por 1-. 4 Key Ingredients For Your Startup Success
- Justify your product’s existence at this specific point in time.
- Identify and leverage the ‘unfair advantage’.
- Validate your idea and find a market for your product.
- Passion/resilence.
2-. Positioning and Branding Your Product
- Visualise the specific contexts and circumstances where using it will make a difference for your customers.
- Discover and leverage the customers’ Jobs-to-be-done.
- Pick a brand name that’s easy to remember, write, and pronounce.
- Showcase your product in action with images and videos.
- Use testimonials that address your customers’ objections and allow them to visualize how your products will help them.
3-. Finding and Maintaining Product/Market Fit
- Use one-on-one interviews to get to know your customers.
- Get in touch with your support team and find out what customers are complaining about.
- If you are a small team, be the support yourself.
- Welcome feedback, but always weigh it based on customer value.
- Do not try to please everyone (think about your product roadmap).
4-. When, How, and Where to Get Funding.
- Try growing your SaaS startup as much as you can before raising funds.
- Make detailed plans of where you want to go and exactly how you are going to spend the money you raise.
- Study up on the differences between different funding ecosystems, so the overall legal/logistical/practical process can be smoother.
- VC funding is not your only option: familiarize yourself with alternative models.
- Account for the substantial amount of time you will need to prepare all the documentation and deal with prospective investors.
5-. Pricing Your SaaS Product
- Do not improvise it.
- Pay attention to monetization and retention.
- Get to know your (current and potential) customers.
- Use a Price Sensitivity Meter to uncover your optimal price bands
6-. Launching Your Product and Getting Traction
- Research and be aware of your competition.
- Focus on providing real value to your users.
- Do not improvise your product launch.
- As you get started, run small experiments and tests to find the 2-3 channels that will give you the most traction.
7-. Setting Up Your Business Operations
- Learn the fundamentals of MRR, gross margin, expenses, and cash fl
- Share your financials regularly and transparently with your team.
- Write your terms and conditions as early as possible.
- Build processes around your success criteria.
- Consider implementing agile practices across the business.
- Retrospectives are an easy way for you and your team to learn from your errors and successes and improve upon them.
8-. Growing Your Team
- Before jumping headfirst into recruiting, confirm that existing bottlenecks and limitations cannot be solved with more eficient processes.
- When bringing new people on board, hiring for culture fit and growth mindset should be your main priority.
- Try to bring in external experts or advisors when interviewing for a position you are not familiar with.
- If you are a mostly technical team, consider bringing marketers on board to help you build an audience.
- Ensure your onboarding process is smooth and repeatable.
Source: The Essential Guide to Growing Your Early-Stage SaaS Startup
