There may be as many reasons people become entrepreneurs as there are new ventures being launched. And even if your experience will be essentially unique to you, it can be helpful to understand what made the others successful. The good news is, everything you you need to know are learnable and possible.
Matching Product with Market Need
You have to sell a product or service that is actually wanted by customers. The should have the money and the willingness to pay for it. It does seem obvious, but a lot of startups struggle to even define their product-market connection. Close to half of failed startups put the blame on market misfit. A smart tech entrepreneur just like Rafferty Pendery will first make sure that their innovation meets a solid market demand and that people would actually want to pay for it.
Burning Passion
Fact is, even a bit of passion can mean a lot in terms of making or breaking a tech entrepreneur. Passion for your innovation will make it much easier for you to motivate not only your team but also your customers. To boot, if you can make an investor think that you possess that certain quality they need, and that you will do all that it takes to be successful, then you have much bigger chances of winning an investment.
An Effective Team
Investors are interested in the next BIG THING - shaking innovations that can build humongous companies. But rarely do they invest in ideas alone. They want a solid and well-balanced team that is is fully capable of handling both the challenges and victories of running a startup. It is equally crucial to ensure that founders have all the right agreements in place as to the protection of the new business and its technology. Such agreements should cover all key issues such as roles and responsibilities, IP ownership and so on. At the end of the day, it's still people who make everything work.
Speeding Up Growth
Growth is what all tech entrepreneurs, investors and markets want. Fast growth - or traction - marks an excellent idea in a steamy market. A tech entrepreneur successfully showing traction is very attractive to investors and will likely keep growing. And, it is easier for a growing startup to win over early challenges to success, like losing customers or staff.
IP Protection
An unprotected innovation will not be attractive to investors no matter how great your team, pitch and business concept are. With patents, all areas of invention and innovation are protected. A strong patent portfolio is vital to attract investors to rising tech companies.