Five more principles from the startup industry can help you run your WordPress business

A few days ago, we discussed five essential principles from the startup industry can help you run your WordPress business. Today, we are going to dive into five more principles we can learn from startups.

You have seen these principles in some of your favorite startups over the years including Dropbox, Slack, Zendesk, and many more of the Software as a Service companies that WordPress professionals often use.

So, without further adieu, let’s discuss.

Startups know precisely who they target with their message

Startups know their target audience. If you are going to scale customers and grow, you need to have a specifically defined target market. When my friend Jeston launched his startup Apptegy, he knew that he would be selling to school districts. He isn’t interested in other target markets.

His service is specifically designed for school districts. Because of this, when his team prospects, they are contacting superintendents of these schools or media and communication directors. There is no need for them to waste time on a retailer or other business to business companies.

We’re not telling you to narrow your target audience because we want to put a ceiling on how high your company can fly. We really believe that, if you hone in on figuring out who your exact customer is, your whole company will be better for it. Startups.co

In the WordPress professional industry, we might call it a niche. Niching, I believe, can be as much about what you do and how you do as it is for whom you do it for.

One of the advantages of having a target market is that you know their business problems. You can then dive in how to solve those problems. Solving the problems helps solidify your message to be more relevant to your target market.

Startups seek to build recurring revenue

I don’t have to convince you that recurring revenue is one of the best things you can do for your business. It is a revenue model that most startups are based on and something any company can aspire to have.

Recurring revenue can increase your value.  John Warrillow explains at Inc.,

Recurring revenue is important because to create a valuable, sellable company, you need to demonstrate how the business will continue to thrive once you’re gone. Long-term contracts are the best way to guarantee a stream of revenue in the future, but you can also create recurring revenue through a subscription service or membership club or even just by adding a line of consumables to what you sell.

It is particularly important to startups due to the nature of how a startup operates. Mark McDonald of SmartCompany gives us more information,

A startup by definition is a temporary organization designed to find a scalable and repeatable business model and subscription – recurring revenue business model – is probably the most efficient and scalable business model out there.

Startups focus on growth

Startups are willing to endure lean years to grow their business where it needs to be. This can be, of course, to increase the value due to rapid customer acquisition which builds recurring revenue.

How significant is growth to startups? A whole segment of marketing (Growth Hacking) was created out of the importance of growth. The term growth hacking has popped up in the past 20 years and is considered an essential part of the startup process.

Sean Ellis coined the term in this blog post when he said,

After product-market fit and an efficient conversion process, the next critical step is finding scalable, repeatable and sustainable ways to grow the business.  If you can’t do this, nothing else really matters. So rather than hiring a VP Marketing with all of the previously mentioned prerequisites, I recommend hiring or appointing a growth hacker.

Now it must be noted that in our industry we don’t grow just for the sake of growth. There may be times when other things are essential such as the growth or revenue or profit. Nevertheless, we have learned a lot about growing a business from those who work in growth hacking for startups.

Startups are willing to be innovative

Startups are pretty good at thinking outside the box. It might be for a new product, software, or how they execute the business.

When music sales began to slump because of streaming services, the ladies of ZinePak (now The Superfan Company) saw an exciting opportunity. Brittany Hodak and Kim Kaupe launched a product that took advantage of the super fan and their love for their favorite entertainer. They knew there were fans out there who still bought music products and, in fact, buy everything they can from their favorite artist.

They then launched a service producing content for superfans to go along with other music and other types of entertainment products. Their story was heard around the globe when they two appeared on Shark Tank in 2015.

They made an innovative decision to capitalize in an area that seems to be disappearing.

Startups are willing to invest in their skills

If you have been around the startup world a little bit, two words you have undoubtedly heard are accelerator and incubator. These are essentially boot camp type courses designed to scale an entrepreneur’s knowledge about running a successful business and startup.

Most of these are conducted on-site at the host center of entrepreneurship. For example one of the largest FinTech (Financial Tech) Accelerators is located in Little Rock, AR, a city that is thirty minutes from where I live.

The participants apply to be in the accelerator, go through the application and interview process, and once they are accepted, they move to the location of the accelerator. There they are provided some living arrangement, a place to work, a place to receive hands-on experience, and have access to some of the top business people in their field to mentor their startup team.

A startup accelerator is similar in goals but it is based on a short-term curriculum and often includes some startup capital. A breakdown of the difference is summarized in this article at Microventures.

While incubators and accelerators are part of the education process, startups can get training in other ways. Nevertheless, one thing is certain; startups are willing to invest in their skills to be better entrepreneurs.

Wrapping it up

There is indeed a lot that we can learn from startups. These are some of the better examples of sound business principles. These are the types of principles that can make anyone a better business.

What principles have you learned from other industries that you see as crucial for WordPress professionals?