Both parties are adjusting their relationships within the New Normal through adjusting how they relate with each other. Take, for example, Bloom Energy which is altering its packaging style for consumers in order to reduce barriers to using their products when outbreaks of pandemics occur.
Salespeople are increasingly working from home, talking to the experts over Zoom for a demo and cultivating important relationships with customers miles or thousands of miles away. While some people find making these changes hard, they will have an effect that will last beyond the next epidemic.
Pivoting their business model
A common method to accommodate changes in the business environment is a business-model pivot, which may be a daunting undertaking at first glance but also allows companies to maintain an edge in the long run. Another strong sign that a startup needs to pivot is if they are having difficulties reaching a state of product-market fit. For example, if your fitness startup had developed a web-based fitness platform but most of your users are not using the offerings and products enough, or they are not getting enough value out of it – this could mean that a pivot is necessary to better serve the market. When you’re shifting to a new business model, you’ll want to engage employees because it will help head off their fears and make them feel like owners; and because they’ll likely identify roadblocks to the transition before you do (eg, if you’ve built a startup that will now pivot from virtual reality games to educational content, you might hear from employees that they feel their skills will soon be out of date).
Focusing on essential products and services
Typically, startups have to roll with the punches in a fast-moving ecosystem that’s shaped by the tides of consumer and investment demand, rapidly changing trends and ripe for further lockdowns or restrictions that could kill them where they stand. The key to ensuring both the critical mass required to scale up and customer retention is to concentrate on essential products and services that can generate enough revenue, by addressing a subset of the customers’ problems or requirements, and providing a high value proposition. For startups, the only way to be fit for operating in a fast-paced changing world is to get the business model right from the beginning and ensure it is scalable. Moreover, it is crucial they track the right metrics (eg, customer acquisition rate, customer churn rate and gross margin) to quickly determine what could be improved and rectify where necessary. In addition to considering emerging health and safety standards to protect company products from cyber threats, start-ups must create a company culture that is employee-friendly enough to both attract and retain talent – whether this means offering a work-from-anywhere policy, a week of work from the mountains or other perks.
Being more frugal
Frugal innovation startups are companies that innovate, produce and deliver goods and services in a low-cost, technology-friendly, simple, easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, accessible and affordable way to a large mass of consumers. Second, these firms focus on strict cost-discipline during operations, mainly by eliminating unnecessary spending: eg, they curtail their marketing budgets to core markets and focus on providing value-added services to existing customers to improve their unit economics and enhance market penetration. Smaller firms can also be more adept at using partnerships to cut costs and facilitate production. For example, they can use collaboration to share resources and expertise with other startups (or even competitors) in order to reduce production and delivery costs while maintaining the quality and delivery of products or services. Frugal innovation startups too care deeply about these social issues and improving livelihoods for the poor, such as helping to start businesses for women through financing or microfinance.
Finding alternative sources of funding
With change in economy , startups have different funding options other than traditional seed money such as crowdfunding campaigns, Venture Capital funding, Angel makeover, Government grants , incubators/accelerators. There may be pros and cons for each source. Entrepreneurs should carefully weigh them .In my opinion, funds are the primary source of need for startups to achieve their financial goal . Let us discuss the options given in prompt.
- Crowdfunding campaigns : this is popular option and choosen widely by most of the startups . In this type, startup generally request the people to donate voluntarily in order to accomplish financial goals. It is innovative option for startup but in some cases this may lead to problem like misleading people and fraud.
- Venture Capital funding: this type of funding is suitable for startup which is developed by highly educated and passionate entrepreneurs in terms of their vision. In this type financial investment is done for early stage startup by specific private firms or governments. So cost is adequately provided to startup .
- Angel : in fact everone should have angel who can assist in need. This is good option for startup , Because they can use this option for subsequent rounds as well as initial rounds for raising funds.
- Government grant: This is source of funding through government but most of the startups not prefer this unconditionally . Because without any condition it is free but it harder to get this facility and rigid is also factors for startup.
- incubators/accelerators : this is one of the preferable option for startup from other sources listed here. actual reason behind this is that any business characteristics may suddently chance hence cloud toilet this option. Challenges notwithstanding, the New Normal environment is favourable to startups which have shown smooth transition and rapid adaptation. The willingness to change and flexibility are an integral part of startup mindset. Also, many startups pivot to remote work and distributed teams, and perhaps this would continue to be the trend giving way to more productive output and enhanced connectivity and snappier response to challenges, especially for global startups.
