Despite being commonly characterised by their potential for rapid growth and disrupting existing industries or markets, you will discover that you and your startup are still bound to face challenges when pursuing growth during this economic era.
Source from Freepik
Whether lifestyle, social, or scalable startup, even if you are running a small business, growing your business can be a challenging yet crucial step to take one step closer to success.
How, then, do we ensure that your startup does not lag in this industrial rat race?
Here are some quick tips to help you navigate the process of rapidly growing your startup:
Tip #1: Staying Adaptable & Flexible
Source from iStock
What this means is that you are able to respond to changing consumer needs and demands by modifying your service or goods to meet customer needs. This enables your business to have consistent and continued growth when your product or service varies linearly with consumer demand.
Amazon, which used to be known as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore” now offers services to deliver your food as quickly as within an hour.
Source from iStock
During COVID-19, Amazon was seen to be remodifying to cater to what consumers find most convenient. By offering these services to them and diligently readapting to their needs, they will be favored by customers in no time.
Tip #2: Understand Your Customers
As the title suggests, you must know what your consumers want before creating a product or service for them. For example, Nike provides stylish products that perform exceptionally well, reflected in their range of athletic gear meticulously designed to cater to the needs of athletes and sports enthusiasts alike.
Source from iStock
This enables the company to continue to show signs of growth even today as it continues to cater to the customers’ sporting needs. As a result, it nudges them to choose your service and pick you apart from your competitors when your products are uniquely designed for others.
Incorporating consumer feedback is key in making your service stand out despite being a small business. This could differentiate your product from other larger businesses, giving you an edge in your industry, especially after your startup starts to show signs of growth.
Tip #3: Engage in Strategic Partnerships
It is important to collaborate with individuals to equip essential resources such as capital to kickstart the notion of growth of your startup. Apple, which was able to leverage several companies in the video editing and digital production space, comprises much of its customer base today.
Source from iStock
The popularity of its brand name today shows that by collaborating with the right stakeholders that elevate your company’s products, a business can hinge on essential resources to readily develop what is desired by customers and in turn generate growth.
Another example is Lego. Existing in a market saturated by new technology and almost hitting bankruptcy in 2003, Lego had discovered it could revitalise its business by launching a series of movies and collaborating with Star Wars & Harry Potter to resurrect its growth as a business, which was later made to be successful.
Source from iStock
As such, working with the right stakeholders could catalyse or even reanimate the growth of your business when you access new markets, along with shared expertise and resources.
Tip #4: Incorporate Sustainability
With lower startup costs, operations and growth would be made easier, hence the shift to sustainability by reducing energy usage & waste. In an era where much more attention is given to the environment and going green, ideating on projects that complement the Green Agenda will divert customers to your business.
Similarly, a company named IncyTech which faced the challenge of renewable energy generation, was able to revolutionize the renewable energy industry with its thermal floaters. This equipment converts solar to thermal energy.
Source from iStock
With their commitments to make both a positive social & economic impact on the world, they adapted unique and innovative ways to utilise unused water bodies to overcome the limitations of land availability, providing a cost-effective, efficient, and scalable way to harness solar thermal energy for their business.
By practicing sustainability similarly to IncyTech, startups, and businesses can benefit by having lowered costs to better generate revenue and achieve quicker profitability.
Practicing sustainability also rallies the support of customers who advocate for environmental sustainability and creates a positive perception of your brand. Thus, incorporating a similarly unique, and innovative practice can make your business stand out just like how IncyTech did when they overcame the problem of land scarcity and were able to continue growing their business.
Source from iStock
Conclusion
In reality, there are many ways to strategise and plan how you want your startup to grow. It is important to monitor your progress and targets when planning towards achieving your business goals and weigh the factors involved in helping you and your company better achieve success.
Want to learn to conceptualise business data and identify several opportunities in the market for your business? Sign up for our SMU Academy Launching A Startup course to discover greater business tips and strategies to reach success!