Stop Sketching, Start Building: Make the Right Start

Ample founders and visionaries, collectively agree that a series of mistakes doesn’t prevent success, but instead prepares your venture’s path to it.
Laying the foundation for start-ups comes with enormous pressure to do things right and often, we forget rethinking our brand values when there’s so much product to be developed. While for most things, the future provides ample time to rectify mistakes and a constant chain of failure and improvement serves the company well, other decisions are, unfortunately, more permanent.
To prevent all those and ensure that your passion project gets the right start, we have listed a couple of steps that help you sail through the first few days and prevent long-term difficulties.

1. Start by strengthening your prototype:
A stitch in time saves nine and allocating more resources to strengthen your prototype, prevents significant issues in the developmental stage of your product. If you are a product-led venture, a strong prototype will particularly allow you to get feedback and resolve any usability issues. This will help you rule out bugs if any and help refine your final product or service to perfection. Furthermore, it will help your team members have faith in the final product, which in turn will make them work harder to push boundaries and come together in a productive pursuit. From sharpening design thinking to timely resolution, a strong prototype is your one stop solution. 

2. Gather opinions of potential customers:
In the digital age, collecting customer feedback  can be very taxing, as one can get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of possibilities. With so many ways to connect and so many different preferences, knowing where to start and whom to approach can be hard to determine.
However, instead of viewing your consumers as a target group, view them as individuals and build a solid consumer profile that determines their social, economical and cultural circumstances. Customer feedback is essential because it lays the groundwork for the growth of your company. Constant interactions, product trials, and organized consumer research, offer a plethora of insights that make it easier for your products or service to develop and become household names overtime.

3. Determine your scaling potential:
If you have a strong value proposition, an excellent team, and a brilliant product by your side, chances are that your idea is going to reach places. Determining your startup’s scaling potential offers ample clarity to your long-term and short-term plans. It helps you plan your resources in strict response to your goals and manage your wealth accordingly. More than that, it gives your investors a clear picture of your financial requirements and has a huge role to play in their final decision making process.

4. Hire the right core team:
A good company usually begins with a diverse set of co-founders as they bring high dedication, a varied set of perspectives, and exceptional reliability. Together, you can arrive at a set of genuine values that put efficiency and inclusion at the heart of your culture and coherent philosophies help you define your shared goals.  Moving on to the rest of your core team, it is always beneficial to have a healthy mix of creators and enablers. While creators come up with the finest product ideas and improvements, their go-getter companions can help them understand the consumer needs and help them bring their ideas to life. However the common thread that runs between them, should be subject matter expertise which brings excellence to the final product.

5. Consider Incubation:
While the world is full of brilliant breakthroughs and ambitious ideas, only a few can convert their brainchild into real-world success. Incubators such as SINE help you improve your chances to succeed as they assist your venture with everything, right from the funds you require to the ecosystems where your teams can operate out of. Not just that, associating with incubators also eliminates many of the inherent risks that come with a startup venture. Startups can develop on a massive scale when they are provided with the right direction and support, for which incubators make constant efforts. Many highly successful and well known companies began as startups that used incubators to expand their reach and growth, including giants like Reddit, Dropbox, and AirBNB, all of which have current valuations greater than $1 billion.

Other than a strong product and a team of experts, what your startup will need at every stage is exceptional resilience against the many challenges of starting and scaling the venture. Building that virtue and staying committed to your goals right from the start helps you and your team move past the unavoidable, initial setbacks and move towards the promising future of your revolutionary ideas.