
Aug 11, 2019
Finance Essentials for Startups
Helena Hlas
Many companies invest all their energy into trying to perfect a product and not enough resources pushing its impact, forgetting that a business is successful through execution rather than the product alone. That’s why we spoke to Manuel Grenacher, founder and CEO at Coresystems, to get at the roots of growing and scaling a sustainable and successful business.
Manuel spoke to us about the value of focusing on the channel, on building relationships with partners and most importantly building trust. Below we discuss what it takes for your startup to grow past the first funding round into a scalable ecosystem with a high valuation through building strong relationships and having foresight for the upcoming challenges.
To listen to priceless advice from Manuel directly, click here.
The roots of the scalable ecosystem are your partners. Therefore, prioritizing scale means being present in building a diversified network, and investing your time into the partners to build trust. For example not being afraid of investing a full year on an international deal is a crucial element in B2B scaling.
Collaborate
It’s invaluable to collaborate with the right partners who buy into your vision and who will scale with you. To ensure that potential partners see something in your business which ignites their desire to invest, spend time with them to effectively communicate a clear understanding of exactly how you want to be successful and why your product will come through and earn them cash.
Note: B2B is often preferred in Switzerland because the market is quite small for B2C. However, if B2C is the case, then it’s recommended to partner very early with someone who already has millions of people in their customer base.
Stay engaged
The ideal model with some products could be that the partner does the sales process. Others may want to keep the sales process in their control but engage the partner to have them manage the delivery of the product, there, based on delivery outcomes you create the margin. Both models can serve a great deal in keeping valuable partners engaged in the project.
Both parties having a clear vision of the milestones, adoption rates and vision for the customers will also play a key role in the growth.
Common KPIs include:
Market
Your marketing represents the flower of your scalable ecosystem and in this metaphor, having a persona driven story to tell, even with niche products, is so important. You want people to latch on to the identity of the business and this is most effective with stories. In addition, getting recommended on any kind of “must have” list such as Gartner, can do wonders for your growth. This kind of funeling also highlights the value of partners who can make the deals for you once you’ve captured your audience.
Learn more about which B2B personas are successful and try out this persona building tool.
As a CEO you’re guaranteed to face challenges along the way to growing your company. A number of articles out there can list anything between seven to thirty-one challenges you are bound to face but in our Swisspreneur database of experience, we wanted to keep it simple. When it comes to growth, remember the following:
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