5 Things You Might Have Skipped Planning For Your Startup

Have gone through the basic steps to start a business of registering and licensing it? But there are certain other essential components of start-ups which are intangible in nature and you won’t see it in any of the ‘how to start a business’ checklists. Today, millions of people dream of becoming entrepreneurs and starting a business, but in most of the cases, procrastination kills the entrepreneurial dreams. So, in order to get away with all the impediments in getting your startup off the ground, here is the crux of all the things you might have skipped planning for your startup:

Have you implemented technology to enable team collaboration?

In the early days of the company, keeping all the team members working simultaneously on a project is highly important. But how can you foster collaboration in startups?

Working with remote team members and contract workers intensifies the need to foster a collaborative culture in the company. Working simultaneously on the projects and keeping all the team members focused on the goals is of utmost importance for a startup company. So, to foster collaboration in startups, various business communication apps like Flock, Slack, Dropbox, G suite, Evernote, OneNote should be brought in use, as they offer a great menu of options to fit almost any unique situation and their corresponding solutions.

Have you consideredemployee medical insurance benefits?

Offering your employees medical insurance is not something you should do without. Technically, if you have less than 50 or 100 employees, you avoid having to pay a tax penalty for not offering affordable health benefits. But still, health benefits should be offered to the employees anyway. It is a misconception that health insurance is a luxury you cannot afford, just because your company is small. But, that is definitely not the case because such benefits attract employees. Moreover, a startup gets tax benefits if they purchase a group medical plan through the marketplace.

You cannot retain or attract the apex talent if you are not meeting the basic needs like the healthcare. You think of benefits for your employees, and your employees will think of innovative ideas to make your company grow.

Have you defined and documented your buyer persona?

What is a Buyer Persona? Buyer Personas are the fictitious representation of what your ideal target customeris like. Who is going to need the things your startup is offering? However, the Internet also plays a major role in reaching the vast audience. Building the buyer personas can help your startup to develop the base for your marketing campaigns and everything you need to know about your target audience. Now, the question comes, how do you create buyer personas? Developing buyer personas is much easier, if you already have existing customers. Using the busing habit, demographic function, and feedbacks from the customers can help you build an effective buyer persona. Conducting surveys and interviews is another way to learn the specific needs of your customers. As your startup grows, it is important to update the buyer persona and also reflect the new information you gain from your marketing efforts. Defining and documenting buyer personas is something very few startups do, but sooner or later suffer if they don’t have one in place.

Have you outlined your Brand Strategy?

When a startup is launched, the entrepreneurs generally become quite excited about designing a logo, hiring freelancers, and thus call it a brand. This is where most of the startups fail, because they don’t understand that Branding is something beyond a logo. Branding is like, how you position your company for your audience. Remember, when you brand yourself properly, the competition in the market becomes irrelevant. If you are not a brand, then you are a commodity and then price becomes everything. In that case, the lowest cost producer of that particular commodity becomes the winner in the market. Through Branding, you can have better positioning and visibility in the market which will differentiate you from the rest in the marketplace.

Have you thoughtfully chosen your startup location?

In today’s age of virtualization and globalization, the location you choose to work can make or break your startup. We are not new to maps and we often use them regularly in our daily lives. So, why not bring them into use for business decisions? Today, the ‘real time’ location information can be shared from almost every device that is connected to the internet. With the use of GIS, the Geographical Information System platform supports multi-layers of information in the form of maps, thus giving the enterprises to leverage the spatial power of information in a wide variety of ways.

Even the most pensive startup plan, endowed on the most visionary idea, counts for nothing if the person at the helm lacks the skill,perseverance, and knowledge to carry the whole endeavor to a successful achievement. And at the end of the day, knowing how to do something is much more arguable than to realize what actually needs to be done.