Advice and tools for keeping your high growth startup on track. The founders of the wildly successful startups Instagram, Facebook, Uber et al know a thing or two about how to avoid pitfalls that can kill momentum. Here are some tips to help you stay ahead of any curveball
The “toolkit for startups” is a collection of articles and tools that will help you keep your high-growth startup on track.
For young businesses, times of fast expansion are both thrilling and difficult. It’s obviously an indication that things are going well, but it may also be a vital turning point that affects long-term success.
Failure to keep up with a sudden surge in demand for your product or service might result in a precipitous drop.
Take, for example, the firm MoviePass, which has recently become a cautionary story. Customers were able to view as many movies as they wanted at participating theaters for the modest fee of $9.99 per month, and the service soon gained popularity (at the extraordinary rate of 4,000 percent in just four months).
Customers, on the other hand, started to complain that they never got the actual card required to utilize this subscription, among other things. Moviepass attempted to rethink its business strategy and was forced to alter several of their early core features, including a price hike and other service restrictions.
Customers were furious as a result of the alterations. Stock values plummeted in rapid succession. While MoviePass’s destiny is still unknown, many analysts believe the company is unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
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Now, if your firm is showing symptoms of a rapid surge in sales, you have every right to be concerned that your company may suffer the same fate. Your startup, on the other hand, can manage its development in such a manner that it supports long-term sustainability with some careful planning and preparation.
There are three different methods to go about it.
1. Put money into the proper automation.
As your client base expands, your sales, marketing, and customer service teams will be overburdened. If the necessary tools aren’t in place, it’s possible that shipments will be delayed, deadlines will be missed, and consumer queries will go overlooked. If this becomes a trend, it might result in poor branding and a wave of negative feedbacks, effectively halting your progress.
Even if your team’s workload increases, the number of hours in the day does not. Invest in systems that can automate some of their responsibilities as your company grows to save time.
You will almost certainly need to acquire additional personnel fast during periods of exponential expansion. By screening early applicants for you, an automated recruitment system, for example, may save you an average of 14 hours every week. Additionally, integrating talent assessment tools into this system can further enhance the selection process by accurately evaluating candidates’ skills and competencies, ensuring that you hire the best fit for your rapidly growing team.
Harver’s pre-hiring platform uses AI to automate the screening process and provide customized skill evaluations for each eligible applicant. This is just one example of how automation technologies may assist your firm in making wiser, data-driven choices to support your expanding business.
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You and your team will be better equipped to manage the increased volume of work if you automate as many time-consuming processes as feasible. This is not only a terrific approach to increase your team’s efficiency, but it may also lead to more exact results.
2. Do not make compromises.
It’s easy to lose sight of the little details and extra efforts that helped your brand get to where it is now. However, particularly during times of fast expansion, your branding must stay consistent.
If your clients have had a mixed experience, or if your company is no longer able to deliver on the promises it made, it might jeopardize your long-term existence.
According to a recent survey by Lucidpress, inconsistent branding has caused 56 percent of firms to claim harm to their brand’s trust, and 73 percent have reported a negative effect on sales.
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If it impacts the quality of your brand experience, now is not the time to compromise. Instead, look for ways to make the foundations of your branding or client experience more long-lasting. So, if your company prides itself on providing outstanding customer service, try exploring these solutions that may help you go the additional mile.
Outpost’s collaborative inbox email software, for example, lets teams keep track of all customer communications so they don’t go through the gaps and the correct person on your team answers swiftly and with the most up-to-date information. It’s particularly helpful for teams in charge of generic inboxes such as [email protected] or help@.
Outpost makes it simple to allocate emails to certain team members, making it simple to keep track of what has to be responded to. Customer service has a significant influence on your capacity to retain consumers, and solutions that make it easy to respond to emails in a personable and timely manner may be quite beneficial.
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It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done when your client base develops and demand rises. This may result in a drop in quality since the human instinct is to ignore the most critical issues, even if this is counterintuitive and might harm your brand.
3. Get rid of everything that isn’t absolutely necessary.
While quality should never be compromised, there may be certain procedures that are just slowing down your team. It is important to communicate with your personnel in order to identify these impediments. Because they’re performing the task, they’ll be able to see where time is being wasted and how to improve.
Test out quick (but effective) employee feedback methods to get the dialogue started without chewing up too many valuable work hours. Employees spend fifteen minutes every week to answer questions about their team’s productivity and submit any concerns or queries they want management to address in the 15five program.
This application converts the feedback data into simple reports that team leaders may study. Managers may use this tool to monitor progress and push their whole team to improve productivity and workflows by establishing goals and delivering “high fives” for good work.
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For managers who are already overworked, identifying the non-essential behaviors that are slowing down your team or causing unneeded problems may be difficult. Using a tool to check in with your team on a regular basis may open up a strong communication channel and uncover some simple methods to improve.
Conclusion
While these suggestions are excellent beginning points, keep in mind that just talking (or thinking) about making changes will not keep you on track—strategy is useless if you don’t follow through. So it won’t be as daunting, look for modest ways to simplify and encourage your staff.
While now is not the time to cut corners on quality, some flexibility may be required to keep things moving while your business expands.
Be proactive in supporting your company and team, equipping them with the resources they need to succeed, and remaining loyal to your initial business ideals when circumstances change.
“The tools every startup needs” are the things that you need in order to keep your high growth startup on track. These tools will help you stay organized and productive.
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