‘Disruptive’ is not a word to throw around in startup pitches. You’ll need a truly groundbreaking idea and an ambitious plan to bring your product or service to the market. Here’s how to build your business into a truly disruptive technology startup.
How-to-Build-a-Disruptive-Technology-Startup
-
Put your time into your plan first
If you want to manage a disruptive technology startup, you’ll need to maintain the big picture. Project planning and time management is worth investing your time and effort into thinking through not only how to launch, but what it will take to scale and disrupt your target market.
You’re going to need a time tracking tool. Toggl has some of the best features on the time tracking app. Timenotes is an excellent Toggl alternative that focuses on making time tracking easy.
Planning at the beginning of a project helps save time. A good plan means that you know exactly what should be happening now, what comes next, and the completed tasks. Because you have planned for everything, you need to monitor and manage time, so you don’t have to worry about missing your deadlines. Time tracking sets out the schedule everyone is to follow to avoid headaches later.
An effective way to build a Disruptive Technology Startup
It takes longer to plan a moon landing than it does to design a new app. But, do you have what it takes to make it from seed to IPO? The best way to build the next big thing involves some critical steps that need to fall into place at the right moment.
2. Figure out your market base
If you don’t know your customers, you can’t expect to assess and plan to meet their needs. Defining your demand market is the essential step in your journey. This is a critical step to determine where and how to market your product or services. Targeting your market involves identifying who your primary customers will be. This market should be measurable, sufficient enough to sustain your business, and reachable.
Sounds simple enough, right? You have heard of small businesses that attempt to be all things to all people. Unfortunately, this is difficult, if not impossible, a feat to accomplish. Remember: ‘everyone’ is neither a target market nor a demographic. Ask yourself this; as a brand, do the individuals in your target market meet some shared characteristics? No? If so, then you should consider the segmentation and refining of the target market.
Simply because your product or service appeals to a significant number of people doesn’t mean you can’t learn more about them. The concept can help you market your business more effectively.
3. Do the groundwork
Conjuring a startup out of thin air takes more than a magical spell. The best startups look at what the world will need in the next year, five years, and even two decades to come. Your job is to think about what the world is evolving towards and create a solution for the problems.
Investors want to see what your startup can do and the potential to last for the foreseeable future. You don’t give birth to a startup, your team does. This is startup 101. Do your research and develop a business plan. Find co-founder and build your team.
4. Create a unique and useful product
Now that you have the financial put nailed down, you can begin the fun part. As an entrepreneur, you probably wanted to do this at step one. Building a prototype or a detailed blueprint of what your business will do is the chance to see your idea come to life. However, this is easier said than done.
Unless you are fortunate enough to be the only player in your industry, you will need to differentiate your product from your competition. For example, both Facebook and Twitter are social media sites, but the latter connects people, whereas the former network’s ideas and topics.
5. Start local
You have a product, but what to do next? The challenge of developing a disruptive technology startup is where to recruit resources and market the product. The best strategy would be to start locally by hiring resources then market the demand. You can expand your business to other regions after you have perfected the model at the local level.
6. Dedicate time and effort to your plan
Regardless of the talent, a startup is still likely to fail if the team is not backed with time and effort. This step takes us back to where we started at the planning phase. There is no way a startup can thrive with a half-baked plan and short-term efforts. Remember to use your time efficiently and wisely.
7. Expansion
If your model proves to be successful at the local level, then it is time to start plans for expansion. At this point, you should start looking for a new round of funding and recruit more talent for your startup. If all goes well, there might be an IPO in the future.
Bottom line
You cannot follow a ‘secret recipe’ or ‘cast a spell’ and end up with the next big thing. However, you can learn from those who nailed it before you to make your breakthrough more likely. As a business owner, you are already familiar with juggling endless tasks. As such, no might be a good time to embrace technology for planning, delegating tasks, monitoring finances, and time management.
Learning to segment your project into small daily-achievable tasks will lead to business success. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comment section.
