Getting your startup working starts with an idea and the will to do it. Then you make plans and fine tune your strategy. You raise money, present to investors and perhaps you assemble a team. A lot of people don’t even get this far, but if you’re driven and precise, you can be one of the few that gets their business up and running, and turning a profit.
But what next? How do you scale your business up? And what are the factors that cause some companies to skyrocket, while others never quite achieve that same trajectory? Some of it is down to being in the place at the right time, sure. But if you do all the right things, then you can heavily optimize your chances of achieving growth. After all, opportunity alone isn’t enough, but when opportunity meets preparation, then you’re on to something good.
All that in mind, what should you be doing to give your business the best possible chance to scale up and reach its full potential?
Embrace digital marketing
We’re in a digital age and it’s only just getting started, so it’s essential to dive in and get the most out of digital marketing. However, digital marketing is an art and a profession in itself, and if your hands are already full with all the other aspects of running a startup, then this is one area where it makes sense to delegate. Find a no-nonsense scaling platform like King Kong, and you can have that taken care of, freeing you up to focus on your other tasks.
One of the great things about digital marketing is that it’s direct and endlessly flexible, and provides a lot of feedback data instantly. When it’s done expertly, you can adapt and tweak as you go along, and have a marketing strategy that responds and adapts to changing conditions.
Learn from competitors
When it comes down to it, if you really want to know what causes some businesses to grow, then there’s something incredibly simple that you can do right now: go away and study those businesses. There are countless examples of companies that have succeeded impressively, and there is nothing better than a proven, real-life example to show you how to go about things effectively.
It’s a good idea to look at businesses that are similar to yours, or are similar to what you’d aspire to, but also to look at projects that differ from yours, in order to take in a variety of models and approaches. And don’t be afraid to copy, borrow, and even—in the nicest possible way—steal ideas. You’ll want to adapt them to your own venture, and you never want to breach any copyright regulations, but if we’re talking about concepts and ways of operating, then use everything that you think will work for you.
Have a clear purpose
The very best brands don’t simply exist, they set out out achieve or provide something. That might mean that there’s a specific problem you solve, or a service that is currently lacking, that you can provide, or a product that only you can create. The key thing though, is to be specific. Why does your company exist and what is it going to do?
Once you have that purpose and a means of delivering on your intentions, then you can work on building out to reach the greatest possible number of people. The point is that if it’s not absolutely clear (to yourself and others) precisely what it is you are intending to do, then it’s more difficult to scale up.
Get customer feedback
This is critical, you need to know exactly what your customers think in as much detail as possible. If the feedback is positive, great, but if it’s negative then don’t hide from it. In fact, the more brutal, the better, so you know precisely what went wrong and what you need to change.
The other key thing is what you do with that information. Basically, you must be ruthless, so don’t get emotionally attached to things that don’t work or you’ll never be able to throw them out. Strip away anything that isn’t useful. Start things over if you must. Enhance and expand the good parts.
By doing this, you may find that your business goes in a new direction and doesn’t resemble what you had at the start, but that’s fine, as long as the new direction is more successful. And by doing this, your project will become leaner–reinforcing positives and removing waste–and be in good shape to scale up.
Take your time
Do you want your business to rocket to the moon overnight? Well, so does everyone else, but the reality is that when you see a project blow up suddenly into the next big thing, it’s unlikely tohave actually been such a sudden success. What usually happens is an extended period of grinding out gains, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, locking in the good parts, and constantly improving.
