Getting a startup off the ground is not for the faint of heart. Founders embarking on this journey should understand at the outset that nothing is guaranteed, and that even hard work and boundless determination may not suffice if the product-market fit is off, or if the execution isn’t right.
At Omi, we help startups from all industries to simplify their payments and develop their financial infrastructure. And in our time working with these startups, we’ve seen some key themes emerge among the most successful of them. Of course, no strategy for growing a startup is one-size-fits-all, but there are several tried and true approaches to scaling a startup from scratch.
What do these approaches have in common? An emphasis on the importance of strategic planning. In the following guide, we’ll walk you through seven ways to build your startup from the ground up. But we’ll give away the most important takeaway up top: nothing happens without a clear plan, the determination to follow it, and the flexibility to adapt to unexpected challenges as they arise.
Before you even think about getting a product out the door, take a step back and think about the problem you want to solve. To do this, it helps to get to know your customers and the specific pain points they face. You can do this via direct customer feedback or by leveraging online tools. We suggest both.
As you begin to formulate the prototype for your product, take the time to conduct surveys and hold focus groups with customers you’ve identified as a potential fit. Even if you don’t yet have quantitative data on your market size or audience, you should be able to gather valuable qualitative data from real people. Use this to inform your initial product design, and return to these users for feedback after you have a minimal viable product (MVP) ready to test.
Another great way to gather data is to lean on online analytics. This gives you access to a wider range of opinions and insights, and may help you better calculate your potential market size and opportunity. Tools like Google Trends can help you identify recent spikes in product interest, and comprehensive organic marketing platforms like Semrush can help you analyze search and social-media data for additional insights.
The earlier you can get your MVP shipped for testing, the better. This is a clear case of perfection being the enemy of progress. Your MVP won’t be perfect, and that’s OK. Your early testers will give you invaluable insights that will help you make it better. As often as not, these insights will relate to potential improvements you never would have considered.
Once you have a viable product, you can start to experiment by sharing different versions of that product with different groups of users. The feedback you collect in these A/B tests will give you further insights into the aspects of your product users love and the aspects they think could be improved.
Early versions of your product will likely not be entirely novel. In other words, plan to have at least one or two competitors trying to solve the same problem with products of their own. You can try to copy their efforts, but that’s not a viable path toward differentiation. Instead, lean on a resource you have that your competitors don’t: your own users’ feedback.
By digging into early feedback, you can identify new ways to hone your unique value proposition — ways that may not be apparent in your competitive research. Act quickly to implement improvements based on this feedback, as this will demonstrate responsiveness and care to your early users.
Planting these seeds early can pay off in the long run, especially if you get a small group of users to absolutely love your product and speak to it. They can give both you and your potential investors a good indication that you’re on the right track.
Speaking of investors, fundraising is a key ingredient that can ultimately determine the success or failure of an early-stage startup. If you’ve identified a need to raise outside money to grow your business, it’s time to start fundraising.
That doesn’t necessarily mean inviting investors in for pitch meetings. But it does mean building relationships with as wide a range of investors as possible. A good way to do this is via “warm intros,” in which you ask plugged-in mutual connections to introduce you to angel or VC investors in their networks. Your connections may appreciate it if you draft up an email on their behalf that briefly introduces your startup and why it’s worth investing in.
As investors begin to show interest, keep a running list of the ones you think are the best potential fits. You’ll want to spend most of your time and energy courting the investors you actually want to work with, like those who understand your industry best.
In May 2024, a major Google API leak revealed a surprising list of the components Google factors into its search rankings. Rand Fishkin of SparkToro, one of the players involved in publicizing the leak, combed through the data and came to a clear conclusion. Perhaps more than anything else, a strong brand matters in influencing Google’s ranking algorithm.
Organic search visibility is a key component in getting your name and product out there, and sites with a strong brand consistently attract more and better-quality visitors than their competitors. And it’s not just about search rankings. A memorable brand should infuse every aspect of your product experience, from the tone of voice you use to engage with customers to the visual experience they have with your product.
Many startups look past this because they can’t put an immediate numerical value on the importance of a brand. But a strong brand drives growth in ways that can be difficult to quantify. Ignore it at your own risk.
The term “growth hacking” refers to a group of marketing tactics designed to boost user acquisition, conversions, and revenue with as little time and money as possible. The individual tactics may vary, but they’re united by a shared spirit of experimentation and a willingness to learn via trial-and-error.
As you’re getting your startup off the ground, you likely won’t have a huge budget to throw at digital marketing efforts. This is where growth hacking plays a role. Focus on developing fast and cost-effective (if not flat-out free) ways to engage new customers, and don’t forget to meticulously document your learnings for future testing and iteration.
Your growth-hacking tactics may include:
Many other tactics exist, as well. Just make sure that any growth-hacking efforts you engage in are tied to clear and actionable KPIs for your business.
Speaking of saving time and money, now is a great time to explore creative use cases for the new AI tools hitting the market. If you’re running a lean startup and don’t have the resources to hire a ton of employees, think hard about what you can automate in the short term.
For example, AI tools can help you save time dealing with everything from tax notices to supplier onboarding. You can also experiment with use cases for large language models (LLM), such as using ChatGPT to quickly parse out key insights from customer feedback.
At Omi, we provide the financial tools and infrastructure startups need to scale. Our comprehensive payments solution can simplify and automate your payment and contract workflows.
But a business can’t scale effectively without clarity around its goals and KPIs. That’s one of the reasons why we’re launching our latest product, Omi. Sheets is our latest way to help you track and automate your business payments from one place, giving your finance team insight into the metrics that matter the most. For a demo, send an email to hello@tryomi.com to learn how Omi can help your business.
Omi makes it easy to keep track of our vendors and gives us actionable insights into our finances where we don’t have to open excel
