VALUE – The Game Changer For Startups

I remember launching my first web startup because I thought it was a great idea. All I cared about at that time was how good the idea was.

I thought, if your idea is great…..how can you not get wealthy with it? Fast-forward to today (a year and a half later) and boy have I learned a lot.

Great ideas mean nothing. Whether you’re trying to acquire subscribers for your product or sell your services to someone, you must deliver VALUE.

When I learned about the word VALUE and what it meant, turning good ideas into great businesses made all the sense in the world. I’m going to talk more about the word VALUE and how it has helped me give customers what they want:

What It Means

When you look up the definition of VALUE in a dictionary, you get a few different meanings:

Value – The material or monetary worth of something.

Value – The usefulness of something considered in respect of a particular purpose.

Value – The worth of something compared to the price paid or asked for it.

Which of these meanings are correct? Well, all 3 of them are. Great businesses provide unbelievable value to their customers.

Finding out what kind of value your customers need/want is part of the customer development process. Value in entrepreneurship is all about giving your user/customer/subscriber what they need.

Truly Nailing Value

Our first vision with StatFuse was to create a calculator that would give students their chances of admission. While that was a great idea, it lacked a lot of value.

Students said, “Great, I know my chances but how does this help me?” That’s when it hit my partner & I about what value really means.

Giving people their chances was cool and fun, but it had no intrinsic value for them. When we changed our portal to include more features and tools that actually helped students improve their chances of getting accepted, the feedback was tremendous.

Suddenly users were flocking to our website looking to sign up because we were giving them VALUE. Instead of giving users something a peace of mind, we were actually helping them get into their dream college.

Translating great ideas into great businesses can take a lot of time. Often times, you really need to understand who your customer is and how you can really help them.

Conclusion

Value is something that every startup or entrepreneur should really understand. It’s something that can really take your startup from a good idea to a solid business.

Whether you’re looking to raise money from investors or build the next big company, it’s important to build something that is scalable and creates uncanny value for others.

What is your opinion on VALUE? Share your thoughts & comments below.

photo credit: Alan Cleaver via photopin cc