3 mistakes startups should avoid...

Happy Monday! It's time for another round of Tech Creator! This week, we'll delve into three crucial startup pitfalls to sidestep, impactful closing phrases, and crafting an irresistible job description.

GROWTH

You Should Avoid These Three Mistakes … 

Growth is very, very important for startups.

You can take many steps to promote and nurture growth, like creating newsletters and implementing waitlists. 

But it does not matter how much effort you’re putting towards those initiatives if you do not know where you’re going wrong. 

If you want to remodel your kitchen, but you’ve got a leak. It will be pointless to have an upgrade without repairing the leak first.

That’s why we’ve put together three common mistakes that you should avoid as a startup. 

1. Not Having A Target Market

You have a great idea for a great product or service and you feel really confident about it. You put effort into building it, and once you have the final product, it looks great and works great. 

But here’s the question: Who is it for?

When businesses take off, it’s because they are solving problems. It does not matter if your startup has a great innovation, if it does not cater to someone’s needs or wants, then it will not work. 

It is important to know who you wish to sell to, and why would the product appeal to them. Are you selling to working adults? Teenagers? Graphic Designers?

You can do more research on existing products, see what they lack, and work towards filling that gap. 

2. Poor Fund Management

It’s not all alien to see a well-funded startup fail. This could be highly caused by ill fund management.

Know when to spend too much, and too little. What happens when you budget too much for research, and too little for marketing? 

Do research and seek expert strategy advice specific to your industry when the time calls for it. 

3. Going Solo

You can start a startup all by yourself but just because you can does not mean you should.

Being a single founder can overwhelm you, affect your productivity, and put you at a disadvantage. 

It is better if your startup has a few founders so you have a team of ideas, opinions, manpower, strategy, and more. They can help you steer away from wrong decisions, motivate you, and even expand your startup’s network. 

PEOPLE

Writing An Effective Job Description To Grow Your Startup Right ✅

A good job description can make or break your company.

Either you end up hiring the right talent or spend your money re-hiring the wrong talent.

Here’s a guide on how to do it right and the question you should be asking before writing a job description:💪

What Are The Skills Needed?

Let’s take marketing as an example. Although two marketers may have the same job title, the skills needed for each position may differ according to companies. 

First, list out the core skills needed.

What area of expertise are you looking for? Be specific, but don’t be too detailed, or you may risk losing an application. 

Provide Insight

To save you and the applicant time, let them know what they will be getting into.

Show them a breakdown of what a regular day in their job will look like. Which department will they work mostly with?

This can help you and the applicant decide if the role is suitable. When applicants aren’t sure about what a role entails, they would feel less inclined to apply. 

Manage Expectations

You’ve listed out the skills, and you’ve explained the role. Now, onto the results. 

Briefly let the applicant know in the job description how you measure success and what is expected of them. 

Will they be reporting? What kind of reports will they work on? What results are they mainly accountable for, and how do you measure their KPI? You don’t have to do this in detail, but just give your applicants an understanding of what the role expects. 

Attracting top talent is very important 

Why? The right employee will push your organisation forward, and tackle tasks and responsibilities that will carry out your mission and vision. 

When you hire the wrong fit, your organisation will then suffer from not only low morale, but also incur additional costs of hiring and re-hiring. 

If your description is effective, then you won’t have to worry about receiving quality applications. 

You will just need to focus on setting up interviews and how to make sure you adopt the right interview process— but don't worry, we’ll tell you all about this in the next edition 😉!

SALES

It’s Time To Seal The Deal

Deals, deals, deals.

Customers love a good deal, and if you’re in sales, you love closing a good deal.

We won’t lie, closing deals can be hard, but not when you have the right techniques.  

This or That?

Instead of presenting just one product and then closing with “So, is that a yes?’, give the customers two options. 

Present them with two products instead and summarise each product.

Once you’re done doing that, ask them which option they would prefer better.

For an example; “While I think product A has more durability, product B offers more flexibility, which I strongly believe fits your priority better. However, we only have 25 pieces of product A left and 17 pieces of product B left. Which would you like me to put down for you?”

Customer would be more inclined to choose between the two products, instead of deciding between “yes” or “no” for a single item. 

Done Deal

Believe you have the deal. This technique is all about going into a deal with the mindset that the deal is already done. 

Use a tone of “assumption” and confidence. And when it is time to close, again, don’t just ask them if they’d like the product/service. Instead, try saying something like this:

“We have the item in blue packed and ready to go. When would you like to have it delivered to you? Would Friday be okay?”

This will then most likely prompt the customer to answer about the day of the delivery, hence securing your deal. 

This or Nothing

When all else fails, you will need to be straightforward.

Ask them directly if the sale will be on. For example; “Are we ready to go forward with the proposal?”.  

You can also consider taking the deal off the table. (tricky but successful when a customer is really indecisive)

For example, you can say something like: 

“We’re truly sorry, but this really is the best offer we can provide you. Since this deal is only available for a short time and slots are limited, we unfortunately cannot hold your slot for much longer since our next client is already ready to move forward. If you’re ready to move forward, I would be happy to help you book this down right away.”

This will definitely help your customer decide faster and help you save time. If they say yes, that’s great. If they say no, then you no longer have to waste time that you could be using to secure other deals. 

Latest Tech News

• Apple and OpenAI are in the midst of finalising a deal to introduce ChatGPT to iOS 18. 

• Microsoft is changing the Start Menu on Windows 11 again: this time by making it expandable with Start Menu Companions. 

• These artificial blood platelets could one day save lives.

• A cyberattack in the US forced Ascension hospitals to use pen and paper, and divert ambulances away. 

• SpaceX’s major satellite internet  provider, Starlink, faced disruption due to a major solar storm.

• Data of almost 50 million people was recently stolen. Dell hacker says they were able to to directly attack company servers to scrape data.

Tech Throwback: May 13, 1999

On May 13, 1999, world-famous toy and entertainment company, Mattel completed its purchase and merger with The Learning Company (TLC).

The Learning Company is an educational software company that created many well-known edutainment games like Reader Rabbit, The Cluefinders, and Carmen Sandiego. 

TLC was founded 44 years ago in California.

And that’s a wrap on this week’s Tech Creator. We’ll catch you next week!