Startup 101 Series

Looking for success strategies for your startup? One of the best ways to promote your products is through startup product listing websites. These websites make your company visible to potential customers and investors, but finding the right one can be a challenge.

In a helpful video, Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, a partner in the value SaaS catalyst firm Upekkha, guides viewers through various startup product listing websites. He emphasizes the importance of being clear about your target market and investors when choosing a platform.

These websites offer several benefits, including access to a good customer base, peer suggestions, honest feedback, and purposeful networking. However, it’s important to choose a platform that aligns with your goals and values as a company.

Prasanna Krishnamoorthy is a seasoned coach for young entrepreneurs and has worked with Microsoft Accelerator. He has authored numerous articles on startups, product management, and product-market fit. In this series, he shares his expertise on product and tech to help startups navigate the basics and nuances of building a successful business.

Dividing Equity among Founders || Building Strong team

Startups require the right nurturing and guidance to channelize their energies towards growth and sustainability. A lot can happen with the right mentoring at the right time, making mentors catalysts for startup success. Therefore, finding the right mentoring is paramount for founders who have the capabilities but lack guidance.

A mentor can be anyone with enough expertise, network, and enthusiasm, such as a family member, friend, ex-colleague, or investor. It is the responsibility of founders to recognize and bring efficient mentors on board to facilitate the growth of their company.

In a video, Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub Hyderabad, a startup incubator, emphasizes the importance of mentoring for the growth of a startup. As an alumnus of IIT-M and USC, Narayan has mentored several startups as part of the accelerator program of Microsoft. He has also advised state governments and national governments of Singapore and Malaysia.

Video on guidance for design. Employee growth || B2B Marketing Strategies

Stephan Haeckel once said, “Ambiguity is great for certain kinds of creative activities but is the mortal enemy of systems design.” However, in a startup culture that values creativity and challenges the status quo, a certain level of ambiguity in defining employee roles may be beneficial.

In high-growth startups, employee skill sets often exceed and evolve beyond their initial roles. Unfortunately, many startups lack a talent strategy and realize too late that they have the wrong people in place. To prevent this, it is essential to prioritize roles such as engineers, sales managers, product specialists, and marketing managers, ensuring that all bases are covered. Begin by focusing on roles and responsibilities with co-founders, analyzing strengths and weaknesses to determine where each team member performs best. Tasks should be published for everyone to see, keeping them updated and organized. This approach sets a positive precedent for new hires and aids in the first year of business.

In a video discussing the evolving roles of employees during startup growth, Ravi Narayan, a pioneer in the Venture Catalyst/Startup Accelerator space and former Global Director at Microsoft for Startups, highlights the importance of maximizing employee growth and roles. As an advisor to corporations and governments in top startup ecosystems, he emphasizes that startups must have a clear understanding of employee roles and strategies for employee development to achieve success.

Another area of importance- budgeting. || First 100 days with Investor

Feedback is crucial for startups to improve the quality of their products. However, not all feedback is created equal. To get the most constructive feedback, it is essential to seek it from the right people. According to Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, entrepreneur trainer and startup advisor, the best feedback comes from paying customers. Since they have invested in the product, they are more likely to provide honest and valuable feedback.

The second-best source of feedback is from potential customers who are interested in using your product. On the other hand, feedback from random people, such as through surveys, may not be as helpful in improving your product.

If you are a startup founder seeking advice and guidance, check out our Startup 101 Series. We have gathered insights and tips from experienced founders, CEOs, mentors, and others in the startup ecosystem to answer all your startup-related questions. Whether it’s pitching an idea, calculating market size, legal steps, recruitment, marketing challenges, or acquisition, we have you covered. While a definitive startup manual may not exist, we have compiled the FAQs to provide a comprehensive startup guide.

Mentoring for Growth || Budgeting Tips || Startup Product Listing websites

As an aspiring startup founder in India, one of the most important things you should focus on is getting users to try your product. In fact, it’s crucial to have users test your product even before it’s fully developed. Many startups make the mistake of spending too much time building their prototype and not enough time identifying potential users.

So, how do you get a consistent stream of users to try your product? First, you need to identify your target audience. Who would benefit from using your product? Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can reach out to them through various channels such as social media, email marketing, or even in-person events.

But should you wait until you have a complete product before bringing in users? Not necessarily. It’s important to get feedback early on in the development process, so you can make changes and improvements based on user feedback. You can start by building a basic version of your product, called an MVP (minimum viable product), and then test it with a small group of users.

Of course, getting users to try your product requires resources. So, how many resources should you dedicate to user acquisition? The answer depends on your specific startup and its goals. However, it’s important to strike a balance between building your product and acquiring users. Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, founder of Upekkha, suggests allocating about 40% of your resources towards user acquisition and 60% towards product development.

In conclusion, if you want to start a successful startup in India, you need to focus on user testing and acquisition from the very beginning. Identify your target audience, test your MVP, and allocate resources accordingly. With these steps, you can increase your chances of building a successful startup in India.

Constructive feedback on your products || Be-Social

If you’re looking to start a startup in India, one of the most critical factors for success is achieving product-market fit (PMF). PMF refers to the ability of your company to sell a real solution to a problem. In other words, are your customers in the market willing to buy your product? Does your product or service provide more value to customers than your competitors?

To achieve PMF, Prasanna Krishnamoorthy has divided the product-market fit into several frameworks: Problem-value fit, Product solution-fit, and Market-scale fit. These frameworks help the founding team understand how to achieve a fit product solution, build a minimum viable product for the market, and recognize when PMF is finally happening.

Prasanna Krishnamoorthy is a Partner in the value SaaS catalyst firm Upekkha. He enjoys coaching young entrepreneurs and has worked with Microsoft Accelerator. He has also authored various articles on startups, product management, and crafted frameworks for PMF. In this video, he explains these frameworks and what exactly they are.

This video is part of the Start-up 101 series, which is a handbook for all your start-up questions. The series provides crisp, straight-to-the-point solutions to all possible queries. The startup experts in this series strengthen your basics before maneuvering your way through the nuances of startups. Whether you have questions on building a product, tech, or legal queries, this series answers them all.

Product and Project Management || Market for your products || Personal Goals through OKR

Startup funding is a crucial step for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses. However, before seeking investment from venture capitalists (VCs), it is important for founders to understand the nuances of business valuation. Two key terms to keep in mind are pre-money and post-money valuation, which refer to a company’s worth at different stages.

Pre-money valuation refers to a company’s worth before it raises investment from VCs. On the other hand, post-money valuation is the company’s worth after adding the financing received from investors. It is important for founders to understand these concepts because they play a crucial role in determining the equity offer to investors.

As a startup founder, it is important to have a clear understanding of the type of valuation your company is considering before raising funds. This is where the expertise of someone like Sharda Balaji comes in. With her experience as an in-house attorney for various multinational corporations, as well as her roles as founder, angel investor, independent director, and trustee, Sharda has helped nurture many young entrepreneurs through their startup journey.

As part of the Start-up 101 series, this guidebook offers solutions to hundreds of questions that novice entrepreneurs may have, and even some they haven’t thought of yet. The goal is to condense the vast experience of various mentors and founders into a user-friendly manual that can help young entrepreneurs navigate the complex world of startup funding and business valuation.

Customers are captivated by certain products like never before. So, which Product Management books offer the best insights? What sets them apart? Harsha Kumar recommends a book filled with practical advice on creating products that influence customer behavior.

Get the book here – Hooked by Nir-Eyal

A staggering 79% of smartphone owners check their devices within 15 minutes of waking up, and experts estimate that we check our phones around 150 times per day! How have we reached this point? What makes some applications so captivating and addictive?

Nir Eyal’s Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products is a crucial resource in the growing field of psychological marketing. Eyal answers these questions by introducing the Hook Model, a four-step process incorporated by numerous successful companies to gently guide customer behavior. Through repeated “hook cycles,” these products ultimately achieve their goal of attracting users time and time again.

Based on years of research, consultation, and practical experience, Nir Eyal wrote Hooked as the book he wished he had access to as a startup founder. This book is geared towards product managers, designers, and marketers seeking to understand how products can shape our behavior.

In this video, Harsha Kumar discusses top product management books. Harsha is a Partner at LightSpeed India, a venture capital and private equity firm. Passionate about the technology startup ecosystem, she serves as a board member at OkCredit and a board observer at udaan.com and FreshMenu. In 2014, Harsha worked with Ola to launch its B2B business.

Value to Customers || Users || Prof Saras on Effectuation

As a young entrepreneur with a rudimentary design for your product, you may be wondering if it’s necessary to build a product demo at such an early stage. Should you approach potential customers with just a basic prototype or wait until you have a more sophisticated design

According to Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner at Value SaaS Catalyst firm Upekkha, a product demo is essential at an early stage of your company. It showcases the value your product brings to the market and helps potential customers make informed decisions.

You don’t necessarily need a fully built product for a product demo. Instead, focus on demonstrating a few key features that customers would be willing to buy. This is the essence of a minimum viable product (MVP), which is a basic prototype with enough features to satisfy early adopters.

A product demo and an MVP go hand in hand. The demo showcases the MVP’s features and highlights the problem it solves. By using customer feedback from the demo, you can refine and improve your MVP.

In addition to potential customers, a product demo is also critical when pitching to investors. It’s essential to give a breakthrough demo that showcases your product’s unique value proposition and potential market demand. Investors want to see evidence of customer interest and feedback before committing their resources.

In summary, building a product demo is crucial at an early stage of your company. It helps you showcase your product’s value proposition to potential customers and investors, refine your MVP, and make informed decisions about your product’s development. Also watch Importance of building Lean features.

Organic growth and inorganic growth are two different paths for start-ups to achieve success. Organic growth is based on the innate strength of the company to make profits and sustain on its own, while inorganic growth refers to the success of the company through mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, joint ventures, and other external means.

Entrepreneurs may prefer organic growth as it allows them to stay true to their vision, but the chances of gaining high revenues through organic growth alone may be thin. On the other hand, inorganic growth may result in losing control to investors, but it can offer opportunities for rapid expansion and higher revenues.

To sustain through organic growth alone, start-ups must focus on building a strong foundation, developing a unique product or service, and creating a loyal customer base. However, external funding may become necessary when the company reaches a stage where it requires additional resources to scale up or enter new markets.

When seeking external funding, entrepreneurs must carefully evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of bringing in investors and losing a portion of their stake. They must also ensure that the investor’s values align with their own and that they can provide the necessary expertise and resources to help the company grow.

In conclusion, start-ups must understand the differences between organic and inorganic growth and determine which approach aligns best with their vision and goals. By focusing on building a strong foundation and carefully evaluating external funding opportunities, start-ups can maximize their chances of success.