Startups all start with optimism, but they don't all meet the expectations of their founders. In fact, 90% of them fail. If you want to build up a brand, you have to accept that there's a chance of failure. Just because something goes wrong doesn't mean you should give up on business, though.
There are many startup founders who have failed before, and yet they have come back better than ever before. This guide is going to show you how to do it.
Go to Your Customers
There's only one place to go in order to bounce back from a failed startup launch. Follow the big corporate practice of going to your customers and finding out what went wrong and what went right. Approach both current and former customers to get a good range of reviews. You want as much negative feedback as possible because that's what will reveal the reasons for your failure.
But you should ask customers in different ways. Current customers should receive questions about what they like and what they would want to improve. Former customers should be asked why they no longer want anything to do with your service. Crucially, ask them what you can do to win them back.
What you want to look for are trends. Find the trends and you could be one of the successes who overcame failure.
Bring in New People
A lot of startup owners have a team of advisors around them. Sometimes it's worth trying to change your team around slightly. Most of these guides would advise that you completely get rid of your old team. This is the wrong way to go about it. Instead, you should keep your existing team and consider adding to it in order to enhance it.
You don't want to increase your Internet marketing budget at a time when you are trying to work with a whole new team. The goal is to freshen up not to completely change everything.
Go Back to Your Competition
Now that you have failed, you should go back to your niche and take a look at your competition. Figure out whether you were swept up by a general market collapse or whether your failure can be traced back to your company and your company alone.
You can also learn some vital lessons from your competition. Look at how they treat their customers and how they keep boosting their online reputations.
It's even worth posing as a customer and using their products and services yourself. See how you are treated and apply those same lessons to your new launch.
But what if you don't have any competitors?
In that case, the chances are you are trying to create a brand new market. This is far harder than joining an existing market because you have fewer avenues for review. The chances are you have failed because you need to reposition. Try pivoting and see what happens.
Don't Let Pride Take Over
Some startup owners go down in flames. They go down so hard that they are never able to recover and they have to go back to working for someone else. A lot of the time, this is due to pride. They refused to pull out and they refused to change under pressure. There's nothing valiant in this. It's plain stupidity.
The mark of a successful entrepreneur, and one of the most important business lessons, is to know when to pivot. Be flexible in your approach and be willing to switch to something else if the numbers happen to point in that direction.
But how do you know when to pivot?
There are no hard and fast rules for determining when or where you need to pivot. You have to make this decision by yourself. But what you should always be doing is reviewing the trends in your niche as a whole. Entrepreneurs know when to pivot because they saw the trend coming.
Take note, even successful businesses can pivot sometimes. If they hit a glass ceiling, they may decide to implement changes.
Should You Ever Just Quit?
There are times when you do have to admit defeat and restart from the beginning. It may be due to a simple loss of passion. You could have entered a situation where you are no longer feeling great about your line of work and you want to quit. That's perfectly fine. Doing business in an area you don't enjoy will only lead to disaster.
Nobody should quit on a whim, but sometimes you do have to admit when the game is over and it's time to go.
How will you pivot your startup?