Start Up - Become a Big fish

You are experts in your field who have developed a new disruptive product or service.

What are your priorities and do you have the expertise in your team to achieve them?

• Your breakthrough goal is to establish a dominant market share in one market segment.
• You have identified possible market segments and have picked the most appropriate to target first.
• You have identified the key players and decision makers within each company.
• You have a clear vision and strong value propositions, tailored to attract player in your target market segment.
• You have the resources and capabilities in place to support Early Adopters.
• You have assessed all the risks.
• You have established partnerships with companies whose products work with yours to deliver a more complete solution.
• You have ...

For a start-up company your clear aim should be to focus on establishing a foothold and build market share in one market segment. Aim for a number of markets and you’re unlikely to become big enough in any one of them to be the solution of choice. See "Become a Big Fish".

Companies are often formed by experts in a particular field. They know their field inside out but aren't prepared for all the "business" stuff that goes with it.

If this describes your situation then download the Strategic Planning Health Check Lite to discover what you need to address and how prepared you are to do it.

Below are a couple of examples of the challenges that start-ups face which may resonate with you.

Is this you?

The universtity spin-out

You and your team recently formed a spin-out company from a university. You are experts in your field and know everything about your disruptive technology and the target applications. You have received interest from a couple of big players on your target list.

It’s come as a surprise as to how demanding these prospects are and you’ve had to expand your engineering team to adapt the solution to meet their needs. Initial demos have gone well but you’re up against the clock to deliver a working solution and find you are all working long hours in reactive mode.

You’ve all had to muck-in and do things you’re not used to doing. You know this way of working is not sustainable. How are you going to break this cycle? What are you going to do to take back control of your business?

The product developer

You’ve developed a technology product and have identified a number of markets where your solution would work. You have acquired some funding and built a small team. What now?

• Which market segments do you target and why?
• How many market segments do you want to get into?
• Which companies do you want to get into and how will you do this?
• Do you have the necessary resources and the right capabilities in your company?
• What are your competitors doing and have you identified all the things that could go wrong?
• Do your prospects understand your solution enough to part with a large amount of money?
• Does your solution meet the needs of your prospects?
• Do you have enough funding to cope with events taking three times longer than you initially estimated?
• Do you have a clear vision, goals and milestones?
• .........

There is so much to manage, so many plates to spin.

Download the Health Check Lite and set off on the right path.