Are you familiar with that moment in the cricket when you hit a ball and already know that it is going to clear the boundary? You feel like you are Sachin Tendulkar.
You haven’t even processed all the factors, but somewhere inside you know that your stance was perfect, bat swing was clean, the angle, the trajectory, the force – everything was precise. With that shot, there’s the only way that ball can go – over the boundary.
With startups or business in general, it’s not always that easy. When you register your company for the first time, there’s no way you can already know whether it is going to be a loser or winner. You can only leap of faith and do a lot of smart, hard work. That’s all there is. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any signs or indicators that can foretell what the future of your company seems like.
Let us spill the beans over 5 common signs of a healthy startup. If you can check all these ticks for your startup, then congratulations, if not, well now is always a good time to make corrections.
Co-founders trust and respect each other
Nothing hinders the growth of a promising quicker than disharmony between (among) founders. Trust and integrity are the foundations of a company. Without these, a company can go only one way: down. When partners fall out, the company, however small or big, follows. Therefore, one must choose his/her co-founder very carefully. Like every team sport, co-founding is all about having each other’s back and having unconditional faith in each other’s potential.
Your product solves a real problem
More often than not, entrepreneurs get excited about their business idea and rush into building a startup. No research, no fact-checking. A few years down the line, they learned it the hard and very expensive way that though their product solved their problem, it isn’t doing much for others. The real test is asking, again and again, a few questions – Will our startup idea make this world a little better? Are we solving a real problem? Will people find our product relevant? Will they be willing to pay? If you answer these questions in ‘yes’, then congratulations. You are on the right path. Otherwise, no marketing and sales team is brilliant enough to be able to sell a product that isn’t helping anybody.
You are not afraid of failures
A failed entrepreneur today is a business tycoon tomorrow. If you are setting on the path of entrepreneurship, etch one thing in your heart and mind, your first venture is more likely to fail. The reason is that the first startups are like a series of experiments, one learning after another. If you are smart and resilient enough to learn from past mistakes, then you are going to taste success real soon.
You’re running a lean startup
The best thing about a startup is its flexibility. So when going gets tough, a lean startup has more chances to sustain than a full-blown company. A startup must be designed to get the most out of every penny with no unnecessary expenses. Otherwise, your startup will be like a spoilt brat who is racing towards zero bank balance at 300 mph.
Your customers are your advocates
Loyal customers are the best thing that can happen to a company, especially if you are a startup. Once you have earned enough word-of-mouth reviews, the key is to sustain this. A lot of modern marketers have mastered the art of creating a sudden buzz with the help of freebies, coupons and positive PR. But what happens when all this stops? Do customers keep buying your product and keep referring to their friends? If the answer is yes, then kudos! You’ve cracked the code.
Once you have checked all these boxes, don’t rest. Keep testing your product. Keep meeting people who have already done what you aspire to do. Inter College Innovation Challenge by RNIL is a great place to test your idea and meet people that can help you. It is an annual contest where budding entrepreneurs from all over India showcase their best innovative ideas in rail-tech, agri-tech and infra-tech. 10 brilliant ideas will win seed funding of Rs. 5 lakhs each.
