Every new startup, aspiring businessman wishes to make it to the top. He spends so many sleepless nights trying to come up with just the right idea for a product that he feels will change the world. Working day in, day out, he strives to perfect the product. Finally, with flawless execution, he turns his dream into a reality and enjoys the fruits of his labor. But this is a love story that doesn’t happen to everyone. It’s just wishful thinking, one-way traffic and nothing else.
Every year, a large number of new startups fail to achieve the success they had dreamt of achieving at the time of pushing their products/services in the real marketplace. It is because beginning a new venture to satisfy the needs of a niche market is not as easy as some of us might think it is. No matter how successful your business is, you are bound to have your fair share of mistakes along the way. Learning from your mistakes is a major difference between success and failure. If you learn from your startup mistakes and improve on them, you can go one-step closer to success.
Margin for errors is minimal and you cannot afford to make even startup mistakes. In this article, we highlight some of the deadly startup mistakes that can take your business to a disastrous end. Additionally, you will learn how to avoid these mistakes and drive your business to success.
8 Startup Mistakes You Should Avoid
1. Starting a Business without Mission and Vision
The first thing business owners need to do is to set a mission and vision statement for their company. Without a vision and mission, your business can never succeed because your objectives are not clear. Vision statement highlights your long-term goals while the mission statement sums up the business philosophy and methodology along with the purpose of doing business.
Understanding the purpose of your business existence and long term goals are not only critical to achieve business success but also plays a vital role in business decision-making process. Without a well-defined mission and vision statements, you might end up making wrong business decisions, which might led to the undoing of your business.
2. Lack of Innovation and Expansion
In today’s rapidly evolving business world, you need to keep innovating and come up with unique products to compete with your competitors. Steve Jobs, the greatest innovator of our time sums it up brilliantly when he said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”If you fail to expand your business and innovate, you might have a hard time surviving in today’s highly competitive business world.
According to PwC’s 14th Annual Global CEO survey, 78% of CEOs considers innovation as the most important factor for growth. Additionally, more than 40% CEOs thinks that their growth came from expanding their range of products and services. With innovation, you can create new revenue streams and reduce business costs, which can do wonders for your business. Think out of the box and get a competitive advantage over your competitors.
3. Poor Communication
Even though, most businesses might not pay attention towards this problem but poor communication can create a range of problems for them. From misunderstandings to lack of team cohesion, poor communications can seriously dent your chances of business success. This is where team collaboration software for businesses like TaskQue comes into play. TaskQue let you communicate seamlessly with your team in real time which minimizes the communication gap. Successful organizations establish a communications channel and devise a communication policy to ensure uninterrupted communications and better teamwork.
4. Awful Customer Service
Most businesses do not even realize what their terrible customer service is costing them. This is why they do not take steps to resolve this issue. No matter how good your product or service might be, poor customer service can make your excellent look worthless.
Apart from other product and service features, the customer support and customer satisfaction level will determine the success and failure of your product. Bad customer support can ruin your best product. Regularly monitor the customer service and take frequent feedback from customers about the customer service quality.
5. Ignoring Competitors
Although, some businesses tend to divert all their energies to know what their competitors are doing but there are some businesses that completely ignores them. You should avoid both extremes and strike a perfect balance between the two in order to succeed.
Businesses that obsess over competitors end up ignoring their customers while businesses ignoring competitors are left far behind in the race. Do not take your eyes off your competitors because they can strike back any time with full force. Devise your strategy to counter their next move beforehand so that you can stay one-step ahead of the pack.
6. Poor Money Management
According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, financial problems and low profitability is the number one reason for business shut downs in the USA. Due to poor financial management, most businesses end up exhausting their financial resources and are forced acquire funds from different sources, which put extra pressure. Whether funding your startup is your priority or want some money for your established business, you need to choose the best funding sources to acquire funds.
You might be amazed to know that there are businesses that operate without a budget, which is why they struggle to grow their business and end up failing. You can resolve half of your business financial problems by following good management practices. Hence, it is necessary that you make a budget and manage financial matters carefully so that you can spend money on areas, which can take your business to the next level.
Hiring an accountant for a marketing agency can be a pivotal step in bolstering financial management. These professionals specialize in navigating the unique financial landscape of marketing businesses, ensuring that budgets are optimized for maximum impact. With expert guidance, you can allocate resources efficiently, directing funds towards initiatives that have the potential to propel your business to new heights. A well-managed budget not only fosters growth but also provides a solid foundation for making informed decisions, safeguarding the long-term sustainability of your enterprise. Remember, meticulous financial planning is a cornerstone of successful business operations.
Furthermore, effective financial management extends beyond initial funding. It plays a crucial role in sustaining a business and meeting its tax obligations. The burden of taxes can be particularly challenging for entrepreneurs, and understanding the intricacies of tax codes is paramount. In the United States, state-specific taxes like the Colorado sales tax rate can significantly impact a business’s bottom line. Ensuring compliance with such tax rates and regulations is essential for long-term success, as failure to do so can lead to further financial strain and potentially contribute to the statistics regarding business closures. Thus, savvy financial planning, coupled with diligent adherence to tax obligations, forms the bedrock of a resilient and thriving enterprise.
7. No Employee Empowerment and Development
If you want your business to survive and thrive, then you should establish a system that could empower your employees and develop leadership skills among them. Most organization fails because they revolve around personalities instead of following a system. As a result, when the personality is gone, the company goes with it.
No one likes to work in an environment where there is no personal development and your boss is always watching over your shoulders. Companies who trust their employees, focus on employee development and allow them to take responsibility enjoy long lasting business success. Reward employees on their good performances and take input from them in important business decisions. This will make them feel important and they will deliver their best for your company.
8. Ineffective Risk Management
Keeping an eye on current and future threats is critical for the survival of your business. Most businesses ignore these risks and eventually find themselves in hot waters due to these risks. If you keep ignoring risks, they will become more dangerous as the time progresses and sometimes even get out of control. Therefore, it is better to identify and mitigate business risks in the early stage and have and effective strategy ready to cope up with it.
Key Takeaways
Running a business without an objective is a recipe for a disaster. Therefore, if you want to prevent a disaster from punching knocking your business out, then you should have a well-thought-out goal in mind and a clear strategy to achieve that goal. Without innovation, you cannot win in today’s dynamic business world. To save your business from failure, you need to manage risks and finances carefully. Never ignore competitors because they could create problems for you anytime. Lastly, deliver unmatched customer service to clients and they will come back to you again.
Hi Sarmad!
Indeed a great article about startup mistakes. You really had shared the major mistakes done in the startups these days and It will be great If you could avoid doing these mistakes.
Most of the young people are now getting into startups but I have seen a lot of them not maintaining the quality of their team members. For a successful startup, It is always important to have a strong and dedicated team and should never avoid the any regular mistakes done by any of the team member.
I am glad that you have covered this topic in a detailed manner and Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thanks, Shivam for the appreciation. At TaskQue, we are always looking to help entrepreneurs and startups to stay productive. I suggest that you check some of our older blog posts.
https://blog.taskque.com/laws-of-entrepreneurship/
https://blog.taskque.com/avoid-startup-death-traps/
https://blog.taskque.com/reasons-startup-failure/
https://blog.taskque.com/7-ways-secure-funds-startup/