A newly launched tech business undergoes many challenges before it actually starts gaining ground. It focuses on strategic planning and goes over and above to materialize its business objectives.
Entrepreneurs think through every aspect of their tech startup to make their launch absolutely flawless by drafting a solid business plan and preparing for the resources required to get started.
However, building a successful tech startup requires you to go the extra mile. It is smart to learn from the mistakes of others and utilize the research findings to begin well with your tech startup.
Here you go with some pro tips for a successful launch of a tech startup!
1. Form a Winning Team
Would you believe that 23% of startups fail for not having the right team? The characteristics of an organization include organizational structure, its purpose, and people. Making the workforce of any company or startup highly crucial for its existence and success.
Every Tech startup also requires to have a competent team to succeed for which the most efficient people must be included in the team.
Successfully recruiting a group of efficient employees is not the end of the game; rather this is where the story begins to form a winning team. The process of recruitment requires resources in the form of time and money.
Therefore, exerting efforts in the hiring process is going to yield many benefits in the long run. The evaluation of talent must be done in the right way to judge the level of dependability, responsibility, professionalism, work ethics, ability to collaborate, honesty and integrity, adaptability, and conflict resolution.
Hire The Right Team
Once you’ve hired the right team, it’s time to make them understand and follow the vision of your tech startup. They must adapt to the company’s vision and motivate and challenge one another in a professional and progressive way.
Just like many other tech startups, you can advertise the vacancies available in the organization. You can gather a pool of candidates by inviting applications and the next step is to screen those applications against your hiring criteria.
Once you’ve pre-selected a list of candidates—you’re good to go to interview them. Being a tech startup, it is recommended to take advantage of the technology through virtual interviewing that also helps you reduce the hiring cost.
You don’t need to rent a space for inviting candidates to a physical location and to engage a panel of professionals for hire. Adam Wood, co-founder of RevenueGeeks says “You must go for a multi-tier interview to refine the outcomes of your hiring process and make the most productive decision.”
If you can afford a physical interview, you must include skills testing to be more certain about your recruitment decisions. Hiring the most passionate and potential candidates is the key to defining the future of your tech startup as they’re going to run the show.
2. Frequent Performance Reviews
The appraisal of the employees’ performance plays a decisive role in improving the quality of service of your tech startup. Sandra Rios, Director of Client Services at Buzz Agency says “You can set weekly or monthly performance reviews to analyze the performance of the employees and figure out where they may be lagging behind.”
It allows you to improve their work performance by guiding them or scheduling any professional training for them. Any employee who is underperforming or dragging your tech startup down is worse than making a wrong recruiting decision.
You may also need to fire frequently non-performing employees to make your tech company more progressive. It helps you set the tone about your expectations of service quality and reflect on what level of performance is acceptable.
Your employees as a startup must be capable of fighting your battles and if not so—take swift action to avoid any prospective losses that may also affect the image of your tech startup.
3. Create a Rich Company Culture
The culture of a company plays a huge role in shaping the way the employees interact in the workplace. A strong culture provides a sense of identity and reinforces the company’s values and behaviors.
It clearly communicates the vision of the company and generates collective commitment to materialize the company’s goals. It keeps the employees motivated and loyal to the management.
A company’s culture promotes healthy competition in the organization. Everything that relates to a company, contributes to forming its culture says Nick Oberheiden, Founder & Attorney at Oberheiden P.C
The office layout and interior design, employees’ dress code, compensation programs, and social calendar—everything contributes to forming a company’s culture. Just like, a tech startup with a team of fewer than 15 people can have a culture of teamwork and building synergies. In addition to that, another essential aspect of fostering a cohesive work environment is creating your shift schedule in Excel. A well-organized and collaborative schedule ensures that the team stays synchronized, promoting a culture of teamwork and building synergies, especially in a tech startup with a smaller team.
Everyone may collaborate and uplift each other to reach the goals of the startup. Some startups give due consideration to the work environment to make it more friendly for people to perform without any pressure.
Bram Jansen, Chief Editor of VPNAlert says “Surprising the employees with cakes and warm wishes on their birthdays or anniversaries is also a part of the culture of a company.” It provides a sense of ownership to the employees and makes them feel special for being a part of a specific company.
4. Be Adaptable to Change
Planning is the basic and most important step in every phase of business when you establish the vision, mission, and goals of your company. But you need to be more flexible and adaptable when you’re planning something for a tech startup.
Technology happens to improve overnight and the ways of doing things might be outdated the very next day. It requires the tech startups to remain much flexible to keep some room for change to avoid missing out on any golden opportunities, elaborates Steve Rose, Vice President at MoneyTransfers.
Canon is the world’s largest company for more than 75 years, known for pioneering innovative imaging products— cameras, copiers, printers, scanners, and more.
When mobile phones started offering high-quality cameras, it came at a time when the vision of canon started seeming irrelevant and its future seemed to become blurred.
However, the ability to adapt to the changing world became a reason for this company to maintain its leadership position by constantly innovating new features and technologies.
The determined visionaries at Canon helped to overcome daunting odds, to create a company that exceeded its initial purpose fairly well.
Today, Canon is all set to advance in mirrorless technology to respond to the needs of changing times. The Chairman and CEO of Canon Inc., Fujio Mitarai, says:
“Change is progress. Transformation is advancement. Canon will always contribute to society with our technologies, continually work to transform our business. And take on new challenges while seeking to become a truly excellent global corporation. That is admired and respected around the world.”
Andrew Priobrazhenskyi, CEO of DiscountReactor says “Being adaptable to change is very important for a tech startup. You may need to change your strategy, vision, mission, or objectives anytime according to keeping pace with changing times.”
5. Stay Connected to Your Advisory Board
When you listen—you get to know and learn something that you already don’t know. Listening closely to your advisory board helps you explore more market segments and new opportunities in diverse geographies.
Matt Weidle, Business Development Manager of Buyer’s Guide says “You must utilize the social links of your advisory board to improve for the better. The contributions of a professional advisory board will surely help you succeed as a startup.”
Just listen to the board and be receptive to their feedback to help your tech startup flourish more.
6. Focus on Intrinsic Motivation than Monetary Rewards
As a tech startup, you got to reduce your startup costs to a minimum. At the same time, it is highly important to retain the talent and prevent them from switching to other companies.
For this, keeping the employees motivated, passionate, and more connected to your vision and goals is of inordinate importance. Lack of passion is one of the dominant causes of failure of startups. 9% of the new business fail due to a lack of passion.
There are two ways in which you can motivate your employees—intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation uses non-monetary rewards to motivate the employees whereas extrinsic motivators are challenging and monetary in nature.
Steve Elliott, Franchise Owner, Restoration1 explains “Intrinsic motivation utilizes the sense of achievement, curiosity, pride, employee participation, and interest of the employees to keep them motivated.”
You can rely on non-monetary benefits to motivate your employees. The intrinsic motivators include autonomy, learning, and more. It makes the employees feel satisfied and rewarded as they enjoy doing their job.
You must use intrinsic motivators to keep the retention rates high in your tech startup. It also makes them more satisfied as they may find a sense of purpose and their need for achievement also gets fulfilled through this—making a win-win situation. Additionally, providing employee benefits through equity, coupled with increased transparency through cap table management, can further bolster their sense of ownership and alignment with the company’s success.
7. Step into The Shoes of Your Customer
The research shows that 14% of startups fail due to not focusing on the needs of their customers. Every startup is built on something innovative and when it comes to a tech startup—innovation is supreme.
But nobody is interested in knowing how revolutionary your tech is if you are not offering solutions to their problems. Joe Troyer, CEO & Head of Growth at Digital Triggers and ReviewGrower says “You may be obsessed with the details of your business and how well you are innovating, but not everyone is.
Therefore, you must come out of your seat and step into the shoes of your customers to help them get real value from your tech startup.” It helps you learn what exactly your customers are looking for.
Before build the any SEO efforts for your website including blogger outreach, you have to identify the pain points of your target market. Then, highlight how well you provide the solution. Your target market may not understand how your tech startup can be of any benefit to them. So just listen and observe your customers closely as it might also help you to identify a new business area.
Conclusion
The uncertainty of a volatile market environment coupled with the unpredictability of a team poses a substantial risk to any business. This makes it even harder to sustain especially when it is a startup.
Moreover, the rapid advances in technology and complexity pose more threats to the survival of tech startups. However, tech entrepreneurs must use the right strategy to gain a competitive advantage over other tech businesses in the market.
Follow these tips for a sound launch of your tech startup and make sure that you succeed without bearing any sunk costs.
