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| that result in the failure of a startup? |
Things I personally have learned in the past 2 years that result in the failure of a startup?
When
it comes to a startup, you can see that in past couple of years there
has been like millions of startups popping up on the internet and the
world. On one side it’s good for all of the people because every time
they are launched, they have the potential to make a change.
Past
Two years, I have spend working for an Educational Startup Based in Indonesia. Through out this journey learned lots of stuff from it and as
of now I’m still their Lead Developer and CTO. While working for them we
started from like zero, with out any office, even without any official
name at first.
It took
us 1 whole year to understand what do we want to do for this country and
which gap can we fill with our startup. After spending and developing
different kinds of modules (plans) we finally discovered that the main
thing this current education department lacks is Quality and Student
Friendly online environment.
The
first mistake everyone makes is not making proper Plan of Action for
their startup. Same thing happened to our startup, we started huge but
in the first 2-3 months we lost track. We found ourselves lost.
Second
biggest mistake is considering the work of your Rivals too early. When
we first launched this startup, we already had a really big rival and as
a developer I always studies their websites and try to get as more
information as I can but the own of my company, oh boy Oh boy he had an
ego of and elephant! Like he just started comparing our small company
with like million-dollar company. As a startup you have to user stand
that you are in your early stages and you have to work your way up.
Comparing yourselves and taunting your founding members won’t make it
easy for you.
Third
mistake any startup makes is not understanding their user. When we
started this Educational Startup, my first priority as a developer was
to make sure that every student that visits our website can easily
understand how things work and don’t need to have any sort of computer
knowledge required to operate the website.
Fourth
and the Biggest Mistake is not properly managing the Support Section.
When you are starting up a small company you should remember that your
user response matters and personally as we were a small startup, I had
the duty to manage Both the Development side + the Enrollment Side
(Enrolling Students) + Providing them 24/7 Support. I have seen
multibillion-dollar companies with shitty support system.
When
I was on this startup’s Support, my first priority was to never be mad
at the students and always help them even if the question is crap. You
have to respect them in order to gain respect. I have even helped like
hundred of students with their personal technical issues they were
facing and wasn’t able to find the solution. As a result, when our first
eLearning Session ended and we collected the feedback oh by they liked
me more than the teachers.
Like we make a poll, with all of the team members name on it and I had over 3000 votes as compared to 500 of the teachers.
Conclusion
is to always understand your user, never consider them out of any of
your upcoming plans and make sure to always encourage your employees.
They are the power of your Startup. Not you!
Article "That Result in The Failure of a Startup?" protected