June 20169from the last few years. But as a starting point, first challenge is to choose the right investor and raising the right amount of funds. There are pros and cons of both raising too less and too much funds. So if you take money from investors, you have to take enough to get to the next step, whatever that is and do not try bargain hunting among investors, which is a waste of time. Also, I always advise people to focus on profits sooner than later, which is the only fundamental metric of doing any business.3. Finding Customers From Get Go This obvious challenge is the basis of your starting up. If you have built a B2B start-up, then finding the first customer who will showcase everywhere till you find the second one to a B2C scenario, where the metrics can be troves of customers downloading/using the app/service/product and then actively and continuously doing the same is even more important. The solution is nothing but a wow factor that even a singular customer or a bunch of users can give you and pave way for the next set of users, and also the repeat users who continue to love your product or service. In my opinion, businesses that look for value beyond a gimmick or a one off discount where customers are made important or are valued do well. Virality in today's digital and social age is very important and it doesn't take much from your first few customers to be your brand or service ambassadors.4. Marketing/Brand BuildingIn this digital time and age, what I learnt is that your first few customers can take you very far if you pay attention to them. Rather than making glitzy marketing plans and getting buried under them, pay attention to how customers are engaged with your brand or product/service. The start-up brand can have many attributes like agility, out of the box thinking/innovation or many other attributes, and those need to be mapped with what gets delivered to the customer/s. Using social media, blogging and thought leadership around ones areas of expertise are cost effective ways of leveraging public relations and building on what you stand for. I would rather use five of my favourite customers to talk about us rather than spending money on any advertisements, and in case of B2C, use virality as a major propeller to get additional numbers on sales.5. Building to Build or Building to Sell?Many start-ups that I interact with are struggling with the objective of starting-up as well. A question that one needs to ask is to whether one is building to build the company or building to simply sell it. While the latter is not a wrong objective eventually, but both have a very different approach of putting together an organisation. Indian environment is more conducive to building organisations, scaling them up and then finally seeking a strategic fitment rather than have a slam dunk approach of selling it within short time of starting up, and therefore lose focus on what you are building and how you are building. 6. Business Model/RemodelAs a start-up, ones business model should not and cannot be cast in stone. One has to be very flexible in remodelling if necessary in response to the dynamic nature of changing aspects of market requirements or customers. It is most important for the founders and all stakeholders alike to find alignment of their business models to the changing nature of the external environment that they are playing in. This would mean pivoting to a very different way of rendering a service or product change or completely going back to the drawing board if one needs to. The last thing that you would want is to have people rigidly holding back to their earlier beliefs. These are some of the very few challenges that start-ups face as part of their evolution and it always depends upon which part of the challenge should one prioritize on as many of these are the founder's constant companions till he navigates to a bigger excitement of having to scale and grow at the same time. Using social media, blogging and thought leadership around ones areas of expertise are cost effective ways of leveraging public relations and building on what you stand forRajesh Razdan
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