Tips for launching a new tech start up
In the modern digital world, costly marketing strategies are no longer essential to successfully launch a new tech startup, considering the internet has and is constantly evolving. New low-cost techniques such as growth hacking, automation, data analysis and SEO techniques continue to be on the rise. And every day, new resources and tools are launched and being made available to achieve this goal. If these are correctly used, they can achieve the desired outcome. But this does translate into a significant time investment, as a lot of knowledge and effort needs to be put into implementing these solutions. For tech startups, this means either hire a jack of all trades or roll up your sleeves and start learning!
Branding
First and foremost, a startup requires good branding. I feel there is no better branding and marketing of products than actually inviting people (your actual potential or future customers) to try out your product or service. Interact with them while they get a taste of it through, for example, free sign-ups and referrals. Word of mouth marketing is extremely powerful – yes, everyone may likely know of it but I feel tech startups tend to focus more on creativity and new strategies, more so than getting the basics right. Of course, you can and should test out your other, creative strategies, in light of successes like Airbnb, Hotmail and Facebook thanks to their unique marketing strategies. Another “basics” point worth mentioning – focus on exceptional customer support. Many potential or actual customers often feel lost when testing new products or services, or when they encounter bugs – despite best efforts of your quality assurance team. Part of this process means receiving constant feedback, allowing you to refine your offering in light of this. And I feel, this gets your product to a position of actually solving the problem that your customers have – the ultimate key to success.
Key Questions
When looking to promote your new start up, it is essential to answer the following questions:
– Who they are?
– What do they do?
– How can you help them do it better?
Thereby, a constant pursuit of refining your solution to make their life easier will be enough to exponentially grow your startup; of course with some time and a lot of effort.
Step up, or fade away
Consider the success of GoPro, a tiny online manufacturer and retailer of action cameras. They gave its keys to their customers and opened doors to user generated content, which they effectively used in their marketing strategy. As a result, they have now become a multi-million dollar business. Their Instagram and YouTube channels, have mostly user generated content.
On the flipside, the story of Nokia, once a giant global behemoth of a company, is a classic example of what can happen if you don’t stay ahead of the game. In 2005, Nokia was the market leader in mobile phone handsets, but just in 6 years, Apple pushed it to third place and climbed to the top through effective marketing. It can be argued that the first generation Apple products had numerous bugs and issues, and so in a lot of respects was inferior to the top end Nokia phones at the time. However, its marketing strategy helped it grew 141% annually and beat Nokia (while it worked on making the product refined and superior as well). Tech startups can learn from the fact that Apple had focused on making the life of its customers simpler and easier, providing access to more on an ‘all-in-one’ device.
In summary, gone are the days of needing an expensive marketing budget to launch your new tech start up. Providing you employ the right strategies and tools, it is entirely possible to achieve global success on a shoestring budget; you just need to be smart about it.
About the Author
Javed Khattak is a tech entrepreneur, an award winning C-suite executive, a FTSE 100 Advisor and the founder of Zisk Properties – for more information visit www.ziskproperties.com
