Startups, why did you start up?

If we can all agree that the goal of most businesses or everyone is “to make money”, then we can also say we have an answer to the topic right? Simple.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble but you definitely need more than the obvious answer to excel and grow as a business.

Ask yourself, What Is The End Goal?

Quick example — For a young academy player in a football club, his end goal may be to become a top professional footballer that will play across 3 top leagues in the world. If he actively works in full capacity on and off the field to achieve his set goal, he can say confidently that he is getting closer to answering his “why” and his success picture is clear.

Typically, when people think about startups, they think about their goals in terms of;

1. To exit and be sold to a bigger company
2. To go public i.e to be listed on the stock exchange market
3. To become profitable
4. To become a major player in your industry etc.

While there is nothing wrong with having these milestones in your sight, this cannot be what guides your purpose as a company. Instead you have to dig deeper into what problem you are trying to solve, and how you plan to solve it better than the next company. What drives you? What can you make your team believe in, and be passionate enough to show up and give 100% everyday?What will your startup be remembered for?

Consequentially, your roadmap to success can be hinged on two things:

1. Defining your purpose: Writing down your startup’s purpose helps to give you a clear sense of direction. Your purpose is usually written in a few lines and it helps to guide every decision that you make. Basically, every action that is taken or every penny spent should put you on track to achieve your purpose. However, defining your purpose is not to say that there are no rooms to make certain tweaks based on your reality or the changes in the eco-system or new opportunities that are led my empirical data. A perfect example of this is Paga’s Massive Transformative Purpose: “To make it simple for one billion people to access and use money”. You can also look out for industry leaders in your space to see how they have defined their purpose and see if you can pick any cues in putting yours together.
2. Creating a plan: Various things make up your business plan as a startup — concepts like industry analysis, competitor analysis, go-to-market strategy, finance model etc make up the model. Putting all of these together is key to your success. You’ll be able to identify your strength and focus on your niche to record wins. So working in tandem with your end goal, the business model you adopt should be taking you closer to it. This article published on Forbes goes deeper in guiding you to create a Business Plan.

Conclusively, the purpose of your business and your road map to achieving it is very important to be defined at a very early stage. So good luck to you and your team on your entrepreneurial journey!

Making Life Possible is our ethos at paga, and it is what keeps us committed to our mission of providing inclusive financial services for all Nigerians. With over 17,000+ agent outlets and 9 million+ customers, we are inspired by the stories of the community we are building and the people we are empowering by making life possible every single day.

Ofon Emmanuel Member since December 18, 2022

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