3 positive signs you’re on the path to success as a start-up business

Being a start-up business is entering into a world of the unknown, to some degree. You are potentially new to the market, which means you can only go off your strategy plans and predictions for your first year in business. Or maybe you’ve gained experience of the market in a previous role, but you’re venturing out on your own. Here are three positive signs you are on the path to success as a start-up business, and where to go next…

In the early stages of your business, you should be constantly tracking and analyzing your performance, to see if your service or product is indeed marketable. It’s not easy to know if your product is a market-fit straight away, which is why your business plan needs to be adaptable. At the start of your business journey, you will be making many changes as you learn, so it’s important to not get too hung up on your initial predictions. It’s a key skill to have as a start-up business owner; to be able to differentiate between actual success signs and what’s considered as noise within the market.

1. Seeing your customer base grow

This may seem an obvious one, however this is a positive sign not to miss. Seeing traction in your customer base can prove that the product or service you’re providing is needed, which in turn will indicate a market-fit. “If your current customers are bringing in new customers (this is called a high net promoter score - NPS), this is an extremely strong indicator that you are very close to PMF.” - Forbes 

If your customers aren’t bringing new ones, it’s not always a bad sign. This could indicate that you need to invest in promotional marketing activity or sales activity. You should always be watching and analyzing your customer base growth, then utilizing your findings to take new actions. This is being proactive in your business plan and much more strategic.

2. Customer retention and positive feedback

Along with growth comes retention; keeping those customers coming and gaining regular ones. It’s important to see these two metrics as a combination, as whilst you may have a growing customer base, are they only purchasing once and leaving? This is important to watch, as it could give you valuable feedback to adjust/improve a product. Talking about feedback… gaining positive feedback is crucial! This can add to the credibility of your product or service and in the early stages of your business: credibility = more growth. More people will want to work with a business who has positive customer feedback. However, if you do ever receive negative feedback, be sure to communicate with your customer to find out why and how you can use this feedback to make vital changes. Being proactive with customer’s feedback is a fantastic sign that you’re a customer-focussed business, adding to your credibility.

3. Revenue growth, of course.

Gaining a profit will be your main business goal along with other values. In year one of your business, you may be breaking even or even on the lower end of your predictions. But have no fear, if you're bringing in customers, growing and retaining them, maybe your goal figures are a little high to start with. However, you need to be sure that your offering is economically viable, to be able to become a self-sustaining business.

At TyTek Industries, we provide a full end-to-end product development service including:

• New Product Development 

• Design for Manufacture 
• Component and Process Sourcing 
• Supply Chain management
• Full Production
• Managing Quality Systems (ISO) 
• Delivery and Logistics
• Marketing and Communications 
• Continuous Monitoring - Worldwide

We thrive in being able to take your innovative ideas from product to market. As you’ve figured out from the above, it’s not an easy task to do as a start-up business; but with our many years of experience and industry expertise, we can support you every step of the way.

Discover more about our service in our brochure, and get in touch today to turn your dreams into a reality!

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Source: Forbes