DEV Community: charlesmox

The life cycle of a startup: from zero to hero

charlesmox — Sun, 27 Mar 2022 14:20:23 +0000

In this article, I will tell you how to make sure that your startup does not wither, but blossoms in bright colors.

The development stages of a startup are associated with the life of a plant: the seed is planted and watered, it grows into a stem with leaves, develops, and a flower appears on the top. The flower is a symbol of the maturity of the plant, and in entrepreneurship, maturity means that the startup has grown into a stable business. We divide the longest and most time-consuming "seed" stage into such sub-items:

Pre-seed

In short: you have an idea for a startup, and you think it through. The ideal team: the startup team (i.e. you, i.e. the future entrepreneur), the idea, and the fans.

Objectives:

Create an idea or product hypothesis
The development stages of a startup are associated with the life of a plant: the seed is planted and watered, it grows into a stem with leaves, develops, and a flower appears on the top. The flower is a symbol of the maturity of the plant, and in entrepreneurship, maturity means that the startup has grown into a stable business. We divide the longest and most time-consuming "seed" stage into such sub-items:

Pre-seed

In short: you have an idea for a startup, and you think it through. The ideal team: the startup team (i.e. you, i.e. the future entrepreneur), the idea, and the fans.

Objectives:

Create an idea or product hypothesis
to find supporters
"to polish the idea
The birth period of a product idea is the time to find an "army of fans," no matter that the product does not yet exist. Don't be afraid to tell your idea for fear that it will be stolen - no one will realize the dream better than its creator. At the same time, be humble and independent. Then followers may become business angels and invest in your startup.

Seed
In short: The concept is ready, the fans are found, and now comes the main stage: creating the business plan. Ideal team: startup team + business analyst.
**
Tasks:**

set goals
analyze the market
identify and research the customer
prove the demand for the product
The more you see the prospects of the business, the more confident you will be in your actions. The more you select the target audience, the more likely there will be demand for the product. Be careful at this stage and don't be lazy to work through each point.

MVP

The bottom line is that instead of implementing a grand idea with maximum functionality, investing in the implementation of all that has been accumulated, it is better to develop a basic version, with the most necessary functionality, buy android app installs for promoting your app. Ideal team: starter, business analyst + product developers (3-5 people). release it into the world, and only then fine-tune it. The SCRUM development methodology is ideal here (read more in the article).

Tasks:

Form terms of reference (a diagram that illustrates the content and interface elements of the future product)
to create an offer
Take the most promising directions
to develop the MVP of the startup
launch
analyze the result
With MVP it is easy to test an idea or hypothesis with the least amount of time and capital. Don't allow the possibility of a startup collapsing just because you gave up on the MVP.

Product-market fit & product-channel fit
In short: the MVP gains momentum and you go free-floating on the market. Ideal team: starter, marketer, developers + account manager, and tester.

Tasks:

to work out a marketing strategy
find your niche in the market
calculate the Net Promoter Score, if it is higher than 8 - everything is great, if it is lower - you need to reconsider your marketing strategy.
to create the initial customer base
Language-market fit - figure out how to talk about the product so that customers accept and understand the message
conduct usability testing
The marketer plays a big role in other stages of a startup's promotion, but this stage is his finest hour. The main task is to make sure that as many target audiences as possible learn about your product so that before the launch.

Death of valley

In short: The investment and money have been made, but there is no profit yet.Ideal team: a starter and everyone who has money.

Objectives:

accumulate resources before the launch of the product
support the startup, and get profit from extra work
Use money from FFF (family, friends, fools) - people who believe you and who do not "feel sorry" to invest a little in your startup.)
intensively look for business angels (people who invest little money, but help a lot to make the "right" connections) and venture capital funds (companies that raise funds, assess the prospects of the project, and then invest)
Take out loans, apply for grants.
"Death Valley" is a responsible stage for you as a leader. Take a risk!

Use either task, if it doesn't work, start another one. Yes, it is difficult to find investors in a startup during a "crisis," but it is realistic. Also, if you are already known and loved, reach out to wealthy admirers for financial help. Getting out of the "Valley of Death" is vital, because otherwise, your startup will wither away, never having blossomed.

Launch

Briefly about the stage: the launch of the product and intensive work to promote the brand.Ideal team: start-up, marketer, developers, client manager, tester + lawyer, accountant.

Tasks:

To promote the product strenuously
Keep in mind the legal issues, such as brand registration
Carry out thorough tests, optimization, and error recovery
Improve both the product and the company's brand and especially its leaders
to re-search for investors
You waited maybe half a year for this and you waited - the product launch. You've coped with everything that's strictly startup-related, the worst is over. But just don't get your nose in the grill, there are many more challenges ahead.

Scale
Briefly about the stage: growth and expansion of the startup. The ideal team in the last two stages grows with the development of the startup, changing depending on its direction.

Tasks:

Hire cool specialists
to constantly look for new niches, market funnels, and target audience
Form a corporate culture
Maturity
Briefly about the stage: the maturity stage and the beginning of a regular business.

Objectives:

delegate management
expand staff, office
Look for opportunities to open a branch office abroad
Create localized teams for more effective results
Continue to grow and develop
No startup is the same as any other, just as plants are not the same. A startup may be a spike of wheat, or it may be a huge oak tree. It all depends on you. The main thing is to grow it strong and stable.

How to keep users in the app?

charlesmox — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 13:08:08 +0000

In addition to statistics on the use of the app's features, developers collect information on new installations, user activity, and app deletions. If the audience of IM app users is increasing, it means the developers have done their job well. If this does not happen and users quickly delete the app after installing it, it is necessary to take urgent measures to retain customers and keep them interested both in the app and in the online store itself.
Several techniques can be used for this. Many of them may seem obvious, but they demonstrate excellent efficiency and are sometimes not used by developers in vain. The first thing to take care of is the design, usability, and functionality of the application. Even a good product will be difficult to sell through an awkward mobile app, with an annoying layout and a convoluted mechanism for selecting and ordering.

An effective way to retain a client is a loyalty program, which can be implemented in a variety of ways.

For example, a customer can be awarded bonus points for purchases, adding comments and reviews. Additional points can also be awarded just for activity in the application, which will be a great incentive for the client to visit the store every day, receiving special offers, discounts, and other "pluses". The accumulated bonus points can be exchanged for discounts or other incentives, which are guaranteed to stimulate user interest. Some stores for regular customers issue virtual discount cards with a certain discount percentage, and upon reaching certain amounts spent by the client in the store, the card status automatically changes, and the discount percentage increases. In this case, the client will be most interested in making purchases in this particular store through the app and will be more likely to come here than to "competitors".

Push notifications are another indispensable tool for customer retention.

Short notifications can inform about new discounts and offers, new products, and services. Such notifications help both to remind about yourself and to inform users about innovations in the store, which will also arouse their interest. They're better sent from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. since at those times people are more inclined to shop and get acquainted with new offers and aren't too busy with work and household chores. But it's important not to bore users with frequent notifications, which can cause anger and irritation instead of interest. Push-notifications can be used to regain the interest of those customers who haven't visited the app for a long time and may soon delete it altogether. In this case, you need to send the client a message regretting that he hasn't visited the store for a long time and offer him an attractive bonus or discount on purchases for the next 2-3 days. The options for bonus offers are endless.

The main motto of a successful store is customer-centricity because taking care of users helps to achieve great sales and increase the audience. That's why customer service is so important, as it can help the customer as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Quality support service is guaranteed to make the user feel welcome, and he is unlikely to want to give up such good service.

It is important to keep in touch with clients and respond promptly to their requests. You can add to this point the need to implement a recommendation system that will automatically offer similar or related products depending on user search queries and viewed items.

All these ways of attracting and retaining e-commerce customers are well known and successfully used. Therefore ordering the development of an application for an online store and its further technical support from qualified specialists of professional mobile studios

Gamification has become popular in recent years, turning the usual selection of goods into a real game.

In addition to the game format of online shopping, some stores sew additional and virtual reality into the functionality of the application. For example, if you sell glasses or hats, it is possible to realize the interaction with a photo camera, which helps the client virtually "try on" the goods on him and then make an order. Similarly, you can virtually "arrange" the furniture in a room, which will help the customer to assess whether a given closet or mirror fits a particular room. Unfortunately, the implementation of such functions is expensive, but the prospects of this direction of development of the application are obvious, and in the near future they will appear in applications more often.