Why Start-ups should include Data in their Strategy
What is the Challenge?
90%
of start-ups tend to fail – with top reasons:
-
failing in the growth stage - they are not growing quickly enough
-
Scaling prematurely - due to not knowing when the right time is to scale
Here is why:
Mis-aligned Revenue Engine
Revenue operations (Marketing, Sales, Customer Success) are not unified nor optimised early on to achieve growth and profitability. Organisations have 27% missed three-year profit growth due to reduced productivity when revenue operations aren't unified. An important factor here is that when revenue operations are working in silos it causes a mis-alignment with your product which affects your product market fit.
No Inclusion of a Data Strategy in your Business Model
Start-ups are not integrating data in their revenue operations (well enough). For many organisations 40% of anticipated value of all business initiatives doesn't get realised due to data deficiencies which holds you back from achieving growth, agility and competitiveness. A believe exists that only big companies should do this. In fact the earlier you start, the more you set yourself up to be industry leaders.
Create a Lean and Agile Revenue Engine
It is crucial for start-ups to plan their revenue strategy and ensure alignment reaching from product, to marketing, to sales and customer success to achieve product market fit.
Optimising each step along the revenue streams to achieve repeatability and accelerated growth.
However, a revenue strategy cannot be executed in silo without considering your data strategy – in fact you should strive to have a data-driven or data-centric business model. Not only does that mean you can find ways to increase revenue using data, but you can become a more lean and agile business. Being a lean and agile business means that you will be able to quickly assess your data to understand whether you are doing the right things and quickly make changes when needed to, to avoid failure.