5 Tips for Your Startup to Stay Ahead In Highly Competitive Market

To be a successful entrepreneur with a high revenue-generating business, the biggest challenge is often a not-so-ideal market with many competitors offering similar product services. Breaking into this segment and coming out as a competent, successful brand is a herculean task.  One has to be ferocious, delivering quality before time and at a consumer friendly price.

Here are 5 mantras which can help you step up your game and make sure you are heard of in the marketplace.

1. Be unconventional and disruptive

Some of the leading companies were disruptive startups. They created a buzz in the market when they launched themselves with unconventional marketing techniques.

Netflix is one such amazing example of guerrilla marketing and sweeping customers off their feet. With best timing, hyper personalization emails, and catchy advertising on all platforms including social media, it interacted with its initial customers with personalized email marketing and much more.

Other brand known for disruptive marketing is Starbucks. It garnered free marketing by misspelling it customer’s names on the cups! #Starbucksnamefail went viral on various social media platforms. Whether it was deliberate or not (Starbucks higher ups have reluctantly denied) nobody knows but it sure did garner millions worth of marketing.

Unconventional marketing reminds the customer base that you are creative, think out of the box and your brand is remembered by the customer for its uniqueness.

2. Research, research and research

Research everything about your customers since they are the one who will generate your revenue. Study customer demographics, identify ideal target audience and use data analytics to study customer’s purchase behavior.

Understand pain points of customers, and also loopholes of your competitor brands to exclude them from your product. You can also use qualitative along with quantitative insights to bring out the best results when it comes to products.

This will help you build a disruptive model of your business and keep you ahead of your competition.

3. MVP: validate your product

An MVP or Minimum Viable Product is a part of new product development which involves introducing a simpler version of a product to the customers before launching the original.

The biggest benefit of an MVP is you can gain an understanding of your customers’ interest in your product without fully developing the product. The sooner you can find out whether your product will appeal to customers, the less effort and expense you spend on a product that will not succeed in the market.

This has proven to be crucial in building the best customer-centric product.

4. State your purpose

Modern customers will end up buying your product when they have an affinity to your company. Consumers, especially millennials, are making purpose-driven purchases much more than any other generation. Therefore ensure your brand has a purpose and it shall sell well with your consumer group.

Tesla is a great example of purpose driven brand where it aims at replacing traditional petrol and diesel cars with electric cars.

Similarly, Apple clearly states that its main purpose is to create products that enrich people's daily lives.

Stating the brand’s purpose, the one in consumer interest, makes your brand more responsible and reliable.

5. Measure your success

Mapping your growth and measuring your success is important for your company for various reasons. Firstly knowing your company inside and out, knowing its growth potential will help you get investors and convince the existing ones of your credibility.

From your customer acquisition cost (how much you pay to acquire a new customer) to your burn rate (how much capital you are spending), always have one eye on your metrics.

This is essential to managing the financial health of your company and, thereby, operating a successful company. The constant growth reminder has also proven to boost the morale of all employees and they will enjoy representing the company and being a part of it.

Ultimately, don’t quit

‘Easier said than done,’ but don’t give up easily. The challenges and struggles in the process of establishing a business in the corporate world can be overwhelming but don’t give up. Allow yourself to make mistakes, learn from them, correct them and better your company every single day. Consistency is the key for all startups. Don’t be afraid to try new things and accept changes in the market scenarios and evolve with them.

The corporate world is proven to be a brutal battlefield.  Do not give up. It is not impossible to succeed because with consistent efforts, keeping a sharp eye out for competitors, one can build a brand people connect to and buy from.

And as Nancy Pearcy, the author rightly says, "Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity."