The road to creating an IT startup company can be a long and arduous one, and while all the hard work is definitely worth the rewards that can come after, you do have to put in the hours to make it successful. Incredibly, 90% of startup companies fail, seemingly irrespective of the industry; one of the major causes for so many failures is the owner’s lack of planning and preparation. There are a number of steps you should follow, and elements you should have in place, starting a company isn’t just something you can do on a whim one day. To help you understand more about what you should do to create your IT startup, let’s look at 8 important steps.
1. Business Plan
Your business plan will cover a few aspects, this is where you put together a clear and thorough idea about the goals you have for your startup, what timeframes you need to follow, what methods you will use for your goals, and what is your total budget.
All of these parts are equally as important as each other, and all require careful consideration and research. When it comes to your budget you may find that you cannot cover the costs you need, so you should look for investors, and for this, potential investors will want to see your business plan so make it impressive.
2. Find a Domain
Finding a domain can be a little tricky, you might find that the name you want is already taken on your preferred domain, but you can try variations of your business name or switch to a different domain. If you need a lot of tools and resources for your site, you might also find it more useful to use a platform for your business instead.
3. Find a Coder
If you don’t have the right skills to code to the level you need, then you will have to outsource this work. We don’t need to tell you that coding is essential to your business, and you will be much better off hiring as many as you need. Even if it mends hiring a whole development team, from your area or abroad, it will be worth it in order to create the startup that you want.
4. Investigate Competitors with Spokeo
The best way to stay one step ahead of the competition is to know all about your competitors, and with Spokeo, you can find all the information easily. Spokeo is a reverse phone lookup tool that is able to show you vast amounts of data on the businesses you want. Simply get the phone numbers or emails or your competitors, and input this into the phone number search or email lookup tool, and just like that you will be able to see what social media or blogs are connected with their business as well as more background information on their company. This type of data could be used by you to see how their business operates, what marketing they use, and what is contributing to their success. Spokeo will give you a wealth of information and if you use it correctly, you can get some great ideas to help your own startup.
5. Take Your Time
We can all tell when a product has been rushed, the quality of it, no matter what it is, is dependent on how much time and care someone has put into it. If you rush through the process when it comes to creating your products, potential clients or customers will be able to tell straight away – take your time, and create something of high-quality.
6. QA Testing
Quality Assurance testing of your site should be carried out before you even think about going live, this is quality control testing performed by experts who can find even the smallest of bugs or issues that you probably wouldn’t have noticed yourself.
7. Beta-Version
Once you are happy with at least the major components of your site, you are ready to run your beta-version. You can just select a number of people to use the site in its beta phase, or you can open it up to everyone if you prefer. This is another great way to test the ins and outs of your site and prepare yourself for the release of all your features.
8. Marketing Strategy
I’m sure you already know that your business isn’t going to go anywhere if you don’t have users or customers, so you need a solid marketing strategy in place. Perhaps this will include social media, phoning potential clients, or even using digital or physical ads; without the right marketing, you will be closing sooner than you wanted.
During the process of creating your startup, you may feel a lot of stress or pressure, however, by following our steps such as having a clear and detailed business plan, and using a tool like Spokeo to help you get an idea of your competitors, you will be able to have a greater chance of success.
Maguire Haigh is a marketing manager for Spokeo. He is interested in the latest technology trends, marketing strategies and business development. He also prefers travelling, exploring the world and meeting new people. Maguire has great experience in creating and editing articles on different topics.