How to float, grow a successful start-up

Starting a new business can be as terrifying as it is exciting. At any given time, a fledgling company is likely to confront a series of challenges especially in its infancy. One of the biggest fears of most start-up owners is competition, particularly in markets dominated by well-known, established brands.

The key to surviving this is to find a niche market, not yet saturated by other companies with the same product. Obviously there will almost always be another brand offering a similar product, hence you need to think outside the box; ensure you establish a clear target audience and a specific brand message to differentiate your start-up.

Another major challenge that confronts any new business owner is how to hire the right employees that will help grow and nurture their young company.

While this can be a nerve-wracking experience, it is certainly one of the most important investments for any start-up; hence the need to get it right. Human resource experts believe that finding the right talent whilst sticking to a budget is a challenge for any company, particularly unknown brands.

This clearly affirms the need to build a strong team to nurture and develop your young company.

Dedicating your time and investing your money on employees is always a worthy investment.

Also, with advances in technology and the shift online, information is constantly changing. Not only keeping up but staying ahead of the competition is a significant challenge for young companies. Furthermore, with plans to roll a start-up out into multiple markets, each country needs to be approached with an individual strategy based on market conditions.

According to Kian Moini, co-founder, Lamudi – a real estate online market place – which began operations in October 2013: “It is difficult to generalise across markets because no two countries are exactly the same, even though there are some similarities.”

“A key challenge in some markets, such as Myanmar for example where the internet penetration is among the lowest in the world, is convincing consumers of the value of the internet and e-commerce – the value in shifting online.

In other more mature markets, which are already heavily digitised, there is stiff competition for start-ups from well-established competitors,” Moini explained.

It is also vital to ensure that your product keeps up with changes in the market. For internet-based start-ups, this often means adapting the website.

However, with so many websites, it is difficult to make yours stand out in the crowd – however, a secure, reliable and well-performing website can often speak for itself.

Two pertinent questions to ask when setting up a website include; Is your website mobile-friendly? Does it have an attractive, easy-to-manage user interface?

ODINAKA MBONU