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Once you’ve got an idea and you decide to make it real you enter into the business world and like any other business, start-ups also have a growth and development cycle which they follow from the idea to the making of a successful established business. This cycle can be covered into 5 different phases.
Seed and Development:
Your start-up doesn’t exist now but it is going to take its first step and probably the most important one as well. Here you take a plunge into reality and decide how viable your idea is. You research the market, talk to related industry specialists, discuss with family and friends. You decide its financial roots as well as if you have the abilities to make it a success.
Startup:
Now is the time when your start-up sees the first ray of sunshine but be careful not to burn yourself as this is the time when your product is tested by the market and the users. Here you will have to adapt more than you will have thought. This is the stage where most start-ups fail. Here you spent most of your time improving your services and/or your product as here you first want to make sure you have a firm base in the market and with the users.
Growth and Establishment:
Here at this stage your startup has come in the lines of a small business and should be giving you monthly revenue. Now from an individual, you have to shift to your role as a team head. One of the key factors in the success of any start-up is making a great team which is done by hiring skilled people having skills that complement each other. Here you will have to manage yourself between managing the start-up and building a great team.
Expansion:
Now that you have hired a staff and they are managing the front line work, you lay your head back and overview things. This is the time when you need to think about expansion and move forward instead of getting comfortable. You have a successful blueprint at your back but you need to tread carefully as it is not a guarantee that it will work in other markets with other factors as well. Expand but not at the cost of existing customers.
Maturity and Possible Exit
This is the time when you decide that whether your start-up can further push beyond the horizons or the regular growth is the only thing left for it. Sometimes being overwhelmed in the success founders push too far only to destroy what was there at the first place as well. Your start-up has become a stable company by now and should be best run by a regular CEO who is fit for such and you should move onto new ideas and new ventures.
