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How to turn a startup into a successful business-Part one-Introduction

What is a startup
What comes into your mind when someone says the word startup? Innovation, new trends, disruptive technology, experimental business models, scrappy young entrepreneurs, instability, revolutions, universal impact, name it. These words and so many others keep crisscrossing one’s mind when one talks about startups and this can be depicted in the different definitions of a startup below

Definitions of a startup
A startup is an experiment in search of a business model – Solomon Kitumba C.E.O and founder YOZA.
A startup is a young company that is just starting to develop, startups are usually small and initially financed and operated by a handful of founders or one individual, these companies ofer a product or service that is not currently being offered elsewhere in the market or that the founder believe is being offered in an inferior manner – ‘investopedia’ .
A startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed – Neil Blumenthal.

Culture and mentality or innovating on existing ideas to solve critical pain points. Startup is a mindset when people in a young company are still making the explicit decision to forego stability in exchange for the promise of tremendous growth and excitement of making immediate impact. The act or an instance of setting an operation in motion.

Entrepreneurship is a mental disorder.
At one point an entrepreneur was forced to say that entrepreneurship is a mental disorder where one believes they can change the way things are being done and they also believe that the impact caused will be universal.
One of the successful startups of all times is FACEBOOK, this thing started as a joke with some few mentally disturbed individuals led by captain Mark Zurkerberg in a college dorm room at Harvard University. At first Facebook was an experiment at Harvard university, then the effect spread to other universities in the USA then later it opened up to other universities in the USA then later it opened  up to all people until it became universal with more than one billion subscribers allover the world. These young entrepreneurs managed to turn a dorm room idea into one of the most successful companies on planet earth.

Difference between a startup and a small business.
There is a lot of controversy when one tries distinguishing a startup from a small business, but the difference is very simple; a startup is designed to scale very quickly(rapid growth), it is this focus on growth, unconstrained  by geographical location which differentiates startups from small business.
The difference is all about growth and location, a startup’s business model is able to go across all boarders rapidly without even the government noticing for example there is no way a government can regulate Facebook apart from blocking it from people and avoiding them from using it like the case in China.

Startup is a revolution, a way of living new life.
A revolution is a state of complete change in the economical, political and social affairs of communities. Revolutions bring about new ways of doing things.
Startups are all about solving universal problems. If you find a problem affecting a billion people and solve it, even if you charge a few dollars or offer it for free and then you make money indirectly while people use it, you are having a billion dollar idea and that’s what they call a revolution.
Startups are able to innovate ideas that move trends, ideas that change the economical situation, and cause political systems to stumble and connect people with different culture. If your idea can make a Chinese stop practicing kungfu, an Indian stop worshiping Krishna and an African stop dancing for 30 minutes then your startup is revolutionary.

Hard and expensive sucks – simple is cheap
A prominent businessman once said, “If you cannot explain your idea to a 5 year old child in less than 5 minutes and they understand it, then you also don’t understand it. Startups majorly develop business models that can easily be understood people of all ages and that’s how they manage to revolutionize system.
The iPhone is one of the mobile handsets that everyone on earth craves for but the reason is because it looks so good and simple that even your grandmother can use it with less difficulty this makes it revolutionary and user friendly.

How to turn a startup into a successful business.
There are five major factors that affect the success of a startup and they include; The idea, structure/system, finance, people and lastly effective communication. If you can juggle around these factors altogether, you have 90% guarantee that your startup will turn into a successful business. The idea should be revolutionary, the structure/system should be balanced, the finances should be well managed, people(entrepreneurs/founders, investors, employees, advisers) should be organised appropriately and lastly communication should be effective( marketing, selling, public speeches, internet of things).
All these five major factors constitute our discussion in the next series of: How to turn a startup into a successful business
Join the discussion as we change ourselves for the better.

                             Ahabwe Collins is ,
                            Sales executive at SUNSINE technologies
                            Entrepreneur and business enthusiast.
                            Find more at my personal blog
                            www.ahabwecollins.blogspot.com

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