As a management consultant, having been a part of over a 100 startups in the last 10 years, here are the non-technical concepts that can help a startup rise above the bandwagon of startups that might never make it out that phase. They are as follows:
-Document your thoughts: First into vision, then plan, then goals and daily To-Dos. The trick is, keeping to your everyday tasks and To Dos will actually lead you to that gigantic vision.
-Define your central ideology: Your set of ideas and ideals. As you grow, it will mould your corporate culture
-Be positive: Passion and excitement is an essential fuel for your startup journey.
-Define your balance score card: Do this in the parameters of finance, structure, experience and learning curve. I mean constantly measure how these variables are doing.
-Create prominence on social media. This is just beyond posts and likes, but engagement techniques too.
-Define your sets of brand promises clearly;
-Be very data conscious: collect, analyze and apply data, using it to track customer behavior demography and psycho-graph.
-Go above your business’s MVP (minimum value proposition), for example, a dry cleaner’s MVP is to produce, clean crispy and neatly ironed garment. But going above that MVP would be giving free tips on garment care, helping replace cut buttons or stitching torn parts at no extra cost.
-Go into partnership with vendors you will have to re-use over and over again. Say for example, if you’re a startup dry cleaning outfit, perhaps have on vendors list, all alteration tailors close by. This is important, so that they can easily be contacted if a garment needs quick stitches, button change etc. When this is done at no cost, the client will notice.
-Have a marketing strategy and marketing operations plan that targets not just individuals but corporate and cluster groups: An example of this includes, say companies with over 50 staff. This way, we can pick up all of the clothes on a routine bases and at once, thus aiding economy of scale for efficient operations. Cluster groups may include residence associations, mini estates and service apartments, gyms, churches, small hotels etc.
-Have a unique extra value away from the usual MVP (Minimum Value propositions), for example, imagine if we have a list of quotes cut out in a post card format and attached to our tags on the clothes like sticky note, with each slides in a package, or with a smiley, or even basic tips on clothes 101 as a your unique signature. The general ideology is to always blow the mind of your customer per delivery enough to make them refer you. For a startup with a lean budget, bootstrap marketing is key. This means that Word of Mouth marketing is still the most effective form of advertising, so mechanism has to be devised for this. An example is a simple referral form shared amongst your most loyal customers, and maybe a discount incentive for each referral.
Develop a compliance system: For most businesses, it’s not the lack of strategy that is the problem, but the inability to follow through. There just seems to be no structure for it. The truth is, business plans and operational documents like job descriptions, intended corporate culture, brand promises and Standard Operating Procedures, even when defined, written down and assigned might still not be followed through except there is a strong compliance mechanism. So you need a compliance system. Everyone’s work they say is nobody’s work, so someone (or a department depending on how big your organization is) has to be held responsible. One activity that greatly improves the credibility of the compliance system is effectiveness communications of the rules of the game, the policies, procedure and declaration of possible consequences in terms of reward and sanctions. Being assertive and true with promises and threat is important. And then following through with an eagle’s eye view as well as detailed microscopic lens. This includes the use of unannounced compliance checks. You can also engage mystery shopping. You can also form an advisory board.
Further ahead; we will derive our competitive advantage from creating a brand off quality, customer experience, faster turnaround of cycle time, and attention to the slightest detail synonymous with a unique customer care service enveloped in excellence.
For a startup, remember you are inexperienced, young and growing, this is a disadvantage. But there is an advantage in every disadvantage. For example, you can be faster and more personal, because you have a smaller client base, you can zoom in, have more time for them and even give personalized services that bigger competitors cannot give. So you can draw from the age-old tradition of going above and beyond what is expected every time and all the time from clients.
Have a great start up journey ahead.
Eizu Uwaoma
