The Next Steps For Successful Startups

So, your startup has succeeded where many others have failed. It’s turning a decent profit, and exceeding your expectations.

So… What’s next?

Thinking about taking your startup to the next level is daunting. But with the right goals, planning, and strategies in place, you can look forward to a whole new level of success.

Here’s how you can take your startup to the next level:

Start to Scale it Up

Scaling up is seen as the ultimate goal for startups, so getting to the stage where this is viable is excellent news. If you reach a point where the orders keep coming, and you’re going to be losing money by not expanding — it’s time to scale your startup.

A bigger business can mean more employees, which in turn means more equipment and bigger work space.

Make sure that the staff that you hire is the best, and that they will prove their value time and again as you expand further.

If you’re running low on space from these new hires, you have to look to expand to another site, or a bigger site.

If your tech is getting more costly as the users pile on, you have to look at your architecture to see where savings and speed improvements can be made.

Become An Expert

As your startup scales, you’ll need to protect your reputation and become the expert in your market.

Aim to be the leaders in your industry, and prove that the expertise you offer is better than the competition.

There are lots of ways to be viewed as an expert in your field… For starters, get some good publicity coming your way by letting the local and trade press know how well things are going, and how much your customers love you.

Tell the local media about the investments you’re making in the area by deciding to hire locally. 

Contribute to relevant trade journals by either writing articles on your industry, or providing expert commentary.

There are many ways to boost perception, but the lesson here is you should do it when it’s time to scale.

Head For An Exit

Once you have scaled up your startup and the successes keep on coming, you need to plan your long term strategy for the company.

In plain English, that means you need an exit strategy.

Do you want to go through the ipo process? Or do you want to sell?

Those are the next logical steps for a startup that is rapidly scaling, and has shareholders to appease.

Neither are easy, but both are the ultimate goal. And although this part of the process may seem overwhelming, it can bring you big rewards in the end. 

This is a contributed post.