Tips on how to grow a successful start-up

How do you grow a successful start-up?

So you’ve got your golden seed of an idea: you know it’s unique, innovative and full of growth potential. The next step is to plant it firmly in the ground, giving it enough sustenance to grow and succeed in a market full of newly sown seeds competing for space and soil.

It's important for new start-ups to start making a profit quickly to avoid falling prey to failure. According to Fortune, 9 out of 10 start-ups fizzle out, mainly due to marketability and monetary issues.

So how can you cultivate your start-up in the early days to ensure maximum growth and success: in other words, how to you get into that 10%?

Perfect Your Product

First and foremost, make sure you have a well-designed product that fills a gap in the market and works well. In the words of Steve Jobs: ‘Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

It is more productive to embrace failure and evolve. Make sure you test your product with customers in the early days and tweak it accordingly. Without the product, you have no start-up.

Embrace Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur (noun): a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk- dictionary.com.

Being an entrepreneur is three parts initiative, two parts risk and the rest is about utilising what you’ve got with limited resources. This also means having your finger in multiple pies. No part of a new business should take precedence- every aspect is of equal importance. Consider investing in additional training in management if needs be. Be both strategic and passionate about what you do.

Build Your Brand

Your brand is your start-up’s identity; it’s as simple as that. It’s the vehicle of communication between you and your customer. When establishing your new brand, consider the following:

• Your brand as a person- would people want to spend time with them?
• Your brand’s USP- what are its distinguishable features?
• Communication- how will you effectively promote it?
• Consumer, customer, client- what makes them tick?

Work Collaboratively

‘I built my business with no help at all’, said no one ever. Division of labour is important, as is creative collaboration. One way of doing this is to invest in a good mentor who can impart their hard-earned knowledge to help your project flourish.

Another way is to surround yourself with like-minded, creative individuals in a flexible co-working space. Co-working is proving increasingly popular with new start-ups because it offers opportunities to collaborate and make contacts, while providing them with the means to keep a business running efficiently. Our own Search Office Space co-working spaces have a range of inclusive services like reception facilities, IT support, meeting rooms and even networking events.

[caption id="attachment_20226" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Co-working office space: According to the Global Co-working Survey, 80% of co-working spaces in UK plan to expand and 72% of co-working spaces interact with others.[/caption]