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one of the top veterinary hospitals in Dubai, we at Animal Specialist Clinic have made it our mission to provide the best medical care to any animal in need. This includes helping fledgling animal parents to pet gurus bridge the gap with their adorable critters through debunking some well-known myths.
Every startup is unique in its own right. What takes one to the pinnacle of success serves as an inspiration to others. However, it’s impossible to replicate the same success with the exact strategies and tactics.
Yet, it’s possible to create your own success story if you know which are the key areas to focus on when starting a business.
As part of a team that serves startup founders for more than 5 years, I’ve seen my fair share of success stories.
What I can personally testify is that those that have found success work through their plan methodologically. They share common points in the steps taken to turn an idea into a successful startup.
With this experience, I’ve prepared a checklist that will get you started on the right foot when starting a business. The checklist was never meant to be a shortcut nor a guarantee for success.
You’re free to use it as you see fit and innovate upon it. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about.
Now, let’s kick off with the startup checklist.
Idea Screening
You don’t wake up with an idea and immediately build a product around it. While it’s true that great ideas are the foundation for startup success, it’s not enough that the greatness is solely your imagination.
Therefore, it’s important to consider if the idea is feasible before following up with concrete action. As exciting as it is, your idea needs to solve real problems or fulfill existing market needs. If it fails to do both, you’re unlikely to be successful if you insist on pursuing it.
Before you fixate on your idea, you’ll want to find out if it’s feasible to move forward. You need to ask hard questions and give honest answers.
For example:
What problems am I trying to solve?
How do I understand it’s successful?
How would people feel about my ideas?
After thoughtful considerations, you ought to be able to provide clear answers to those questions. If you can’t, it’s likely that your idea is not viable for a startup. Only commit resources to your idea once it’s proven to be viable.
Checkpoints
Make sure your heart is in it. Bringing an idea to life involves many challenges. You need to be 100% committed to the journey that lies ahead.
Learn how to start a business. Wearing multiple hats as an entrepreneur is not easy. Beef up your knowledge by picking up the experience of other entrepreneurs.
Be prepared to invest time and money - It takes time to be profitable. Until then, you’ll need to put in efforts and resources into your business.
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According to the latest CB Insights study, 35% of startups failed because of a lack of market need. That’s the kind of blunder you want to avoid when taking your product to the market. It’s important to ensure the right product/market fit before you even start building the product.
Therefore, you’ll need to conduct proper market research to gain insight into your target audience and competitors. Having such information helps to mitigate risks when you launch the product. Market research puts you in a strategic position when selling the product.
Checkpoints
Evaluate the size of the target market. There needs to be sufficient demand to generate sustainable sales and ensure profitability.
Explore the competitors. Chances are, there are already competitors offering their products to the same target audience. Find out who they are and how your startup compares against them.
Find out the competitors’ weaknesses. You’ll have a distinct advantage if you can figure out what they are and capitalize against them.
Look for opportunities for improvement. There’s always room for improvement. The onus is for you to identify them and innovate with the product.
Ensure that idea’s viability is backed by market needs. Don’t leave room for assumptions because they can be misleading.
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Your product’s success hinges on the users. If the users fail to find value in your products, everything that you’ve done would have been for nothing. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that your product is aligned with the user's needs while you’re building it by conducting user research.
Making user research as part of the development strategy ensures that you’re getting feedback early on in the process. Any teething problems can be identified and ironed out at the minimum cost.
By holding regular face-to-face meetings and interviews with the users, you get to know if you’re progressing in the right direction as far as the product is concerned. You need to prove that your product is capable of solving user's problems before it hits the market.
Checkpoint
Get a list of your potential customers. You need to know who’s problems you are solving.
Create a proto persona to review users’ needs and pains. Proto personas allow you to quickly get an idea of your target demographic.
Conduct interviews with users. Get feedback with a direct conversation with users who are likely to use your product.
Create Customer Journey Map (CJM) to review how users interact with your product. User experience is pivotal for success and CJM helps identify opportunities for improvisation.
Create a value proposition canvas (VPC). It helps to ensure that your startup’s value proposition is meeting the pain and gain of the customers.
Create prototypes. It’s a cost-efficient way to help you validate assumptions.
Validate prototypes with user testing. Ensure that design assumptions and hypotheses are tested by real users.
Ensure that the idea is viable with users. It’s important that users find your product is adding real value to their life and are happy to pay for it.
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Owais Zaidi is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of CreditPer (CreditFix) and the Executive Chairman of The Hive. He is also an Independent Director of The Organic Meat Company Limited and a Charter Member of OPEN Islamabad. Prior to that, Owais is a Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Mr. Zaidi attended the Institute of BusinessAdministration and Karachi University.
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Venture Builder | MBA, Consulting, Strategy | Blockchain | Tokenization | Fintech | M&A.
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Once you have a clear sight of the product, you’ll need strategies to build, deliver and market it to the target audience. Without proper strategies, you’ll be at the mercy of various factors that could derail your startup ambition.
For startups, part of winning the game is to get the sales and marketing strategies right. You need to plan how you’ll reach out to your audience. Is social media marketing the best option? Or should you engage in a long-term SEO campaign?
Strategizing your moves ahead lets you identify opportunities and challenges. It allows you to play to your strengths and weaknesses. You don’t need a thick pile of business plans to strategize. For startups, the lean canvas is a great place to start.
Checkpoints
Determine business goals and objectives. Have clarity on what your startup intends to achieve in the short, mid, and long term.
Focus on product areas. Set sight on which segment that you want to expand on.
Determine product features. Research on which features will make the most impact on the users and are less costly to implement.
Set sales and marketing goals. Identify realistic numbers of projected leads and conversions in the coming months.
Set up sales funnels. A website is mandatory, but a well-designed landing page can turn leads into paying customers.
Set up marketing channels. Users expect businesses to be omnipresent. Your startup needs to market on different social media and any platforms frequented by your target audience.
Develop a brand identity. You don’t want a one-time buyer, but a growing base of loyal customers. Pay attention to how you’re building a strong brand for your startup.
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ABOUT OWAIS ZAIDI.
Leading ventures with a strategic focus, my role encompasses the growth of startups into thriving enterprises. At owaiszaidi.com and OURPOL, my expertise in customer relationship management and strategy fortifies the foundation of businesses in diverse sectors. With a strong grasp on real estate tokenisation, I steer ventures towards innovative solutions and sustainable success.
My current endeavors include co-founding ChargeUp, where we're revolutionizing expense management through a robust business credit card platform. This venture reflects my commitment to financial technology and enterprise development, utilizing strategic insight to navigate complex market challenges. Collaborating with teams, our collective efforts are geared towards building scalable, customer-centric products.
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