Would You like a feature Interview?
All Interviews are 100% FREE of Charge
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Too often, founders cite a shortened runway as the reason they aren’t fully implementing the best strategic spending for their startup. This is all too common now as markets are on a soft landing trajectory and interest rates remain high. The dilemma is simple: founders don’t want to overspend, they think the runway is too short, and they feel they won’t be able to build traction with venture capital, crowdfunding campaigns, or other funding. Founders know they need to spend to get the traction they need, but it’s a volatile risk with an uncertain return. Countless founders are facing this dilemma right now, but what’s the best decision to make next?
Related: 10 Growth Strategies Every Business Owner Should Know
Don’t focus on runway length, focus on strategy
The only runway they perceive is the money they currently have in the bank, and at best, a projection of what their financials will look like over the next few quarters — it doesn’t take into account future growth, fundraising breakthroughs, or, yes, even disruptions and setbacks.
With many founders feeling anxious about what they perceive as their tenure being short, it’s time to take a step back and think. First, revisit your MVP (minimum viable product). Is it truly viable in its essential elements? Is your startup a copycat or is it truly unique? Does the solution or product offered solve a problem, disrupt an industry, or significantly help in a way not currently offered in the market? If you’re unsure, pause and do a compass check with external resources.
What does the right compass check look like for your startup? Start with a brand assessment by a reputable brand strategist and innovator with notable experience in your industry. Why? Short-term issues may simply stem from a need for improved key messaging, revised funnel strategy, or realistic investor and customer base personas.
What are your best options for leveraging the right strategies?
Startups seeking investors, VCs, crowdfunding, and customers develop some kind of business plan and strategy. If the time frame of a fundraising campaign is too short, the natural tendency is to stop all marketing spend and slim down, creating the dilemma that you can’t make money with money, but you can’t make money without spending money either. This is a false premise, but it’s all too common.
How do founders solve this with strategy, and how do they spend appropriately given their limited cash flow? Let’s start with the most important element of a launch strategy:
- Map out a path to becoming not just the best but the most known at what you do.
- Make sure your funnel strategy is working and accurately capturing incoming inquiries quickly and efficiently.
- It ensures that the customer journey process is built to turn customers into brand advocates.
First, be the most known. This doesn’t necessarily mean being the best. It doesn’t mean putting out an inferior product or service, but too many people work too hard on improvement and don’t consistently promote it or promote it correctly. For this, look inward. As founders and teams, are you doing everything you can to leverage your key messaging strategy? Is that strategy resonating with the right audience? This is so important, and yet so often overlooked. Too many people spend too much money on this and get it wrong, or are too close to their current messaging to notice their blind spots.
Start here to fix your perceived short lifespan. If your key message isn’t reaching the right audience, stop everything else, including your current spending, and fix it immediately. Get outside help from a qualified strategist who can provide expert and objective advice on course-correcting your key message. Then use that to your advantage and lead. A good call-to-action strategy almost always beats a new product.
Second, make sure your funnel strategy works. When you launch a new product or service as part of a startup, show investors, VCs, or crowdfunding campaigns how well your funnel works. If your key messaging is right but your funnel strategy is causing anxiety in the short term, stop and evaluate. It’s not enough to generate interest with messaging alone. Your funnel needs to be as airtight as possible.
If your funnel strategy is already in place and your key messaging is working, continually analyze the results. For product or service sales, conduct surveys, get feedback, and respond to reviews. Identify customer churn rates and reasons, and continuously improve. Ask customers for feature requests for your product or service, and use this data to measure and optimize feature affinity. Additionally, ensure that changes to your public marketing assets, especially your website, social media, PR, and email, align with your funnel strategy to ensure your brand doesn’t go off track.
Third, find ways to let the customer journey process build itself and turn new and existing customers into brand advocates. This starts with creating a nearly seamless journey for customers as they move through the funnel. From the basics of making the journey, value proposition, and process simple and easy to understand, every brand needs to advocate for its customers before they can advocate for the brand. It only takes one bad experience, or a perceived bad experience with no response, for a customer or part of your audience to churn.
Related: 5 ways to raise sustainable capital and get your business out of a bind
You took a risk with your startup, why give up that risk now?
If your strategy is solid, trust it. Build on it. What feels achievable in a short time frame partially reflects distrust in the strategy, the execution, the team, or the product or service being offered. With the right steps in place to ensure your key messages are correct and actionable, a funnel strategy that captures the right audience and leads them to a decision, and a clear customer journey, success will build naturally.