This article was written by Isabel - the Community Manager at Beta-i. Graduated from London College of Communication, she has moved around several countries discovering new opportunities and projects, and has now returned to Portugal to explore the entrepreneurial eco-system of Lisbon.
Passionate about all things innovative and branding, her aim is to connect startups, entrepreneurs and mentors from all over the world to Lisbon Challenge. Isabel describes the main problems which our startups usually face and solutions Lisbon Challenge offers.
Lisbon Challenge kicked off one month ago and already the teams have successfully triumphed so many milestones. It’s great to see all of them working so hard, and with hard work comes many challenges (and that’s what Lisbon Challenge is all about). Some of the challenges we’ve seen repeating amongst our startups are becoming a pattern edition over edition. Obviously, this is very much linked to the phase startups arrive at Lisbon Challenge, which we strategically target, as we believe we can help overcome these challenges, due to the fact we have the resources to deliver them value.
Below are some of the areas that most of our startups have highlighted as their main challenges.
Definition of Value Proposition:
Often startups have a really good idea, and are so caught up in that idea that they lose sight of what they are actually offering, or better yet, how to descriptively sell what they are offering. The value proposition pretty much defines the entire spectrum of the business. It is the promise of what you will deliver, beautifully structured into how you will do it and why you will do it better than everyone else. It separates you from your competitors and becomes the reason why customers chose you instead of them. Michael Skok (Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners) often writes about the need to first identify the 4U’s in order to begin structuring the Value Prop: is the problem Unworkable?; is the problem Unavoidable?; is the problem Urgent?; is the problem Underserved? He states that if you answer yes to all of these questions, then you have a good basis to begin expanding on the value prop.
Business Model
Due to the nature of a startup, it is only natural that the business model will suffer several changes, especially in the beginning (which is precisely the phase we get them in at LC). A mixture between being too optimistic on how to acquire customers, followed by the actual real cost of acquiring those customers, and market research not totally aligned to validate the business model (along with several other factors), causes startups to change constantly business models during this phase of acceleration. This is exactly why we focus on business model validation on the first weeks of our program, - to try and avoid that three months pass by, and the teams don’t have the business model as an obstacle for growth. Peter Cohen, renowned professor from Babson College and mentor of LC suggests some business models that he believes fit well the startup nature. It’s not meant to serve as fact, but it is a good start to explore different models.
Branding and Exposure
If the value proposition isn’t properly defined, then branding will fall right behind. One pretty much leads to the other. The principles of branding must be aligned to the company’s objectives in order to convey the intended message and image, consequently understood and picked up by external stakeholders. A startup that has a strong brand strategy and positioning, has done half of the work to ensure a strong brand presence. And once this brand presence is established, exposure comes much easier. “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be” as stated by John Williams (who gives a very nice and simple insight into the basics of branding), and it will, once again, separate you from your competitors.
Social Media:
Funny enough, we are in the digital age, and social networks are more and more part of our lives, yet, many of the startups we come across with, struggle with social media management and engagement. Perhaps because they are too focused on their product and growing, and are blindsided by the importance and impact a good social media engagement can have on their startup. Social media engagement isn’t just having a facebook or twitter account and posting a few things on your profile for the sake of it. There needs to be a strategy and it needs to be aligned with the specific objectives of your company. The power of social media should not be underrated, on the contrary, if used wisely it can directly contribute to the formation of business partnerships, the expansion of new international markets, or better yet, a guaranteed closed investment round, and this article will tell you how.
Team Recruitment
Last but not least, and the one that is possibly the hardest to overcome: finding the right fit of recruitment for your startup. Most of our early stage startups are actively looking to recruit. This is a good sign, a sign that they are growing and need more human resources to be able to deliver. But it is also a very sensitive subject, as the team compilation is one of the biggest criteria for an investment decision at the stage they are in. There are several ways to overcome this, starting with hackathons which we organize during the program, and other initiatives. However, there are also several platforms out there, but one worth highlighting is our alumni Skilleo (top 10 from the Spring ’14 edition).
Luckily enough we have the right people in-house to help overcome all these challenges and guide startups to the right direction. The most important thing is to be able to identify these areas of help needed, and target them on time to ensure that startups take full advantage of the program’s development impact and continuing striving for growth.