The year 2020 came with an unexpected hit on many businesses trying to climb up through the lowest rung of a ladder.
Startups are not left out of the equation as they continue to seek out ways to emerge from what has been a pandemic filled year.
To thrive in 2021, startups have to think of new ways to remain in the game, else they will drown in what seems to be a mighty ocean.
Founders of startups need to look into bootstrapping methods like creating multiple income streams, forging collaboration and keeping your intellectual property tight.
Practicing an independent structure of funding indicates freedom from external parties, however, it also means you have to be extremely dependent on your self created system.
This means that you have no regular paycheck, backup plan to fall on, except the one you built yourself.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the pitfalls in some of the systems that organizations have relied on over the years.
Indeed the pandemic has come with a massive challenge, however, the onus now lies on founders to keep up with the rapid changes to ensure financial stability.
Multiple income streams
Being exclusive isn’t always the real deal. A good number of jobs were lost in 2020, resulting in a loss of customers.
Startups are advised nowadays not to center their product(s) around one type of demographic interest or trying to overinvest in luring a big fish.
A successful company or for the ones that stayed ‘alive’ during the heat of the pandemic, were the ones that had and still have multiple clients rather than sorting one big fish in a vast ocean that would pay the bills.
Your organization has to structured such that when one group of clients opt out of your customer base, you would still be fine because your revenue is equally distributed among a significant number of paying customers.
Forging collaboration
In times like this, partnering and sharing audiences won’t be a bad idea after all. In this pandemic ridden year, social distancing and disruptions in the political landscape have shown the rate at which audiences can quickly get disconnected from businesses.
More than ever before, there is a strong need for audiences and businesses to stay together, especially for startups who are still bootstrapping their venture.
With more partnerships, startups can share audiences which will result in multiple profits while also giving them the leverage to be creative with their product and service.
Doing this, you will both expose your unique audiences to each other, thereby displaying your creativity and innovative strength, while both of you are getting paid.
Keep your Intellectual Property (IP)
With your startup at its modest stage, owning your IP means that you can go agile when an unexpected opportunity shows up.
This translates to you building your brand diligently and getting ready to take full advantage when the opportunity arises.
At this point, especially as a startup, you need to fully control your IP so that when you hit that breakpoint, you won’t go running after legal tussles.
Moving into 2021, these bootstrapping tips can just help you get more funds for your eventual scalability.
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