For Start-Ups

FOR A HIGH TECH START-UP COMPANY

There are firms, training seminars, plus business books and publications that offer to help market, and “start and grow” your business, the majority of which amount to fluff and puff. You have to wade through volumes of irrelevant material to extract small bits of useful information. Most give general directions but are unsuitable to high tech. Starting from a high tech innovation, strategic planning, marketing, and development of a product are simply different. As a high tech entrepreneur, I was so frustrated with the subject of marketing and start-up strategy I wrote an E-Book about it.

Download it here, free.

Many new tech products start with a “seed”—it may be recognizing an opportunity, generating a new technology, or perceiving an unmet need. A group coalesces around this seed, grows, and combines the primary features, customer benefits, and technology. The fuzzy front end is chaotic, risky, and unorganized. It involves individuals, not multi-functional teams. Funding and revenue are uncertain. Work is unstructured, experimental, and results in strengthening a concept, not achieving a milestone.

A start-up company generally has a small group of founders, limited resources, and needs external financing. Typically, the group writes a business plan to seek external funding and another plan for an operational framework.

Evidence suggests many high tech companies entering new markets – both incumbents and start-ups – pursue a wrong strategy or have no strategy at all. A strategy that fits within the company’s framework provides direction and improves chances of product success. The strategy defines the company’s interaction with the market.

Company frameworks differ, but three pieces are at the core: the market, the product, and finances—each is key to the new high tech company coming together. These necessary ingredients create a viable company and are the most important to its survival. A winning strategy integrates and aligns these three, formulating a common set of requirements.

One means for setting strategy in nascent situations is as follows.

Start with all existing product & market ideas; generate new ideas as necessary
Use bulk filter(s) to screen out obvious mismatches
Identify relevant subsequent filters
Size the filters using weighting factors
Apply filters, determine credible options
Rank and retain several robust options
Apply quantitative analyses to the retained options, but at a level consistent with the uncertainty in market conditions
Ideas, filters, and weighting factors are always different and depend on the company framework, market, technology, and resources

Approach for High Tech Start-Up Small Business:

Clear up fuzzy front end, formulate strategy if non-existent

As each company is different, tailor strategy to fit within organizational framework; qualitative methods equally important as quantitative methods
Transition technology to product definition, opportunity to market definition, and define financial requirements
Establish path to product development and launch