8 Startup Tips to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Everyone needs a few startup tips here and there. A few startup tips can be a great help when you’re thinking about what kind of business to put up. Following these tips will guide you to building a business that you can take to the next level. Whether you’re in the planning stages or experiencing growing pains with minimum viable products, the following startup tips will come in handy.

1.  Know Your Strengths

You have certain strengths, just like any other person. As a business owner, you might think that you should have this or that skill or talent. A prerequisite set of strengths isn’t always necessary to run a successful business, however.

The first of all the startup tips is to get to know what you are really good at. Are you a great long-term thinker? Are you better at planning for the smaller steps along the way? Do you excel at sales or are you a better doing marketing behind the scenes? Ask yourself these and other questions that will help you learn what you are truly great at. Then, focus on a business that needs your skills. Pursuing a business that you are best suited for will make things much smoother.

2.  Find a Cofounder Who Complements You

You have certain strengths, and you also have certain weaknesses. These weaknesses don’t have to be a negative. Find a cofounder whose strengths shore up your weaknesses. This will add strengths to your business that you need to make it work. A cofounder who has opposite skillsets to yours can be a great benefit. Make sure, however, that this partner-to-be has a similar vision to yours.

Skill sets are one thing, and vision is a completely different animal. Your cofounder will work in partnership with you. He or she must have a vision that closely resembles yours if you are to build a strong business together. Visions that are in conflict will only place strain on your business as you move forward.

3.  Hustle Hard

The best startup tip that we have to really get to the next level is to hustle, hustle, hustle. There is no replacement for good old hard work. If you want a business that will grow, you have to really put your nose to the grindstone. Get on the phone, work on those emails, and churn out amazing content for your website. Do everything that you have to do to get those first customers.

4.  Be Prepared for Trial and Error

The best mindset that you can have when starting a business is to be ready to do some experimentation. The first year of your business will be more about learning through trial and error that making any real money. You might want to see some results within this time, which is understandable. However, really focusing on trying to find what your customers love most is indispensable to your business’s longevity and future growth.

Invest your time and whatever resources you have handy into learning during your first year. Get to know your target customer by being where they are. Is your audience savvy? Learn what they know. Do they hang out on socials? Create business accounts there for your brand and hang out with them. Get some ideas about what they want. Test a few product ideas on them and see how it goes.

5.  Hire Help

As you really get into planning and setting up your business, it’s going to take up a lot of your time. More than the time you have available, many of these different tasks may not really be up your alley, like accounting for instance. Accounting software and an expert to wield it is a smart investment for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to save time managing accounts, tracking personalized invoices, and monitoring cash flow every month. Why try and do it all yourself when you don’t have to?

When you find that you are spending time on something that doesn’t really need you, or when you feel that the task needs an expert, start hiring help. One of the wisest startup tips that we can share is knowing when you need help, and not being afraid to get some. When you run out of time, your business will suffer. Before you get to this point, identify the areas that you need help with. List them out with particulars and start looking for candidates that fit in with your needs and style. You will need time to find the best fit, so don’t wait until you are frantic and losing your grip.

6.  Build Relationships

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road, but it doesn’t have to be. Your business will always be unique, but there are always others who can lend a hand. Even before you come close to testing your first product, start reaching out to influencers in your industry. These top experts have a lot of experience that you can learn from. Build solid relationships with those whom you see have close ties with the business you are trying to build. Their startup tips and words of wisdom can help you along the way.

7.  Customer First

The customer is always right, and this isn’t limited to their complaints. Your customer will always be right because this is the person that you’re selling to. You can’t begin to sell if your customer doesn’t want what you’re selling. Listen to your customers and cater to their needs. This is your main starting point, no matter what type of business you want to build.

As you are building and growing, always keep your customer first in mind. Everything else – the decisions that you make, the new directions you take – will always follow your customer. Make sure that you are providing a consistently positive customer experience with everything that you do.

8.  Recognize Failure to Avoid It

Here’s some statistics on startup failure rates to consider:

Over to You

Have you been following any startup tips to guide you this far? How do you know whether or not they have been truly helpful? When in doubt, make a list. It might sound like a silly waste of time, but you just might discover something valuable. Startup tips have a funny way of sticking on the brain. You may be unconsciously operating on a certain assumption that is working against you. A good way to find out is to look at the advice you are using as guidance and tracing it to the results.

Do you think these tips could be helpful to you or another startup entrepreneur? Are you unsure of whether they can really make a difference? Share them, strike up a conversation, and find out! This post can also be a great conversation starter if you’re trying to reach out to an influencer in your industry.

Julia Valdez is a professional teacher and long-time lover of the art of words on paper and the stage. She spends most of her time doing freelance content writing and management, community volunteer work with the Philippine Advocates for Resilient Communities, adventuring with the Greenhouse Christian Fellowship, and sharing lots of laughs over little crazy things.