13 lucky Tips from British Business Brains to “assure” Start-ups success.

“From my very first day as an entrepreneur in 1966 at age 16, I’ve felt the only mission worth pursuing in business is to make people’s lives better”.

Richard Branson, #1 English business magnate, investor & philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group which – after 50 years in Business – now controls more than 400 companies in Airlines, Space, Music, Mega-Stores, etc. Is that success or what?

Successful Topics: Uncertainties, Expectations, Experts Advice, 5 Forces, Opportunity, Market? PR, Mistakes, Failure Fund, Risk Analysis, more Uncertainties.

#1 Awesome Advice. .If you are thinking of starting up your own business, here’s the advice you need to assure start-up success. Four experts – their fingers firmly on the pulse of the business world – share with us their thoughts on key things to bear in mind in order to successfully grow a business this year.

2 many Uncertainties in 2017. As we look back at 2017, the one thing that all marketers and founders have had to face is “uncertainty”. With so many unknowns, politically, socially & economically, marketers are having to be flexible and amend their strategy & tactics quickly to the changing situation.

3. Expect the Best, but prepare for the worst. As uncertainty increases, it’s essential to consciously prepare your business for the unknown. In other words, you must make sure to prepare for bad times. Surely, as business founders, we ought to be optimistic in nature (or else we would most probably not have found a great idea). This usually leads us to think about and prepare ourselves for our growth options (that is – once we are successful – what shall we do next?) But when fogginess is approaching, we must also think of, and prepare ourselves for, some backup options.

4 Business Experts When it comes to agile thinking, marketers can learn a lot from the world of start-ups, so we spoke to four leading British Business Experts in the field (London Business School professor John Mullins, ideas man Shed Simove, digital product expert Jacob Beckett and entrepreneurship expert Sharon Tal) to get their advice on the keys to start-up success in 2018. (see Authors at end)

5 Forces of Survival in Business

#1 Competitive Rivalry. Their weakness, your opportunity

#2 Supplier Control: to prevent excessive prices that take a big slice of your profits.

#3 Buyer Power. to drive your prices down. Their cost to switch from your products & services to those of a rival? Are your buyers strong enough to dictate terms to you?

#4 Substitution of your product with an alternate solution. How easy?

#5 Threat of New Entry: to make a competitive or substitute product. How easy?

Words from the wise on how to have Start-up Success.

6. Access Opportunity. “Before taking the Entrepreneurial plunge, make sure you’ve assessed the opportunity you’re pursuing. Get real evidence, please! There’s nothing more difficult than trying to make a success of a “no-hoper” of an opportunity. Ask family, friends & experts what they think.

7. The Market? “You’ll need to assess the market (How large? Is it growing? What are the trends? You’ll want to think about whether you really want to play in the industry you’ve chosen and whether there’s any reason to believe your competitive advantage can be sustainable over time (patents or other elements that are rare, valuable & difficult to imitate).

8. Bust your Butt. It’s fairly simple: You need to work harder than the next person. Keep validating your idea and hang in there. Have laser focus on what you’re doing. If you’re running a start-up you’ll inherently come up with lots or other ideas. Don’t let these distract you. (unless they’re significantly better than what you’re working on) Many start-ups with a 1 good idea have failed by chasing too many poor ideas at the cost of their best idea.

9. We all want PR for our business. And it’s hard to cut through the noise of info overload. So, one technique I use is to pin my products or services to well-known cultural events or public figures who are in the ether at this precise moment.

10. Mistakes. Each addition to your core offering can be very costly in both time and money. Instead, you need to keep focused on your core idea, constantly re-validating it – particularly in relation to what is happening in similar products to your own start-up. You need to be willing to shape and change your idea to respond to the trends around you. Part of running a start-up is accepting that mistakes will be made. To be successful you need to be able to respond effectively to any mistake, learn from it and move on.

11. Set up a ‘Failure Fund’ What ??? (a better name is an ‘Experimentation Fund’, but that doesn’t sound as exciting or dangerous!) It’s a fixed amount of money for you and your team to experiment with, bringing new ideas to life that they really believe in, but are left-field and not your core business. (Google does 20%) At the very least, you’ll learn loads about a fascinating new area – at the best, you could discover an energizing & lucrative new revenue stream.”

12. Risque, no, Risk Analysis. When you design your Super Bowl game-plan (ask Tom Brady) for 2018, make sure to specify not only your growth opportunities, but also minimization or elimination or your Risks. It will keep you focused & agile altogether – a critical combination – for playing against a successful competitive team.

13 unlucky or just Uncertainty. All arrows point to the same direction: 2018 is going to be a year with major uncertainties. Technological revolutions such as Alexa, Artificial Intelligence [AR\VR] are knocking on our door, aiming to change the world, alongside local & global regulatory shifts – such as data privacy, for example.

Authors: John Mullins, Associate Professor at London Business School and author of The New Business Road Test.

Jacob Beckett is the founder of major digital product design agency Vitamin London.

Dr Sharon Tal is co-author of Where to Play, 3 steps for discovering your most valuable Market opportunities. For more information go to www.WhereToPlay.co

Shed Simove is an plan man, motivational speaker & an expert in unlocking creativity for marketing & sales. He is one of the speakers in the Thought Expansion Network – a group of the world’s top experts, pulled from various fields to deliver inspiration & insights to a diverse range of audiences.

Comments: Do you know of an other Tips to assure success in 2018?

from Global Marketing Alliance 11 Jan 18 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

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