One of the few long standing startup beliefs is that once you have a cool tech product and a website, people will eventually flock to it, and uber growth happens. Though, there are probably some exceptions on some startups (ex. Facebook and Instagram) achieving massive growth within a few months of launch, that does not apply to all. The reality is that most startups fail within a few months after launch due to a number of reasons – but the number one reason on that short list is the lack of user growth.
Listed below are the Top 3 Startup Growth Fallacies that most founders believe and do. There’s nothing wrong with having too much optimism – In fact, it’s is a good thing given the nature of this industry. but if you keep doing the same thing with these 3, then it actually hinders startups from growing.
1. Growth is NOT an ACCIDENT.
As earlier said, there’s this mindset that once a startup is launched, growth is something that happens along the way. it just happens, and you can’t plan for it. But in reality, startup growth is planned – it is a scientific process.
2. Growth is NOT an AFTERTHOUGHT.
Now, this comes from a traditional marketing mindset. For instance, once the product is built, management sends it off to the marketing and sales department to figure out how to attract users – not from day one – on the last minute. The best startups talk about growth from day one – everything is centered on growth – the product is growth centric.
3. Growth is NOT AUTOMATIC
And last startup growth fallacy is that having great technology equals growth. Again, for most startups – even great products fail – nothing is certain.
Startup Growth is planned from the first day. plus a combination of marketing and selling your product and connecting with customers. Doing Customer Development early on – ensures that your product will fill a need, and that it solves a customers problem.
In the next post – we will discuss more on the prerequisites that a startup must have to achieve growth.