You don’t need to be a software developer or an engineer to start a small tech company. If you remember, Steve Jobs thrived in a highly technical field with almost no technical background. Steve Wozniak attributes Apple’s success to Job’s naivete. Because he wasn’t a software engineer, he promoted a human-centric design that appealed to the consumer market.
When you build a business around technology, you’re betting on a sure thing. Because of decades of constant improvement, technology is recognized as a force multiplier. It’s widely adopted by industry, has infiltrated the consumer market, and integrates well into most business processes. Ironically, the high demand is only just beginning. One day the world may look like a sci-fi fantasy, complete with flying cars circling skyscrapers.
Here are some tips on how to build your tech company:
Discover a Unique Business Concept
Develop a product to build your business around. Creative thinking for product development is a process of researching, comparison and contrast, and collecting interesting ideas. Eventually, your overstimulated subconscious mind will drop a brilliant insight right into your lap. Although “aha” moments may appear to be magical, they result from consistent study and effort.
Look for unique concepts in emerging fields or emerging market economies. Here are two examples:
1. Emerging Field: Single Cell Genomics
Single-Cell Genomics is an emerging field. Innovations in single cell genomics has made it possible for scientists to explore the transcriptome of a single cell within a cluster of cells.
The ability to analyze an individual cell is invaluable in oncology research. By separating a single cell from a sample of cancerous cells, a researcher can measure the cell and detect which genes in that cell are being actively transcribed to make proteins.
2. Emerging Markets: Renewable Technology
Renewable technology may not be a new concept in the United States because this is a developed market. However, in Mexico and India, it’s a big deal because these countries have an emerging market economy. By recognizing this distinction, Beyond GREEN, LLC, an American company, developed a business called bioDOGradable Bags. An essential clue in this strange name is “DOG”– because these are pet waste bags that are biodegradable.
Although these biodegradable bags are for sale in the United States and Canada and are superior to current pet waste bags because they break down completely, the company plans to find distributors in Mexico and India.
In developed countries like the US and Canada, competitors in the pet waste bags industry are not creating eco-friendly bags. Instead, they are creating oxo-degradable bags. Technically, these are not eco-friendly bags because they break down into micro-plastics.
In developing countries like Mexico and India, bioDOGradable Bags are better received than in the US and Canada because environmentalists there appreciate that micro-plastics are not seeping into waterways where wildlife ingests them.
How to Build Your Business
1. Hire the smartest people you can afford to hire. Google, for example, is a leading global technology company because it hires the smartest software engineers in the world.
2. Evaluate the competition. See what your competitors are doing and do it better. In the bioDegradable Bags example, Beyond GREEN LLC doesn’t make partially degradable bags like their competitors. Instead, they make certified compostable bags that are Non-Oxo-Biodegradable, Non-PLA, and Non-PE.
3. Market strategically. It doesn’t matter how unique and valuable your product is, if you don’t market it well, then it won’t sell. It’s a myth that all you have to do is build a better mousetrap to attract buyers to your doorstep. First, understand the unique selling features of your product and the industry you are selling it in, then build a community around your startup to attract business partners and clients.
Once you launch a tech startup, you will be nimble enough to create disruptive solutions for industries. Start by researching emerging fields or emerging marketplaces to come up with a unique business concept.
