Top 10 Startup Mistakes

Four things make up 79% of all business failures:

#1 - Building something nobody wants (36%)
#2 - Hiring poorly (18%)
#3 - Lack of focus (13%)
#4 - Failing to market & sell (12%)

How to best avoid these failures:

#1 - Always start with the customer, not the product. Get your beta group / user group of customers and work with them to deliver what they love. People will pay you to do what they love, not to just do what you love.

#2 - Outsource to experts who manage themselves, not workers who need to be managed. Hire people who let you do more of what you do best, not people who take you away from your talents because they need to be managed.

#3 - Once opportunities begin to grow, don't get defocused. Anything that doesn't add to your customer's experience isn't worth doing.

#4 - Don't fail by having a great product that no one knows about. Don't rely on someone else to sell your product until you have more sales than you can handle. Don't make sales by closing customers. Create buyers by opening relationships.

#5 - More than all of the above, maximise failures that steer you (testing and measuring) and avoid failures that sink you (when you run out of money and time). Fail passionately and fail often, earning and learning with each failure, so it's you that keeps failing (and learning) and not your company!

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk.. In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."
~ Mark Zuckerberg

And...

"Never, never, never give up."~ Winston Churchill

Best advice if you're just starting or growing a business

Best advice if you're just starting or growing a business:

Focus at your customer more than your product. Get fixed on your customer experience, and your product will keep changing to serve them best. But fix your product, and customers will find a path that fits them, with or without you.

If you're waiting on the street corner, wondering where all your customers are, this post is for you.

We've moved from the industrial age where it was all about the product and productization to the technological age where it's all about the customer and customization.

Instead of focusing at product development and production lines (which we learned about and were a part of at school), focus at customer experiences and customization lines.

Your business doesn't start when you have a product. It starts when you have a customer. So who is your perfect customer? Start from there and ask yourself (and them):

Problem - What's the problem they need solved?
Promise - What's the benefit you deliver to them by solving it?
Product - How will you solve it better than others?
Proof - Why should they trust you?

Keep upgrading your answers (and your products) regularly. Because what your customers need, their expectations and how they are being served will keep changing fast. And once you get into flow, you'll begin to know what they need before them, and they'll begin pre-buying your next product.

"Get closer than ever to your customer. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." ~ Steve Jobs

The easiest way to future proof your business is to have customers that love you. The easiest way to fail is to love your idea or product more than you love your customers. So find your soul-market and fall in love all over again.