WHAT CAN BIG BUSINESSES TEACH STARTUPS?

These days a lot of people say that large companies can learn a lot from startups and adapt their methods, and that is true to an extent. However, there is a new question going around the block: What can big businesses teach startups about entrepreneurship? The answer is that there is a lot that startups can learn from large companies, after all, these companies were once startups who made it big. Essentially, if startups pick up the tips and tricks that large companies are leaving them, then they can boost their chances of making it in the unforgiving gladiator arena that is the startup competition.

Here are the key lessons the startups should learn from big businesses:

1. Know your target audience:

One of the reasons why big companies make a lot of essential sales is because they spend a monumentally large amount of time getting to know who their target audience is and what it wants. For example, IKEA spends years on researching the market before it enters a new market. Of course, startups do not have enough time and more importantly budget to do that, but the point is that startups should learn as much as they can about the people they mean to serve. There is nothing worse for startups than spending all their time and budget on making a product or offering service only to find out that nobody wants it.

2. Be tactical with change:

The very essence of startups is bringing innovation and change in people’s lives. However, the degree of change is highly relevant. While people may need or even like changes, they will most likely be opposed to big changes, and of course, that is a huge red flag for any company especially a startup.

What large companies do is that they break down substantial changes into smaller yet still meaningful ones, and slowly introduce them to their target audience. For example, software release management is substantially sufficient for large companies when introducing new software or tools to their employees; software release management handles the entire introduction process without disrupting the employee’s everyday work.

Startups need to monitor how they incorporate change and closely and make it so that the changes they enter into the market do not disrupt the audience enough to make it uncomfortable and ultimately, unwelcoming to the changes.

3. Be careful with human resource management:

Every large corporation has a dedicated human resource department which handles hiring new employees, bringing them on board and just about everything else related to human resource management. They are extremely careful with who they hire and only take chances on the candidates they feel they can get the most out of.

A startup must take HR even more severely than a big business because its margin of error is nowhere near as wide as that of the large corporation. By hiring the right person, startups may gain a healthy boost that just might turn them into winners, and by employing the wrong person, startups risk losing weeks or even months on a person who does not contribute in any meaningful way and only wastes precious resources. The worst mistake startups can make is not taking human resource management seriously. After all, in a startup, it’s all about the people who do the work.

4. Have a clear-cut marketing plan:

After big businesses finish market research and make their product, they need to sell it, and they can’t do that if people do not know that the product exists; this is why having an extensive and efficient marketing strategy is a top priority for large and small companies alike, from multi-million dollar corporations to new fledgling startups. There are a lot of lessons that market-leading giants can teach the newcomers about marketing, but for the time being, let’s look at these:

i. Startups should streamline their content creation.

Large businesses create a lot of content, but what’s more interesting than what they create is how they create. Generally speaking, startup founders tend to do all the content creation themselves. The lesson is to allow others to create the content and a reliable process of generating the content. It is imperative to remember that the more business sections that startups streamline, the more their business will be able to grow and expand.

ii. Use Videos for content marketing.

Videos are now easier to record than ever, and they visually engage potential customers; this makes them the bread and butter of content marketing. Therefore, videos must play a vital role in any startups marketing strategy, and they can’t just be popular, they must also positively influence a customer’s buying decisions because nearly 50% of people look for videos highlighting the product before making a purchase.

Conclusion:

Typically, people say it is essential to learn from the mistakes of others, but what they usually don’t say is that it is just as vital to learn from the successes of others as well. There is a tonne of lessons that large companies can teach startups, and the lessons mentioned above are only but a few of a long list.