lean startups | W3bminds

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Startup!

Starting a new business venture is exciting, scary, all that and more. Right? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, they say. But what should that first step be? Here, we’re going to give you a quick cheat sheet, map out that first step – and the next one, and the […]

Starting a new business venture is exciting, scary, all that and more. Right? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, they say. But what should that first step be?
Here, we’re going to give you a quick cheat sheet, map out that first step – and the next one, and the one after that.

The Idea. It all starts with the idea (or ideas.) What made you decide to start your own business today? Get those ideas down on paper. We strongly suggest starting with a lean canvas, a simple one-page plan that lets you see everything in a glance, weighing the costs and benefits together with the possibilities. Once you’ve decided what you want to do, don’t forget to apply for any relevant trademarks and copyrights.

Market Research. Even the greatest product in the world needs an audience, and you need to know where it will fit in the current marketplace. What need – or want – will your idea satisfy? How are similar products faring? Who is buying them? What are the demographics related to your product – and how will that shape its overall design? Before you begin that first design phase, you should have a clear picture in mind.

Customer Engagement. Don’t forget to ask potential customers what they think of your great idea. Even if your potential customers are members of your local community, ask what they think, ask what ways your idea is great – or not – and could be better – or not. If you don’t want to give too much away, you can still be subtle about it. Quietly query the potential marketplace and/or quietly observe relevant conversations, taking careful note of what people say they really want. Ultimately, however, the choice is up to you. People don’t always know – or say – what they really want, after all.

Prototypes & Product Design. At some point, you will need to get serious about the idea. That means moving from an abstract concept to a functional product. At minimum, a prototype should perform all of the basic functions of the final product. It gives you a chance to work through design realities, explore materials and costs, and finally to show others what your idea will look like when it becomes reality.

Getting the Team Together. Once you have your idea fleshed out and ready to go – or perhaps even sooner if you’re doing this all as a team, it’s time to think about who is going to partner with you all the way. Choose these people carefully, based on relevant expertise, yes, but also on shared vision. Even if you are a one-man show, consider networking as a way to find emotional support and business savvy. No one should go this road alone – and sooner or later you definitely won’t be.

Investors and Where to Find Them. Getting investors can feel like a Catch-22 situation. Investors, it may seem, only want to invest in successful businesses who therefore don’t really need money. That is not necessarily true. If you have vision and commitment, especially as seen in hard work and personal investment and a sound business model, you might be surprised. That said, people aren’t going to come to you with money – and they (probably) aren’t going to offer money to a vague idea no matter how hard you ask.

Try. Try Again. Last but not least, setbacks will come. There will be moments when that great idea doesn’t look so great, when that supplier lets you down, when that investor walks away shaking their head. The secret to success is not to give up. If you’ve done your research, if you’re sure your idea will fit a niche, don’t let momentary setbacks get you down. These things will happen. You can depend on it. You can also depend on your research and your idea that lets you know sooner or later you will get this product out there – and people will buy it.

All of this can seem daunting, we know. Good news: you aren’t in this alone. Wherever you are in the development of your business plan, whether you’re just getting or started or you’ve hit an inevitable snag, you need the right business partners to help see you through from concept to market – and beyond. contact us today, and let W3 Business Minds help with your startup!

Burning Cash: The biggest Problem of Startups & How to Solve it

Some of the biggest, most famous startups are known — or even notorious — for spending venture capital infusions lavishly on offices, employees, and equipment. Generally, those startups fall into one of two categories: Fast-burning failures, or companies with a known quality product that use some of the cash their massive funding rounds to attract […]

Some of the biggest, most famous startups are known — or even notorious — for spending venture capital infusions lavishly on offices, employees, and equipment.
Generally, those startups fall into one of two categories: Fast-burning failures, or companies with a known quality product that use some of the cash their massive funding rounds to attract employees with high-end amenities.

In truth, these types of stories cover major outliers on two opposite ends of the spectrum. Startups mainly exist somewhere in the middle part of that spectrum, with extremely varied amounts of initial funding or even none at all outside of what the founders can personally pay for or borrow. The strategies so closely associated with the word “startup,” mostly amounting to hemorrhaging cash until the product takes off or at least does well enough for the company to be acquired, are not a sustainable model for most new businesses.

For most startups, huge spending isn’t an option. Especially at the beginning. The true nature of most successful startups is a lean start, with funding gradually increasing until — in the best case scenario — their product proves itself in the market and receives a big boost from investors.

The Lean Startup Methodology

The basics of the lean startup methodology are:

Build the minimal functional example of your product. Work with your engineers to create the leanest example of your product and get it in front of customers as soon as possible to start gathering usage data. There is immense value in getting your product out of the imagination phase and in front of customers.
Continuously deploy new versions of your product. Instead of slowly building the full suite of dream features for your product, add new fixes and features as your customers need them. This keeps every man hour focused on the most efficient work at all times. This also leverages the phenomenon of customer needs often being out of sync with engineers’ ideas. Each new feature implemented considers customer feedback from the previous version, instead of engineers and designers dreaming up their own solutions to problems customers might not even have.
Make decisions based on actionable metrics, rather than vanity metrics. In this case, actionable means a circumstance with a high chance of bringing in new revenue. A vanity metric, in contrast, is data that sounds nice, like targeting anything that nets new customers, but the best ways to do so sometimes cost more money overall than each individual customer brings in. Prove you can make money before spending too much at once!

The startup planning stances outlined above are even helpful for new businesses with heavy initial funding. Proving you know how to make money efficiently leads to a broader cross-section of investors willing to take a risk on your startup. And if the final goal is to sell the company off to a larger entity, you increase your chances of being well-compensated if the product is operating at a profit or at least losing very little compared to similar potential investments.

These three basics are the tenets of running a lean startup, and will point entrepreneurs in the right direction towards building an efficient, profitable product that proves to potential investors that your startup is worth their time and money.

Do you want to gain more tools to ensure your startup runs in the most lucrative and efficient fashion possible? That’s where W3 Business Minds come in. We specialize in helping startups and new businesses hit the ground running with the absolute best strategy possible, by identifying inefficiencies and plugging in new, data-driven ideas with proven success.

Whether you’re in the planning stages or you have a successful, established business that you know could be doing better, contact us today for a consultation.