Unicorns in the business sense are startups that are valued at $1 billion or more. As of the writing of this article, there are 554 unicorns worldwide – with more making their way into the unicorn status. In Nigeria, we have five unicorns, namely: Flutterwave, Opay, Paystack, Andela, and Interswitch. More are making their way into the status. Over 20 startups in Nigeria are valued at $500million. To state clearly, only startups can be called unicorns due to their peculiar business model and funding style.
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Building a unicorn is taxing, demanding, yet exciting. It takes a whole lot of mental acumen, financial muscle, marketable product/service, and what-have-you to build one. As interesting as it sounds, building a unicorn is not child’s play. The requirement is different from other entrepreneurial ventures. Studies state that it takes an average of seven years to build a nascent startup that can be valued at over $1billion. Another study also argued that a business only has a 0.00006% chance of becoming a unicorn.
The odds of building a unicorn startup are high, especially in a territory like Nigeria. However, it is possible to build one. The best way to build a unicorn startup is to emulate the models or modify the models of other unicorn startups. In this article, we shall highlight five important ingredients for building a unicorn startup.
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Create A Simple Solution To An Existing Problem
The primary ingredients for building a unicorn startup lie in creating a simple solution to an existing complex problem. If you desire to build a startup that will attain unicorn status in no time, you must invest your time in creating simple solutions for existing problems. Look out for existing bottlenecks in traditional institutions and use technology to eliminate those bottlenecks.
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Have A Strong Marketable Value Proposition
Leading unicorns often have a strong and highly marketable valuable proposition. What then is a value proposition? A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered. It is the primary reason a prospect should buy from you. To sum it up, a value proposition is a clear statement that offers three things:
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- Relevancy. State how your product solves customers’ problems or improves their situation.
- Quantified value. Deliver specific benefits.
- Differentiation. Tell the ideal customer why they should buy from you and not from the competition.
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Be Futuristic About Your Startup
Studies have shown that most startups, due to the fact it relies on technology and it is built on changing technology, often do not have sustainability structures that can last well into the future. Most often, because of the way startups are designed, since funding is gotten from venture capitalists, founders might be tempted to sell equity before they reach unicorn level. Therefore, in a bid to build a startup that will attain unicorn level, make a plan to have a clear vision for the future of the company, and the products and services you offer.
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Unicorn Companies Have Potential Beta Testers And Customers
To attain unicorn status for your startup, you must have on standby, beta testers. Beta testers are those who sample a service, solution, or product within or outside the startup before it is released to the general market. Their job is to uncover errors, bugs, and offer recommendations to the product team before it is released to the public. Beta testers are also known as real users who test products within the production environment. Their job is to ensure that the product is good and reliable for consumption before it is released officially.
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Unicorns Have An Easy-To-Use UX and UI
Another characteristic of unicorn startups is that they have an easy-to-use UX and UI that allows users to quickly adapt and get the product. For the layman, UX means User Experience and UI means User Interface. The ability of users to easily navigate through your solution (most often, they are Apps) will create more possibility of your product being frequently relied upon, which will simply mean more users and more profitability.
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