Startup story: opened shop and all I heard is crickets. What do you do when this happens?
By: Adhlan Nazeemudeen
Tags: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Startupsinsider, Business Strategy

Positioning your startup for success is not always a clearpath

So you plan and work for months. Finally the day comes, you launch your startup, you switch on the lights and open doors and then to your dismay you hear crickets!

I’m sure there are business minds who can hit a home run or, in cricketing terms, a six on day one of opening shop. But let’s face it if you are an amateur entrepreneur, and this is your first startup, will this likely happen? More often than not, this will probably be the case (ie. hearing crickets). It was for me, and if you are on the verge of starting your startup, it could be true for you too.

What do you do when things do not go according to plan? Your ability to discover a new path to success depends completely on your past decisions, which keeps the door open or closed to new ‘options’ you may have at your disposal.

The theory of ‘options’ has its roots in finance and along with game theory predicts the future value of investments based on the options available to you relative to that of your competitor. Jeremy Gutsche from Trendhunter lists ‘optionality’ as one of the key enablers of Innovation.

In very simplified words ‘keep your options open’ and here is my thinking process which I would recommend to anyone:

1) When thinking your brand’s positioning through, have a number of micro variants in your target positioning. Which also means having some product variations to test the market 2) Do not overcommit on one of the options before testing — this will inhibit your ability to shift to another option if it fails 4) Always have a ‘proof of concept’ mindset, where you don’t make any assumptions and always look towards testing an idea first

Agile Brand Positioning

My thinking on (1) above is that, you just don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. Having some ‘options’ with variation in your positioning essentially allows you to A/B test on what works better. With positioning, you are essentially testing which audience is responding to you best. With different audiences, you may also need variations in the product. Your initial campaigns may not be profitable, but the objective should be to identify and pair the best audience, product and positioning. Use this initial testing to get to know your customer avatar and refine your copy and marketing assets accordingly.

Test, Test, Test

In (2) item in the thinking process, is a follow through on the brand positioning testing. Keep an open-minded mindset and do not overcommit on one option, if it would leave you in a financial position which will prevent you from changing course.

Prove your hypothesis before moving

In (3) — everything part of your plan which isn’t based on numbers and testing is a hypothesis. You really don’t know if it will work. Which is why you should always have a proof-of-concept mindset. The earlier you can actually do this the better.

The end-game of this agile thinking process is innovation. It is the process of discovering the most optimum future of your startup. In some cases, it may be the key to your startup’s financial survival. This is most certainly the case in the startup I am running. Initially, my experience was that my plans change every month, but six months down the line, I see some steady direction on where the business is heading. However, we remain open to changing course at anytime.