Article by: Nipapan Poonsatiansap CFP^®   Independent Financial Planner, Author and Lecturer

Evidently, startup business has been a hot trend, especially IT related industry such as software developer and application business. Thailand market is very attractive and feasible with moderately low capital investment. Although startup business has a high failure rate, but market channel for online trade can generate revenue through technology. This trend is aligned with growth rate of startup business where investment value of 100 million THB (3 million USD) in 2015 jumped to billion THB (86 million USD) in 2016. The trend is still growing strong in Thailand market.

What seem to be a fast and easy track of startup business is being traded-off with risk and uncertainty. Therefore, entrepreneur should learn successful factors of a startup business. Paul Graham from Y Combinator, a well-known incubation center among the world’s top 5 in United States. He wrote an article and identify “Startup =Growth”. Hence, a good startup business must be able to “grow fast”.

He further explained that a successful startup business must have 2 characteristics:

1. Startups must meet the needs of large market.
   
2. Startups must have the ability to pursuit large market.
   

Whereas, Bill Gross, investor and founder of Idealab, USA conducted a study and found that startups must have 5 elements which consists of ideas, teamwork, business plan, funds and timing.

1. Business ideas: Must be unique to the market, attractive and addressing consumer pain points. It could disrupt the market with convenience offering.
   
2. Teamwork: Post-ideation, you need to seek colleagues to work as a team because a business can never be successful as a one-man-show. This emphasized how teamwork recruitment is crucial for the business. 
   
   
3. A clear business plan: Should be drafted out to identify business or service, target market and where and how to generate income. An explicit plan will be a key business driver, steering it to the right path ahead. Your business must be unique and marketable in a large market to sustain growth.
   
   
4. Funds: Funding is an important element for startup businesses. Without investment funds, building a business would be impossible. To take a deeper dive on this issue, even you have sufficient funding doesn’t guarantee your success. Essential factors for running a good business also based on sound fund management and a thorough accounting as well.
   
   
5. Timing: Even a startup has all 4 key elements required, without a good timing a business would be unsuccessful i.e., if a business is launched when market became saturated or when there are too many choices in the market.

Through research, Bill Gross indicated both work process and idea as elements of a successful startup. But ultimately, timing was the key everything. A good method to estimate a good timing was to see if your target segment ready for our market proposition. Be up front about market assessment and do not delude yourself with the outcome. If your passion is at stake and you really want to deliver them to the market, be honest with yourself.

Source: www.ted.com