Lifecycle of a startup company

Understanding your company stage as a startup company allows you to set relevant goals, strategies and track your own progress. In a startup’s lifecycle, there are different business priorities at different stages, and different opportunities and threats that change over time. A lot of startups fail because they aren’t focused on the priorities of their current lifecycle stage.

There are 5 main stages in company’s lifecycle.

1. Discovery

You come up with a product idea that solves a user need, and often the best ideas come when you’re solving your own problem.

Activities

Recruit founding team, talk to lots of people for feedback, refine your value proposition, join an incubator/ accelerator.

2. Prototyping

You look at your offering and focus on the most important things, so as to create a Minimum Viable Product.

Activities

Register company, build a deck, start looking for financing, research and connect with suppliers/ partners.

3. Validation

You look for early adopters who are not only interested in your product, but are willing to buy it.

Activities

Package the MVP, refine core features, find your first customers, get feedback from early adopters, pivot/ improve product market fit, hire core team.

4. Efficiency

You improve your business model, customer acquisition and customer experience so that you can smoothly scale.

Activities

Refine customer experience, streamline acquisition funnels, create repeatable sales and marketing strategies.

5. Scale

You know that customers want your product, so you now can grow your company aggressively.

Activities

Significant financing round, marketing partnerships, public relations, hire aggressively, refine company operations.