as few resources as possible, taking into account the needs of the market, is the key to a good product.

If we were to copy someone, we would probably repeat the path of technologies already existing on the market. But since we were pioneers, we learned from ourselves. We have been testing CallBackHunter for about a month. We test - fix - test. The hypothesis is a test. The whole team was sharpened under this mode of operation. You need to understand that the product is working, even before it is launched on the market. And you always need to build on the needs of the market. We test on simple and then build on more complex ones.

2. Reliable and trusted partner

In general, the question itself whether or not it is necessary to take someone as a partner suggests another question - does this lead to the goal? To avoid conflicts, it is better “on the shore” to agree “what will happen if ...” and proceed from this vision. Of course, it is impossible to foresee absolutely all scenarios for the development of events, their infinite variety. But in general terms it is necessary to stipulate this. And it is desirable to fix it on paper. It is easier to start with partners, but at the same time the competences should be clearly structured and delineated. Each of the partners should have their own strengths on which the business relies.

In the case when you do everything yourself, you have to answer for the whole list of questions. And for those in which you are strong, and for those in which you are not very strong. Yes, there is a way to delegate authority, but at the very beginning, even at the start of the project, no one, except the business owners, is so rooting for him. Therefore, it is naturally easier to start with partners. In the future, it becomes clear how correctly the partner is chosen. After all, you cannot guess 100%.

3. The right employees with intrinsic motivation

I believe that it is impossible to motivate another person. There must be intrinsic motivation. And in order for a person to motivate himself, he needs to know the conditions in advance, from the very beginning. In any activity, the main thing is its effectiveness. If we are talking about financial side question: the higher the result, the more and wage employee. One way or another, motivation is "fueled" by the employee's own enthusiasm. Efficiency is important in any business, and it already requires internal responsibility, adherence to deadlines, and the manifestation of initiative, if necessary. These factors must be considered. Always.

If we are talking about a male team, the competitive spirit is very effective. Any internal ratings always "push" them to feats. The main thing is to pay attention to this rating, to reward the leader in every possible way. Our managers often stand at this rating and discuss. Healthy competition is always effective.

The candidate should initially have a desire to work with you. In the beginning, we sat at a vegetable warehouse, and many of the candidates said that they were not ready to work in such conditions. And someone didn't care, it was important for them to work and it was in our team. Example: when 40 people came for an interview at 18:00, you should apologize to them and ask them to wait until 20:00. In this way, the resilience of candidates can be tested.

4. High ambitions of the project

From the very beginning, we set ourselves lofty goals. The product itself appeared precisely because the business that we had was not enough for us. We wanted to scale, grow - not only in numbers, but also in the level of solutions, in competencies. When you are in business, at some stage, money ceases to be your main motivation, but the thirst for growth remains.

So, within the framework of the current company, we are already launching the next version of CallBackHunter 3.0. In this version, we decided to leave the widget and make CallBackHunter the next generation communication standard. Not only for the site owners, but for all those who at least once used the service, and all the calls that the user ever made were available to him, and he could listen to them so that a person who used our service at least once , when calling, they addressed by name and patronymic. These are ambitions not only at the level of capturing the market, we are going to remake it, change the rules.

5. Relentless development

Entrepreneurs often want “everything at once,” but their path involves mistakes and setbacks. Mistakes are even good. A negative result is also a result. It is important here not to give up, draw the right conclusions, correct the course and move on, taking into account your past experience. As Winston Churchill rightly pointed out, "Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

You need to understand that business is always a process. A lot of different work is carried out within the company: data analysis, quality monitoring, and tracking of detailed statistics so that the product is really of high quality and is improved daily. It should also be remembered that all ingenious is simple. A successful product must be complete and at the same time simple and understandable for everyone. Then he will work and develop. The better the work is organized, the faster it will happen.

Ilya Timoshin, co-founder of the service

Starting a startup involves a number of mandatory steps. Many aspiring businessmen think that a unique selling proposition is enough, but the success of a new brand depends on many factors that are important to work out before starting. This is our article!

Basic Provisions

A startup is a company of any kind that starts its development on the market. Today it is almost always funded by venture capitalists.

So what do you need to know about a startup?

1. It starts with an idea, the foundation of any business. If you come up with, and then offer a real product that has no analogues, success is guaranteed. The idea needs to be developed by attracting specialized specialists and finding investors.

2. An efficient team. Keep in mind that you should not count on quick profits, you need enthusiasts who are ready to work “for the idea” first.

3. Start-up capital. It is impossible without a financial component. Usually, start-up entrepreneurs attract third-party investments, but there are often times when they are ready to invest equity, not just knowledge.

Testing phase

It is impossible to launch a startup to implement a project without testing. If there is no money and a large team of performers (at most, co-founders), but there is a lot of enthusiasm, the main thing is to come up with a working model of the company. The process of verifying the viability of an idea always means "polishing" it.

Next comes the direct testing of the product / service. It is important to make an objective conclusion by assessing the willingness of consumers to give money for a product. As part of this action, the market is also studied, the basic concept of the future company is drawn up, and a portrait of a potential client is necessarily "drawn".

Idea verification should not be postponed until the marketing department appears, as there is a high risk of offering the product to a non-target audience, which means it will fail.

Sometimes prototyping begins in parallel with testing, but more on that later.

Writing a strategy / goal

Strategy is an important stage in the formation of a “young” brand. It is the performance of the business model that is then evaluated by investors when making funding decisions. Planning is often based on personal experience creator, successful cases gleaned from the Web.

Why is it important to develop a plan?

• First, a strategy is necessary for systematic development (entering new markets, launching new products, searching for partners, merging with corporations, etc.).
• Secondly, the business plan largely determines the size of investments, how they will be realized (self-financing or financial investments from outside).
• Thirdly, the construction of the company's management and the selection of employees depend on the planned points of consistent development, the goals set.

A business plan should always contain a "flavor" that distinguishes the brand from others, that can interest investors. However, don't overdo it with creativity; performance is more important.

Investor search

So, a good idea invented, a development plan was developed, a test was carried out of how efficient a startup is - what else is needed to create it? Lack of funding is the reason for the collapse of about 30% of startups. American researchers at CB Insights argue that it is the lack of material resources that ranks second in the rating of failures of “young” brands (by the way, the first place is taken by an unsuccessful idea).

How to get investment? Let's turn to the list of proven methods from Forbes:

• 3 "F" - stands for family, friends & fools (look for money from relatives, friends and ... fools :)
• government subsidies - newcomers have a chance to receive grants, but for this it is necessary to prove the viability of a starting brand not only on paper, but also by having their own tangible assets;
• business angels are rich people who want to invest in a young brand (theoretically, they may not even study the business strategy in detail, the idea itself is important to them, in Russia there are still very few of them);
• competitive events - a good chance to get not only investment, but also PR (it is convenient to test the effectiveness of an idea at a competition);
• venture funds - a prerequisite for obtaining investments from venture funds is the real practical implementation of the idea (today, special attention is paid to IT projects);
• investors of the "last stages" - are often large corporationsready to provide financial resources when a certain stability of the business is already noticeable.

Below is a graph showing the differences by industry of the Russian Venture Fund:

Adding crowdfunding to the Forbes list is also a fun way to get a share of your investment. There are crowdfunding platforms where everyone can submit their own project, receive (or not receive) funds for its implementation.

The most famous platforms: Planeta.ru, Boomstarte, Yandex. Money (they have been offering this opportunity since 2014). Here's a crowdfunding map that graphically shows the statistics:

Prototype development

When listing what is needed for a startup, we must not forget about the prototype - it is a working, but not the final version of a product / service.

We recommend that you think over the first offer: it should theoretically solve at least one problem of your target consumer. This will determine if the selected right direction development or a strategy adjustment is required.

Final stages

These stages are called "alpha" and "beta" in the business world.

The first involves final testing with the possibility of improvements. In parallel, start to shape customer base... The final alpha stage is the announcement of the product's launch on the market.

The goal of the beta stage is to bring the product closer to the final version. Considering the criticism of early adopters, consider improving operational efficiency.

The conclusion of the stage is the launch of the finished product, here you can still finalize the shortcomings, make amendments if necessary. In parallel, think over the dynamics of sales.