ERP software isn’t just for large companies; startups can also benefit. Startups, often founded to develop unique products or services, aim to innovate and capture the market.
Startups can be classified by their valuation: unicorns (worth over $1 billion), decacorns, and hectocorns. Achieving unicorn status requires hard work and creativity, with many aiming for stock market listing.
The success of unicorns is closely tied to operational efficiency. ERP software can streamline processes, making operations faster and more efficient.
Table of Content:
Table of Content
What Is a Unicorn Company?
The development of the Unicorn Company is challenging to achieve in the business of startups. A company must have an original concept, a distinct strategy for future expansion, a sound business strategy, and a solid strategy. It is for presenting the value proposition to private investors and venture capitalists to achieve the status of a unicorn.
Most people in the finance industry refer to privately held startups with a valuation greater than $1 billion as unicorns. Investors in unicorns typically take the form of private investors or venture capitalists because of the massive amount of their investments. As a result, retail investors are unable to access them. Even though it’s unnecessary, many unicorns seek to go public.
How to be a Unicorn Company?
A startup must be valued at more than $1 billion to be considered a unicorn company. Of course, it demands more effort to obtain it. Becoming a unicorn is the desire of every creator, and once a firm achieves this status, it is no longer regarded as a startup but instead advances to the next stage of its development.
There are currently over 800 companies around the world considered to be unicorns. To achieve a Unicorn Company, the following seven steps will be explained to lead a startup to success.
1. Make a plan
Making a plan is the beginning of everything. At first, you will only have ideas. But the idea has to be scalable, to have options for embodiment in a product or service, and to solve some of the issues at hand. Ideas can be obtained through various communities that face various challenges. It needs to be resolved and resolved for all members of the community.
Ideas can come from anywhere, and you need to find a team to break down the idea into something achievable. It would be best if you had the right team to develop your idea and share a common vision and goal. This phase doesn’t cost money, but it does take some level of dedication and some amount of time to find a team and come up with a shared vision of the project.
2. Analysis and pre-seed funding
At this stage, you need an analysis of competitors, a description of the target audience, the creation of buyer personas, an identification of channels to promote the product, and draft a financial plan that includes variable, and fixed costs, and revenue streams.
At this stage, there is still no official organization, only a team that conducts research for the continuity of ideas and concrete goals. In this initial funding phase, there is no external source of capital. Therefore it can be called bootstrapping because the finances come from personal funds.
3. Seed stage
At this stage, after the startup team already has a plan and target goals, the startup will start to need money. In parallel with financial planning, leveraging Microsoft Power BI Services to establish robust customer support is crucial for fostering trust and ensuring user satisfaction.
Therefore this stage will be called the seed stage. Just like seeds need air to grow, startup teams need money from investors to grow too. From here, the startup team will show investors the vitality of the idea.
The startup team will engage investors with a product vision, business plan, vision, expected goals, revenue forecast, prototype, and presentation on the product’s existing market need.
All this does not guarantee investors that they will get their money back or double it because the risk of failure is still high. However, the team has the opportunity to hope to investors that they offer a promising new business idea that might make some money.
Also read: The Reasons Why ERP Implementation is a Challenging Task
4. Market entry and series “A” funding
A startup has a team, product concept, prototype, development funds, and operational funds. The team begins development, creates MVP, and enters the market. Startups should also design a performance indication system.
Google Analytics, desired conversion rate, user engagement metrics, feedback system, and regular user surveys can show if a startup product is valuable. This stage is when the team starts to develop.
A team may obtain “Series A Funding” Venture and crowdfunding platforms are major investors. The first option is accessible if the team establishes it has an evolving business model based on prior startup phases.
The Internet made the second alternative possible: crowdfunding platforms gathered little funds from individuals and transmitted them to companies. This option is available if users enjoy and trust the product.
5. Growth stage
At this stage, the startup has already entered the market, which indicates that the startup will move into a stable growth phase, analyze user and customer personas, enhance products, refine marketing strategies, create sales processes, define management style, provide great customer support, and recruit new staff. Establishing reliable customer support for startups is crucial for maintaining user satisfaction and fostering long-term customer relationships, ensuring that startups can continue to grow and scale effectively.
As a result, teams working on startups need to concentrate on their earnings and processes. A new business must establish a reliable income source to turn a profit. Then it would be best if you worked to perfect the process because an established and proven method will result in a higher profit.
6. Expansion
In the expansion stage, the startup will focus on one goal. They will look for new opportunities to enter new markets that reach more people. Usually, this expansion is done by expanding to international markets.
The startup team will enter the market adjacent to the geographic area by offering the latest product or service. At this level, startups are no longer high-risk undertakings. Thus, more investors, such as hedge funds, private equity firms, and investment banks, participate in financings.
7. Exit
This stage offers startups two options for their future. First, startups can be acquired by larger companies to increase profits. But startups have to stop as independent companies. The second option is that the startup will go public with an IPO. Therefore, there are alternative strategies for startups to continue their existence as unicorn companies at the exit stage.
Also Read: Important ERP System Modules to Optimize Your Business
Conclusion
If you run a startup, you will go through seven stages before achieving success. Even if a normal startup has a greater than 90% risk of failing, this is not a deterrent because even a 1% chance of success is sufficient to initiate an endeavor that can lead to something glorious. In addition to the seven steps for optimizing a company, an ERP System can aid in running the business.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software from HashMicro is Singapore’s best ERP software provider. This cloud-based ERP system is the most complete and provides a wide choice of solutions, such as accounting, CRM, HRM, procurement, inventory, and warehouse, in one platform. You need to choose the right ERP system for your startup company. Catch the action! Try the free demo right away
