Web-based startups tend to lose focus from these obvious facts that might hurt the venture in the longer-run…
1.Not spending an extra hour on your ‘core value proposition’
Most important of all the aspects. Do not try to get lost in the embezzlement of ‘features’ you would like to build for your product. Rather, hold yourself for a while & try to close the loop for the core offering you are providing. We tend to close this gap by adding a ‘feature’ which most of the times comes out as a sloppy implementation. A well-defined boundary of the ‘core idea’ has the potential of adding numerous successful additions over it.Write down your vision on a piece of paper(in one meaningful, short sentence) & ask yourselves if the present execution(planned or implemented)will suffice.
2. Throwing/disrespecting what you have built
This is an entrepreneur’s curse. You might stumble across a better design, a cool feature, swanky template or anything that would require you to re-build the base to put this new baby in place. That is a mistake we make quite often. As a rule of the thumb, you must try to ‘adjust’ these new bullets(only if you must) into the old arsenal. Once you have enough feedback to change your past implementation, you can work from scratch to put your latest findings in place. Else, give a miss to all those temptations to play with your present structure. Go till the end of the world to make your past efforts work.
3. Not spending enough time online for Open-source plug-ins
I guess building plug-ins in major pain-point area where the product development team is at logger-heads with the biz team. While the expected turnaround time is crunched, all of us want brilliant results with vision. Thinking pragmatically, it really becomes a nightmare for your product development team to deliver at the expected level. While being in sync with your technical team is a must, keep nudging them(politely!) to look for open-source plug-ins to ease the pain. Date-picker, Twitter bootstrap hover drop-down, dropzone(for file upload),favico(fav icon animation), alertify(beautiful alerts), etc. are just few of the examples of awesomeness open-source provides. I would like to quote Abraham Lincoln, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.”
4. Facebook is not the ultimate marketing channel
God help you if your marketing strategy is built around getting more ‘Likes’ on your FB page! Having a clearly defined target-audience is a pre-requisite before investing yourself into Social Media Marketing. If you are a content-heavy platform, rush to Quora & make yourself visible there. If you are doing anything related to interests, hobbies, lifestyles, etc. pay some attention to Google+ groups. LinkedIn will get you some really ‘precious’ connections & attention if you are into professional services. To sum it up, DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET.
5. Ignore the importance of ‘talking’ to your co-founder/s
You started because of him/her. Accept this. The sooner you will, the better are your chances your success. Sit with partner to know the obstacles he/she has faced during the day. Appreciate where an amazing result has been delivered. Try to understand the technology, marketing skills, design philosophy,etc. even if it sounds gibberish to you. The results will make you proud in the longer run. Though this point is a bit on personal front, many ignore it and fall into the pit of fractured mutual trust.
I hope this would help you guys to clear off some sludge off your brain. I would be more that happy to hear your story.
You can witness all these points into action at http://www.getechoed.com.
Share your story of the mistakes you committed. Share your learnings. All ears this side 🙂
This post is written by Kumar Dipanshu, Co founder at GetEchoed. He handles product design, being the creative think tank and being resolute about his opinions! He loves poetry and mountains. Tweet to discuss anything with him @kdipanshu