A- Z of Startups: Everything You Need to Know

Have you ever dreamed of building a tech product, although you are not a coder? You are not alone. Airbnb’s founders were not programmers either, and today, theirs is a billion-dollar tech company. If you have a dream to build, you will just need to know what the journey entails. Here's what one needs to know about start-ups from A to Z.

Accelerators: This program helps startups in achieving product/market fit by refining their business models. The companies receive seed money, advice and connections in exchange of equity. Y Combinator and TechStars are the best seed/startup accelerators.

B-Plan: Fundraising is the primary purpose for business plans. It includes various types of analysis like SWOT, market, competitor  and plans for marketing, finance & operations.

Crowdfunding: A way of raising funds from large number of people through various platforms (moderating organizations) like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Digital Marketing: To stay top among your competitors on web, it will require Blogs, Infographics, Explainer videos, SEO, etc. To gain deep insights of this, read Neil Patel’s blog.

Entrepreneurship: A pro-risk taking attitude to exploit the opportunities with innovative ideas and always being enthusiastic to solve real world problems with positive approach. Watch this 90 second video about : Life of an Entrepreneur by Patrick-bet David.

Founder: Needs to play a role of CEO- Chief Everything Officer (Product Development, Sales & Marketing, etc). Funders and Founders explains through infographic media how founders raised funds and built their multi-billion dollar companies.

Growth Hacking: Growth hackers are the experts (mostly product plus marketing head) who helps in increasing user base exponentially. 

Human Capital: Recruit the best since people you will employ are your real assets.

Incubators: A co-working space which provides early-stage startups physical space, equipment, mentoring and networking connections. Ex: TechHub

Jugaad: A hack that is somewhat out of the box which might be innovative or a work around to fix a complicated issue. You'll always need this in the startup world.

Knowledge: You need to be well versed with what's happening in startup ecosystem and for that be in touch with CrunchBase.

Legal: Founders' Agreement, business licenses, taxation & accounting, employment rules  etc are the things which you need to watch. Rocket Lawyer and Vakilsearch will help you to accomplish all of your legal service needs online.

MVP: Minimum Viable Product allows you to validate the idea and test your product core features among early adopters by understanding their feedback. Try QuickMVP and POP -Prototyping on Paper.

Networking: An event where you interact with like minded people that can help in exploring new opportunities for business. Meetup  is an online social networking portal that connects you with people sharing the same interest in offline way.

Outsourcing: Due to tight budget, startups prefer to get their work done from freelancers when required rather than recruiting them on payroll. UpWork, Fiverr, Guru, etc are various online talent marketplaces.

Product Demonstration: To demonstrate the product features and use cases among target audience, explainer videos are created using Powtoon and VideoScribe and for video tutorials and presentations, Camtasia Studio is a good option.

Q & A: To build a top notch product, there has to be lot of questions & answers with the customers for getting the best feedback and later improving only viable suggestions.

Risk: It can be associated with product failure, operations execution, financial crisis or market research not done well. Risk will be part of an entrepreneur life forever.

Sales: The most important for any company to run a profitable business is their sales figures. For SaaS companies, sales tools like LeadGenius & Close.io are good for lead generation and tracking. 

Tools: Running a startup involves lot of cost but there are free tools which will make your life easy. Always try to look out for them.

Users: Customers are your biggest competitors if not treated well. Targeting and identifying early customers is the most crucial thing and later on, user engagement is a must.

VentureDeal: It is a website that provides latest updates on technology companies which are raising funds through venture capitalists.

Workaholic: Startups are a workaholic's paradise. The most important thing that matters over here is the passion and hustle which makes them work 24/7.

X factor: To work in a startup ecosystem, one should know his/her noteworthy talents or skills. It matters a lot in early stage startups.

YourStory: It is an online news portal that covers entrepreneurship, startups and their investment activities across India.

Zeal: You need to be passionate, devoted, enthusiastic and much more to survive in startup world.

Apart from these, Big data is an essential requirement for the success of startups now that every company is adopting a data driven strategy for their business activities. Data will give your start-up great insights about the market and competitors. Competitive intelligence can be useful for your startup in many different ways that you overlooked. PromptCloud is a leading web scraping service provider that can get you insightful data from the web, the way you need it. I might have missed out some important terms associated with the startup ecosystem. Do feel free to share your views on startups and entrepreneurship.

About the Author

Sagar Sanghvi is a startup enthusiast and is passionate about newer innovations in technology like big data and the Internet of things. He loves writing about startups and how technology can help them achieve better.