You have just a little money and you ask yourself: how can I accelerate my startup? It seems impossible, but it is not. The secret of startups is exactly this: innovate and do something surprising with little resources.
Look around! Big techs like Facebook and Google started simply with the greatest capital businesses of the new economy can have: a project and lots of ideas! Yes, ideas are quite valuable and, with the right attitudes, they can turn into a lot of money!
We will help you think about this issue as you read the following article. Keep reading to know the best actions and strategies to accelerate your startup with little resources!
Get inspired by those who came before you
Start looking at examples of great organizations which were once a startup. How about getting some inspiration from Airbnb? Against all odds, no investors and with a huge credit card debt, the founders had to sell cereal in order to keep the company active. It took them almost two years for Airbnb to start happening.
It was the end of 2007. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, from San Francisco, moved to New York with no money in their pockets. However, they had an apartment and so, an idea came up: they bought inflatable mattresses and rented one of their rooms for only 80 dollars a night.
Then it clicked with them: what if they could provide more people with the experience of renting a room for better prices so that they could have an extra income source? There it was: the embryonic idea of the Airbnb platform. The rest is history and you know it: Airbnb fully transformed the hospitality industry and became one of the greatest cases of shared economy in the world.
There are plenty of other stories of startups which started from zero and had a long journey before receiving the first investment from a visionary investor. Go ahead and learn them! They will surely inspire and motivate you.
Invest the little you have the right way
Another important point is the ability to correctly invest scarce resources. Financial discipline will surely make a difference, because it is necessary to avoid excessive expenditures and as well as to make the most of the available money.
The ability to understand the difference between investment and expenditure is, by the way, very useful when convincing an investor to put money in your startup. People who invest in startup companies what to be sure the business model includes a good financial plan.
Make your business prototype in advance
If you want to be sure the goals of your startup are achievable (or realistic), use methods such as business model prototype.
Prototyping is a powerful tool for you to reduce costs in association with a trial and error approach and also create a thriving business. It means to experiment with new ideas and concepts in a risk-free environment, so that you can explore the consequences of new projects and decisions before putting them into practice.
Simply follow this step by step:
- create the simplest prototype possible of a “generic” business: easy to understand but one that covers all aspects;
- learn to model the different aspects of a business: deepen your understanding of business and prototyping;
- use the prototype as a basis for modeling real business cases: the prototype may be used as a reference in specific situations.
Put energy into the development of an efficient product or service
No matter how innovative your product or service is, it needs to get to the target audience with no failures. If you do not have a lot of money to correct the path, you must make sure everything is 100% ready before you start selling.
If you do not have that, you will spend a lot of time, energy and money onto making amendments to your product or service. And, in the current market dynamics, that is definitely not the best that can happen.
In order to do so, use the PoC Design method (proof of concept) which, in a few words, consists in technical viability tests for a product or service. It will help you deal with ideas that are of dubious viability in a less risky way.
Proof of concept is, by the way, one of the things that Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have in common. These are three of the greatest names with regards to innovation who – guess what? - began their businesses with little money!
Look out for specialized help
When you are working for accelerating your startup, your focus is almost entirely based on:
- making trial and error tests for finding out what to build and how to understand your customers;
- building the product/service quickly (minimum viable product) and obtaining a qualitative and quantitative feedback;
- repeating the process until you reach your product’s adjustment to the market and, then, scaling it.
You will then come to a point where an expert’s view will be very useful. Be open for that to happen sooner than later, because this help will change your whole pathway.
When you have specialized help from a company that has expertise in business and innovation, you have access to an outside view that is very often more holistic and less flawed. In addition to that, the strategies and methods used by this kind of company can really transform little money with creativity and successful choices.
Start accelerating your startup right now
As you have just seen, it is entirely possible to accelerate your startup even if financial resources are scarce. More than having incredible ideas, you must organize them and use them with method.
By taking care of the little money available (right investments) and by applying prototyping, proof of concept and other methods, it is viable. With an expert’s help your chances are highly increased.
Our team in Action Labs helps startups create digital products and services, including ideation, creation and implementation. We work in partnership with our clients, joining our background to the skills of their teams.
How about you answering the famous question “How to accelerate my startup with little money?” with our help? Contact us and see how we can help you in this mission!
