It is undisputed that the 21st century is the era of technology. Now, a growing industry is always more welcoming to the newcomers than one on the decline, which makes this the natural choice for most startups. This, however, doesn’t mean that making a tech startup succeed is a walk in the park. There are some serious mistakes that managers of these new companies keep repeating and here are few of them that can be especially devastating for this young company on its path towards success.
1. Not Finding an Adequate Team
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that you won’t be able to do everything on your own. For example, if you aren’t able to fund your startup on your own, you may want to look for a partner. The thing that makes most partnerships work in the short-run is a mutual interest. Unfortunately, sharing an interest doesn’t necessarily mean that you share the same vision as well. Aside from finding the right co-founder, you need to focus on getting the right employees for your company. Seeing how most startups operate on a skeleton crew, every single person counts and having just one slacker can seriously cripple your productivity.
2. You Aren’t Considering Operational Expenses
One of the things that everyone knows is that starting your own company costs money. Hiring people, leasing an office, buying or renting equipment and paying all the taxes are things that most people remember to put on the paper when counting their expenses. What they completely forget about is a fact that for a new business it usually takes 6 months to 2 years in order to become self-sustainable. This means that you will have to find a way to provide your business with a steady cash flow throughout this rough patch in order to cover operational expenses.
3. Refusing to Outsource
Another problem with tech companies is that they usually believe it is bad for their image not to handle all their IT requirements in-house. Unfortunately, they may lack both manpower and resources to adequately deal with this problem on-spot, which is a practice that may cause all of their business to suffer. Luckily, there are numerous high-profile IT consulting companies out there that can cover most of the IT services, such as planning an IT strategy or dealing with IT audits and reviews.
4. Ignoring Company Culture
When you look at it objectively, as a startup you won’t be able to provide the best pay, the best chance of hierarchical advancement or even the most adequate learning experience. Faced with all of that, what do you have to offer to your employees? Well, for one thing, a pleasant environment to work in. They need to know that in your company they are appreciated and that they will never be expected to do something that is not in the description of their work-spot (at least not compulsory and without adequate compensation). Next, they need to know that their position here is 100 percent secure (as long as they are doing their job) and that the work they do doesn’t go unnoticed. A company culture is one of the pillars of its long-term success.
5. Overinvesting
The world of technology is a highly volatile one. This means that although your app or device may be hit one week, there is no guarantee that this trend will carry on. Some businesses get so intoxicated with the sudden and unexpected success that they overinvest in high-end equipment they can’t actually afford or hire people they won’t need once the dust finally settles. Because of this, you need to be suspicious towards any success you face and try not to invest more than it seems smart at the moment.
In Conclusion
All of the above-mentioned mistakes stem from inexperience and inexperience alone. Unfortunately, learning from your own mistakes can sometimes be incredibly expensive and painful. Because of this, you need to find a different learning method. Two most reliable ones are emulating top dogs of your industry and learning from the mistakes of others. You see 95 percent of all businessmen fail on their first attempt. What separates the best from the best is that the latter stay down while the first use this experience to learn how to get up.
