Don’t kill your tech startup with lean strategies
This is a lesson learned and this is a lesson I would like to share.
I don’t have an MBA in business, at-least not yet, but the idea of developing a successful software related tech start-up goes beyond cutting down development cost. Don’t get me wrong using non proprietary software or rather language in developing your application, i.e going the opensource way, is a good strategy to developing a product. Having a product for sale be it in rendering a service or for consumption does not mean you have a successful business, infact it does not mean you have nothing to lose or you have saved considerable amount of money. You have everything to lose !! Developing a product even without direct cost takes considerable amount of time. Time is money, and definitely an opportunity cost.
Being frugal about your expenses when you are starting a business is expected but not in a way that would harm your business or prevent your business from getting noticed.
You have built a product cutting down your cost considerably and then what?
Building a product, be it a cheap or a very great product means you have to have a business mechanism, system or model to support it via marketing campaigns, evangelism etc, the question is how cheap can this be?
How cheap is promoting your biz?
I am yet to come across a very successful start-up that didn’t spend a considerable amount of money to get the product across to their market together with having a CRM system with time spent on making it a reality. Blog promotion can help you get noticed but won’t help you gain sales. You need a good budget and a good model and system in place to push your products to the right place.
Going Lean does not mean cutting down on promotions, marketing or even cutting corners to get your product or services across to your market target. You have to make the sacrifice.
Would you give me a dollar, if I would return your dollar with 3 dollars more? Yes you would and that’s exactly how you would need to allocate a budget for customer acquisition to get somewhere.
