Early Stage startup success manual: 5 steps to starting a successful startup

Ajeet K Chaudhary
5 min readAug 16, 2022
Check this salesforce’s article on startup success

India is experiencing a surge of young, ambitious entrepreneurs who are bringing their own early stage startup ventures to the table. They’re partnering with established organizations such as Y-Combinator, Startup India to gain access to the network and expertise of seasoned angel investors, but they’re also raising their own money from a growing pool of individual investors. This has led to a budding ecosystem of young, early-stage startup companies that are coming into the market with the help of both angel investors and venture capitalists. Venture capitalists, who have largely been on the sidelines for a few decades, are once again becoming active in the Indian startup scene.

But the biggest challenge for early stage startup companies and small & medium businesses (SME’s) is that nine out of ten startups fail within the first year. They don’t have the money or the connections needed to grow their businesses. This is where angel investors, venture capitalists, and other early-stage financiers come in. They provide the money and connections that early-stage companies need to reach their goals.

5 Success Mantras for early stage startups:

  1. A startup’s success depends on its ability to quickly create a market for its product or service.
Early stage startup product market fit
Know more about product market fit.

The key to a early stage startup’s success is its ability to quickly create a market for its product or service. Venture capitalists commonly invest in startups when they have demonstrated the ability to create a market for their product or service. When a startup has demonstrated the ability to create a market for its product or service, venture capitalists commonly require the company to show traction in the market before investing in it. This can be difficult to demonstrate without a clear idea of the size of the market and the projected trajectory.

2. Early stage startups should generate enough revenue or scale quickly enough to sustain themselves.

Best ways to generate revenue for your startup

This means that a startup needs to demonstrate that it can make money and that the money it is making is enough to support itself and the growth of its business.

To generate revenue, founders should make sure their product has a clear “exit strategy” that provides them the ability to draw a clear line between their business model and their ambition. They should also be able to clearly articulate the value that their product delivers to the target customer market. The bottom line is that an entrepreneur needs to define their product strategy such that it is clear how their product fits the market and provides value to users. The clearer the strategy, the easier it is to sell the idea to investors, partners, and other important stakeholders.

3. Early stage startups should have clear plan for how to grow their business.

Business growth strategies for early stage startups
Business growth strategies for startups

To be clear, startups should have a clear plan for how to grow their business. This plan should include a clear description of how the company plans to scale, what the current revenue/user numbers are, and the path to getting to the next level. For example, this could include a description of projections for current and future revenue over the next two years, as well as a description of how to get to the next level, and what steps the company will take to grow into the next level. The goals of this plan should be to clearly communicate how the company will grow its revenue.

4. Startup needs good management and resources.

Right resources are very important for early stage startups

Another common issue is that startups don’t have the right resources and management team to execute their business plan. When founders first launch their startup, they often focus on building the product, but they often forget about the other key resources and team needed to execute their business plan. Founders often neglect to build strong internal management and governance processes, which can cause delays in the timeline for the company to reach key goals. In the early stages, it is critical that startups have a clear strategy for building their team and resources so that they can execute their plan.

5. Right team and the right culture

How to create right team culture?

Generally, when a company founders, they should first assemble a senior team of the best experts in their field and bring them together closely around a set of values that reflect those experts’ abilities, the company’s vision, and the expectations of the founders. Having developed a rapport within their team, the founders then need to deepen this bond and enhance their sense of team and company culture by having lots of one-on-one conversations together. This should involve both employees and non-employees alike, since team members are often best-equipped to spot blind spots and other problems.

Conclusion:

If an early stage startup has good team, good management, growth mindset, product market fit and a validated revenue model. It will reach heights of success very soon.

Thank you.

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Ajeet K Chaudhary

Product Manager @Avishkaar|COO @Tnatan India | Ex- Byju's| Growth hacker