Focus is the Key to a Successful Startup

The definition of a startup means you have very few resources to employ and little time to get them to do something valuable. The clock is always ticking, and the money (if you even have any) is running out by the day. With so little to leverage, you need to make sure that the focus of your company's product offer is as razor sharp as possible.

Don't be all you can be. Be as little as you can be.

Most startup companies fail because they try to be too many things to too many people right from the onset. They think of every possible option they could load into their product offer. While this may give them the feeling of being one of the “big boys,” the grim reality is they are not. In fact by trying to be too many things from the start, these companies often end up delivering no real value at all.

Instead of trying to be all things to all people, try being one thing to all people. Think of PayPal, the highly successful startup that allowed users to e-mail money over the Internet to each other. PayPal could have chosen a million options for their offer. They could have become an on-line credit card company, an auction site, a loan provider and so on. But what made the company successful was their focus on only one offer – e-mailing money from one person to the other. PayPal did one simple thing so well that the industry giant eBay purchased them for $1.5 billion in 2002, even after eBay had already built the same service themselves. PayPal is a great example of a company keeping a sharp focus one doing on thing right even when so many great opportunities could have easily distracted them.

Bite off less than you can chew

Delivering your product to market is an amazing feat to begin with. Even still, a common problem among small companies is their inability to predict what it will take to actually support a product once it has gone to market. It’s easy to conceive complex products with lots of features. But actually bringing that product to market and supporting its use with customers is a whole different story.

Instead of trying to roll out everything and the kitchen sink in your approach to market, just roll out the sink. If you find that you can support your product just fine after it’s been successfully selling in the first year, then go ahead and add to it. It’s a lot easier to add features along the way than it is to support features you don’t have the resources for to begin with.

Your customer has a life, even if you do not. They are being constantly bombarded with marketing messages from the latest movies releases to the newest type of shampoo. They don’t have the time or energy to stop their entire day to focus on just your product. So if you are lucky enough to have ten seconds of their attention, you had better make good use of it.

The exercise of developing your value proposition in ten seconds is a great way to distill down your feature set to those items that will get people’s attention right away. If it’s not going to add value to the ten second pitch, it’s not critical to your product’s success. If you can’t get your customer’s attention with the one key benefit to your product, the rest of your features will never see the light of day to begin with.

Stay on target gold leader

Your product launch is just the beginning of keeping your focus. Once you have brought your product to market and enjoyed some early success, it may become even harder to stay focused. Now you have customers calling you and recommending (or demanding!) features to be added and services to be provided. All of these distractions make it even harder to keep you and your team focused on a single goal.

Fortunately the process of keeping your resources focused post-launch is entirely the same. You need to pick your battles and allocate your resources toward the few initiatives that will be best served to do the one thing right that is truly driving your company. Serving the needs and whims of every customer sounds great, but it can also be a terrible detour when trying to keep the forward progress of your company moving.

If at any point during your journey you’re unsure whether or not you’re spending your time and resources effectively, just ask yourself one question, “Is this driving the core benefit of our product?”. If the answer is “yes”, you’re headed in the right direction.

Business Start up Loans: Easy Way To Start A Small Business

Getting a loan for starting a business is not an easy task as collateral requirements and a well laid business plan are essential for the loan. Availing these loans is a long and tedious process. Banks are reluctant in giving loans to new entrepreneurs as the risk involved is very high. A business start up loans helps an entrepreneur in several ways. The money procured can be used as initial capital investment or can be used to purchase or renovate a building. The money can also be used for advertising by flaunting banners, distributing business cards, announcing on radio and television, starting a website.

This finance availed through loans can be used to purchase new equipments and tools. These business loans are crafted to make available the required funds that are needed to start a new business. These loans can be financed through any banks or lending institutions

Business start up loans are short term loans designed for meeting short term working capital requirements by a business. These loans are generally paid back within a year. There are several long term business start up loans which are availed by many business owners with an establish business and who wish to expand their business and grow or may want to purchase fixed assets. The repayment period of these loans is much longer which ranges from 3 to 5 years.

Bank lending is based on the entrepreneurs ability to pay back the loan rather than the security he offers against the loan. Here credit rating and history plays an important role. Entrepreneurs with good credit history get better benefits over people with bad credit history. It is possible for the applicants to chose the terms and conditions of repayment of loans. The can extend the repayment period if they find it difficult to pay off the loan on the due date.

The major benefit is that the funds are available without getting into credit verification. No formalities are done to know your prior financial dealings. Poor credit issues like late payments, arrears, CCJs, IVA, bankruptcy etc can also get the funds without difficulty.