The term of ‘startup’ appeared long time ago, but recently it has become very popular. However there is still no single definition for it, in general it’s a new usually small business offering service or product, which wasn’t available in the area before. Do you think you need to have a genuine innovative idea for launching a startup? Not exactly.

If you can offer something better that existing, it may become a successful startup too. Often such ideas appear in society observing during your daily communication. Of course, if you have a new genuine idea– this is much more interesting, which requires extra market researches.

So you’ve got an idea and wondering how to implement it?

Over the last 10 years Gera IT is developing great projects and we can share with you 10 main steps of turning your ideas into a successful startup.

1. Seed stage – market research

If you create your startup to solve an existing problem – research comes much easier. But if not – then you have to start from the beginning. Find or form the demand on your product, evaluate the market volume and take a survey. Create the portrait of your customer it will ease many task for future marketing.

Ask people who probably will use your product to give more information about their needs and expectations. Analyze the results whether your startup can be useful, whether you have competitors and what advantages you might have.

2. Concept and business plan 

Concept is often a key element of the startup. Answer for 3 main questions: what do you sell? For whom do you sell? How is can be useful for your target audience.

Think about branding of your product. It’s more that just choosing a name – it’s about choosing a way to success.

Business plan is less creative part, which should contain your target in numbers and amounts. What you aim to reach, how and by when. You need to plan your incomes and expences for next 2-3 years. 

3. Create a team

It is quite complicated task to bring new product or service to life alone. You need to find proper people, who believe in your dream and can share your enthusiasm. They should be active and energetic, able to share your vision and to offer fresh and creative ideas for company success.

‘‘‘4. Finance‘

To launch a new product you need a certain amount of money. After you create a business plan, you can check if you can cover the expenditures by yourself or you need to find extra sources. Usually the startup uses money of the owners and their families, bank loans or investment capital. The last one is very popular. Having bright business plan and innovative idea, you can easily find an investor. Many events help to meet startup owners with those who have money to invest; it’s a great opportunity to present your product and to evaluate the demand.

5. Secure your intellectual property

This is very important step, however many companies skip it. By registering the patent or trademark, you own the rights for your business and protect it.

Prior to registering any rights, make sure your idea and brand have not been patented yet by anyone else. Otherwise, you may face litigations.

6. Specify Requirements 

When you have successfully completed previous steps, it’s time to make a technical task for developers, who will actually bring your idea to life.

On this stage we recommend you to sort users’ stories by priorities.

Within the main task of specifying the requirements set subtasks with certain due dates. Try to be as exact as possible to avoid misunderstanding.

Of course, you will be able to make changes after the next step, but still it’s better to write the complete task from the beginning.

7. Wireframing

We prefer to divide this stage into 2 parts: prototyping and design implementation.

First gives us an opportunity to create mockups of main pages and to see the “skeleton” of user interface. Second is based on drawing the graphics, including illustrations, fonts, colors etc.

Together they make a first prototype of your future product.

8. Development and QA

This is probably the main block in the whole story.

Start the development with creating MVP (Minimal Viable Product) from the core “user stories” listed in requirements and to make approximate estimation on them.  The development itself goes iteratively and followed by Quality Assurance after each completed subtask.

QA check if all processes and services work smoothly and correct, if the interface has good usability etc. There are many services, which help to make testing convenient and complete; however, we use and recommend TestCaseLab. It has all necessary tools to make your startup work without any bugs. 

Try to involve beta-users to play with your application. This will give you an opportunity to generate the feedbacks from real users. This is the most valuable experience you can get before the next stage.

9. First Public Release (Alpha)

Now final stage of launching your startup and at the same time it is just beginning of it’s hopefully long and successful life. The product is released to the real users and start generating revenue.

 10. Further Evolution.

If the public release is successful and gathered feedbacks about your product from real users are positive than you should plan your iterative development of new functionality. This process never ends.

However, the process of creating a startup can run in a different way and it also may appear not successful. What do we know for sure, is that any success depends a lot on people involved. Choose smart and enthusiastic members to your team and find reliable partners. Gera-IT Development Company has over 10 years of experience in bringing great ideas to life. 

Keep in mind: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started” by Mark Twain (American writer). Make first step, we will support you.

  Be Gera-Creative