It’s 2018. The mark of 20^th century calls out for budding entrepreneurs to take the leap of faith, and leave their comfortable 9 to 5 jobs, and move toward the world of start-ups to follow their passions! It’s unquestionable that start-ups require entrepreneurs to be impactful, creative and aggressive; given the need to stand out from competitors and connect with the target audience.

However, as a superhero once said, ‘With great power, comes great responsibility’; every start-up founder must make their own set of to-dos and to-not-dos. These can be found in various books and blogs; but the real essence comes from the sweat and blood of an entrepreneur, known as experience! Let’s have a quick look at the things to take care of while donning the hat of a ‘startup-preur’.​

1. Funding –A company’s CEO’s most important issue is the need to raise the right amount of funding. A start-up needs to be dynamic; and it needs to be aggressively creative with the problem it is attempting to solve. This calls for the founders to convince angel investors and venture capitalists to invest in their start-ups. Even after a start-up has risen funding; the CEO must most effectively put these monies to grow the start-up. Founders make the mistake of burning the money in an aggressive fashion for discounts, advertising, and overall pull-marketing strategies; rather than utilising it for a balanced approach of push and pull.
2. Manpower – One of the key resources any start-up could possess would be the right set of people to work for it. Start-ups require a dynamic and creative set of minds that refuse to take a no for an answer. The consumers define companies, and employees always re-define a company. Having said that, founders of start-ups must always take key interest in having the right set of manpower onboard to take the start-ups to great heights. There must be an established and knowledgeable team in the Human Resource department, whose core job is to identify the right person and hire them for the right job.

3. People management – A CEO of a start-up must absolutely be a people’s person. He or she must make the right choices when it comes to keeping their people happy, for a company’s employees are the ones that lead the company on a success driven path. Employees always look up to their bosses, and hence the CEO/CTO of a start-up must walk and talk in the role of just another employee passionate to perform and inspire folks. Tasks like recruitment drives, performance appraisal and employee development initiatives must be taken into consideration, and these must become the KPIs for co-founders’ performance in start-ups.

4. Brand value – Brand value or recognition in the market as a trustworthy brand is yet another major aspect that a start-up needs to worry about. As a founder or co-founder of a start-up, a constant effort must be in the direction of brand awareness and acceptance. In today’s time, a company’s online and offline presence influences the way the brand is accepted by the target audience to a great extent. Using the right tools of digital marketing along with lucrative discounts and offers, a company can establish a strong market presence for the intended target audience. Nevertheless, there lies the need of a specialised digital marketing effort by the start-up to establish a strong presence in the market. 

5. Employee Development – An important question a CEO must ask himself when it comes to employees’ performance is – What pushes a person to keep working for the same company? A constant assurance for monthly money to come to their banks called salary? Yes. The lucrative invitation known as incentives? Yes. Nevertheless, more than anything, the assurance of a constant growth in the same work place, both personally and professionally is the biggest drivers for an employee to stick to a work place. CEOs and start-up founders must make constant efforts to initiate and maintain employee development programs. This not only insures for an employee’s long term association with the company and progressive development; but also leads to overall growth of the start-up.

6. Infrastructure – An important question people ask today is – what do you need to start off a business? A couple of computer systems, funding, people, online presence; these all are just constituents of what we know as an office set up,or infrastructure. The right set up of facilities make overall business operations smoother and thereby all the more productive. With the advent of co-working spaces, the problem of expensive office space has gotten reduced to a huge extent; and this is pushing more and more employees to become their own bosses.