This is the fifth and final part of my five step guide on how to launch a startup in high school.
So far, I’ve helped you come up with an idea, create a plan of action, and assemble your team (if required).
Before we move any further, I want to congratulate you on making it this far! You’re already ahead of most people who have an idea and don’t take action on it.
In this post, we will look at what steps are needed before you can finally launch! (exciting stuff, right?)
How to start building your product/service.
Your first order of business is to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to see if your idea will succeed in the market. An MVP is a development technique popularized by Eric Ries (author of The Lean Startup) for building a basic version of a product.
The major difference between an MVP and a prototype is that the MVP is the 1st version of your actual product (with limited features) whereas a prototype is just the first draft of your actual product, and it is discarded after testing.
To figure out what features you need to include in your MVP, simply list out the essential parts of your offering. You need to be extremely picky with what you choose to work on (you can always add the other features later!)
Once you have an idea of what you need to get done to create your MVP, it’s time to put in the time and effort so that you can ship your product ASAP!
My Favourite Tools To Help You Stay Productive And Organised:
- Project Management: Asana, Trello, Notion.
- Communication: Slack, Discord.
- Design and Branding: Canva, Visme.
- Prototyping: Figma, Webflow.
While working on your MVP, it’s important to not fall into the trap of feature creep and overpolishing. Your goal is to get your idea out into the world as soon as possible, get feedback, refine your idea, and repeat.
There is a famous quote by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn:
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.
Err on the side of launching too early than launching too late. Below is a 5 step launch guide to help you get your business out into the world as soon as possible.
Five Steps To Launch Your Business As Soon As Possible:
- Ensure that your product or service has a clear value proposition.
What do customers receive when exchanging money for your offer? - Write a strong launch message to any people you know who fall under your target audience:
Tell them about your business and why they should become a customer. Keep it short and to the point, and clearly define what value you can add to their life. - Use social media to promote your business and ask your friends to do the same.
Create a shareable graphic that people can put on their Instagram stories, create an Instagram account for your business and have them link to it.
On your Instagram account, make sure people know how to access your product/service and purchase it. - Secure 3-5 clients and have them use your product/service.
Ask them questions about how their experience was and if they had any issues/complaints. Ask them what else they would like as a part of your offering. - Compile and analyse the feedback you receive.
See if any issue comes up multiple times, any feature that has been requested a lot, and begin to work on your 2nd iteration of your MVP.
Remember, your goal as of now is not to start generating millions of dollars in sales, or to grow your customer base into the thousands. You’re simply validating, refining, and pivoting your idea. We will cover scaling your business in a future post but for now, focus on creating a solid MVP and shipping it out to the world.
Legal Disclaimer-
(P.S. I urge you to look into the legal aspects of your business. I am not a lawyer and I won’t be able to give you the details of the legal requirements of starting a business as they vary with location.
If you’re not able to research this by yourself, ask for your parent’s help, they likely know someone who will be able to give you the appropriate legal advice.
However, don’t let this deter you from going ahead with your startup, I’m currently working on another post which will help guide you in more detail when it comes to legal matters.)
If you found this guide helpful, please share it with your friends using the social media buttons below! My goal is to expose as many students to the entrepreneurial mindset and sharing this around will help me achieve that goal 🙂
