While the start-up industry is thriving with opportunities, it is equally fraught with challenges. First-time entrepreneurs must acknowledge that surviving and being successful in the startup scene go beyond simply having big ideas for innovation and the passion to make it happen.
The cold, hard truth is that not everyone can be a success like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Ev Williams or Dropbox’ William Houston. A vast majority of startups fail within the first few years of its inception. There are various factors why many business ventures fail in its early stages—it could be low product usability, poor consumer feedback, lack of market research, or perhaps funding issues. This, however, should not dishearten entrepreneurs from entering the startup scene because most of the mistakes can be avoided and addressed. The following shows the most common mistakes of startups that you need to avoid.
Launching too late in the game. When it comes to launching your business, timing is crucial. Many startup ideas never see the light of day brought about by tough competition and launching indecisiveness. Many startups operate with the idea that the product must be perfected to be up par with the big players in the field, spending a huge amount of time and resources in doing so. This shouldn’t be the case. For startups, there should be a certain base level of usability and design of the product that must be achieved prior to launching. There will always be mistakes and areas to improve when you launch the product and it is better to get feedback from customers and have an understanding of what works best and what doesn’t. New entrepreneurs must find a balance between providing consumers with a useful product and launching early enough to make way for improvements.
Hiring the wrong people. Startups are known for its nimbleness, agility, and flexibility which pave the way for a relatively higher growth and innovation rate than most businesses. In startups, having the right founding team to work towards the success of the business is just as important as the big idea. Hiring the wrong people can lead to early management problems and possibly cause the business’ demise. It is essential for startup CEOs and founders to share the vision with the staff to underscore hard work and dedication is needed to realize it. Startups should employ a hardworking, flexible founding team that is able to wear many hats when the need calls for it.
Losing focus. The startup environment is fast-paced and ever-changing. In this industry, it can be easy to get distracted with emerging opportunities, tough competition, and shifting industry trends. More so, startup founders tend to have active and innovative minds that constantly come up with ideas. With startups mostly operating with limited resources, focus and prioritization are highly essential. Many startups fail because they lack focus and tend pivot from their core business early in the game. To avoid this, founders must find a way to stay on track by focusing on important aspects of the startup, be it the product, consumers or the overall business strategy.
As the world’s most enterprise-friendly city, Singapore offers startups with many benefits and advantages ranging from tax exemptions to free trade agreements, funding schemes, and even non-financial assistance like operations, business premises, management or training. Are you interested in starting a business in Singapore? We want help you. Contact one of our specialists now for a free consultation.
