Growing your startup
A developer wrote to me: “I am an entrepreneur and have my own startup; even it has only one person – myself. I have developed three mobile apps, each has an average about one thousand downloads. I agreed with you that startup needs to grow but as I continue develop more mobile apps; I do not know how to grow bigger. Please advice.”
Answer: It seems to me that your startup is based on a vision that if you build something, somebody will buy it. It is a vision built on guesses. If you guess correctly, you have more customers and if you guess wrong, you have less. Currently your customers are randomly reached and you are aiming at a group of customers with similar needs to use mobile apps. Since you did not mention about your apps, I assume that it is a mobile game that people buy it via an app store. In this case, your value (The mobile apps) is distributed via the Internet or App store (Channel) but there is no customer relationships (They download and pay, they do not know you).
To design a startup that can grow, you will need to transition your vision into a business model and analyze each component carefully to identify what component need to improve in order for you to grow. Since I do not have enough detail about your startup or your value proposition, I could not help but I believe the key to grow is to build a better relationship with customers. You need to rethink your strategy and aim at different groups of customer. Customers consist of several groups if their needs require a distinct offer; or they are reached through different distribution channels and they require different relationships. Knowing who your customers are; what problems do they have; what are their urgent needs; what can you do to help them solve problem are essential to grow your business.
For example, Most Bank distinguish between a large group of customers (the public) and special customers (the business owners). Both groups have similar needs but the Bank offers them different relationships. Special customers have more money, often deposit large amount of money each day so they receive different discounts or interest rate than the public. In your case, you sell mobile apps so you have two types of customer. The app store who sells your apps and the users who buy your apps and you need to build different relationships with both. For the App store, if you give them higher percentage of the sale price, they may push your apps over others. They would recommend your apps to customers because they make more profit on selling your apps. For the customers who buy your mobile apps, you may need to reach them by create special incentives such as special discount for update, build a community of users so they can play your mobile games online with others; or create tournaments so people would compete and get prizes. These are some ideas that I have seen other companies used successfully. You need to review your business model carefully and identify which components that need improving and grow your company.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
