In fact, based on a study conducted by Shikhar Ghosh, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, found that of the more than 2000 startup businesses included in this study, nearly 75% ended in failure.
With increasing numbers, you as a business entrepreneur can have the possibility that your startup will end next. If you don't want to end up failing, avoid these 7 big mistakes startups often make.
There is no concept that can be tested
An entrepreneur must love business ideas. Maybe your mother even thinks that you are a genius entrepreneur, as if you are destined to make billions of rupiah, right? Wrong. An idea that looks brilliant may not be so brilliant in the eyes of your potential customer. Maybe they can't see the value in your offering, your offer is considered the same as hundreds of your competitors, even worse; they think your product / service doesn't meet what they need.
All this information only comes when you put aside your personal opinions as an entrepreneur and test business concepts with your target market. You can engage a professional consultant to evaluate your concept or test it yourself by offering free and easy-to-use tools like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics.
Continuous improvement
Then there was a group of people from another world. In order to prevent failure at all costs, they enter into a state of worry and fear. These are the people who make continuous improvements to their product / service and hold their product launch until they are completely satisfied. The problem is they will never be satisfied.
Don't let you fall into this trap of perfection. Set a clear launch date for your business and launch it immediately when you are sure that you have completed all the basic features of your business.
Doing too many things at the same time
A startup is like a newborn baby - you need to feed it, change it and manage its mood every day. Although most new mothers can depend on their father to take care of this baby, there are still many startup founders who try to become mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandpas at the same time.According to Mashable and Harvard Business School, 39% of all startup businesses have only one founder. With the number of tasks required in business, delegation is important to you. Stay in control of most aspects of your business, but stop getting tired of the little things. Bring a partner, team or even agency outsourced to ensure that you are not crushed alone in running a business.
An Entrepreneur Stuck with past technology
Take this into account. The 2014 Nielsen Digital Consumer report said that 67% of US consumers own a smartphone. They spend more than 34 hours each month browsing websites or playing on apps on their mobile devices. Is your mobile website ready?
Amazon is now exploring the use of drones to speed up their delivery cycle. Small businesses can now integrate their in-store sales with online sales using an online store builder platform.
There are many advanced technologies available to help you ensure that you are not in the dark ages.
Don't hear your customer
Did you know Avon - the cosmetics giant - started by selling books from house to house? Avon founder David McConnell came up with the idea of giving small perfume gifts to his customers to encourage sales of his book. To top off his surprise, he realized that customers prefer free perfume to books and this giant was born. She left the book business and started her journey to make women more beautiful around the world.
Based on this story, customers often provide you with in-depth information on business that can change the future of your business forever. With social media, consumer forums, and even outdated emails, businesses can talk to their customers directly. Listen to customer feedback and apply the information you get from your customer interactions to improve your business.
Angry customers can cause problems for your online reputation if not resolved properly and quickly. Who knows better than United Airlines! Dave Carroll, a musician who flew with United Airlines and when he arrived he found that his $ 3,500 guitar was badly damaged. Carroll pursued United Airlines for 9 months for compensation, but to no avail. So he decided to write a song about his sad experience with United Airlines and post it on Youtube.
The effect was that United's stock fell 10% in a day, costing shareholders more than $ 180 million. Carroll and the song were featured on Time Magazine, CNBC and even released his own book on the incident. The video on Youtube was watched by nearly 14 million viewers.
Don't be the next United Airlines. Listen to your annoyed customer and solve the problem before he creates an even bigger problem.
Put all the eggs in one basket
High-stakes play is very adrenaline-pumping, making you feel like a reckless rebel. However, playing at high risk with your business is foolishness at best.
Relying on a business for only one source of income is the route many businesses usually take. Yes, you do have great clients who never fail and you can always rely on them. Or you have a product that is taking the world by storm and you can breathe easily. But what if something really goes wrong and your only client is lost or your customer is tired of your same product?
You need plan B. This means that you have to be able to rely on several clients rather than just one client. This also includes working on a second product to support the main product or creating an alternative distribution channel if the existing channel goes bankrupt or even has a backup supplier to meet the main ingredients of your business so you don't run out of materials one day.
Not focused on marketing
We all know that entrepreneurs who are passionate about their own products believe that their amazing product will sell by itself, based on their mere opinion. While this could have happened in the days of Ford car sales, it hasn't happened since 60 years ago.
Startup businesses face fundamental challenges in making difficult choices. Should you use limited resources to focus on building great products and believe that people will come by themselves or should you spend money building great products and marketing to get customers to come to you? If your product is second to none maybe you might have the first choice. Meanwhile, ordinary people have to do various ways to attract customer attention.
As a startup, you obviously have to save money and pay attention to the use of money. But marketing is one of the inevitable business needs. There is still a lot that you can achieve with small funds or even no funds, you can capitalize on the enthusiasm to get out and promote your business to your target market. Take advantage of blogs, social media platforms, email marketing and even word of mouth to create awareness of your brand and encourage customers to you.
Of course, if you are a novice entrepreneur, you must understand the seven mistakes above and learn from them.