Many startups receive funding without considering the areas they want to invest the funding into. Little wonder, even after receiving funding, they still fold up or fail to reach their potential. Indeed, many founders don’t know where to invest their funding. Most times, they often fall into the trap of believing everything is all about upscaling, even when they don’t know where exactly to upscale.
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Therefore, having funding is not enough to sustain your startup, but deploying resources in the right areas can keep the company running in the long term. Therefore, this article highlights six areas you should consider before reaching out to investors and subsequently receiving funding.
Power remains a challenge in Nigeria, thus affecting many businesses. Epileptic power supply remains one of the things dig dip in the purse of startups. Many startups spend as low as a million naira to as high as 10 to 20 million annually on power supplies. Power remains one of the biggest challenges facing startups, unlike their counterparts in South Africa and Kenya, where power is constant. The use of alternatives like generator, which runs on fuel, is even worse, especially as the rising cost of fuel keeps skyrocketing, coupled with the noise and air pollution it generates.
Hence, to thrive in a country where power is a challenge, startups must invest in their power supply. Therefore, having a constant supply of power should be among the first thing that comes to mind when you want to channel your investments. Today, there are affordable alternatives to traditional power suppliers such as solar panels, batteries, and so on.
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Your company is as good as the company you keep. Hence, in a case where funding is available, acquiring the best brains to man diverse areas of your startup is very important. According to leading entrepreneurs, talent acquisition is one of the most important areas of your startup. Little wonder, successful FinTechs, upon receiving funding, reach out to industry experts and talents and incorporate them into their workforce.
Having funding is an opportunity for you to bring experienced people on board who help you consolidate existing victories and amplify the strength of the company while managing loopholes. For example, Flutterwave is reputed to always bring on board experienced bankers, chartered accountants, company lawyers, and marketers.
Before and after receiving funding, make plans on consolidating existing achievements. If you look within and around your startup, you will discover that many things need improvements. For instance, upon receiving funding, overhauling your website and app software and upgrading them to enhance customer experience won’t be a bad idea. Also, you can consolidate existing strategies such as marketing campaigns.
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Funding offers you the opportunity to diversify your startup, however, make diversification similar to what is existing. For instance, if you are a FinTech startup, you can expand your finance offerings. Recently, Flutterwave expanded its financial offerings by launching $end Mobile, an app that enables the diaspora to send money to the continent.
Finally, funding offers the founder the opportunity to boost their marketing campaigns and reach out to their audience and new market. Startups need to activate their social media platforms. Many startups make the mistake of keeping their startups dormant, which has often affected them negatively. Hence, creating awareness through diverse modes should be highly funded.
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