Hearing stories about blooming start-ups and following success trails of entrepreneurs, the hard-earned successes and their long journey often go unnoticed. Talking about common perspectives, companies have been going from an idea to a multi-million valuation in a "matter of time." Well, the "matter of time" aspect is barely true which brings one of the looming questions about the start-up journey: How long does it usually take to become a unicorn?
According to me, there's no accurate answer or timeline to become successful in the start-up ecosystem, but it is certainly possible when you have an experienced mentor and ideal guidance. I have advised hundreds of start-ups over the years, invested in various ideas and have seen them become unicorns over time. My entrepreneurial journey started in 2015 and has been ceaselessly developing since then. What remains consistent within all these years is my everyday efforts for uplifting ideas, my fondness towards start-ups and the determination to lead entrepreneurs throughout their start-up journey.
"All good things take time", I said, when someone asked me how much time does it usually take for a start-up to become from an idea to success. From my experiences and aggregations, I had a few pieces of advice for the start-ups to become successful.
Developing the 'right' idea could demand some time
Your idea should transform to action. Now action does not mean you just had your "eureka moment", and next you find yourself working on it tirelessly. Your idea should have its own little twists and alterations if required, tiny modifications. My experience in business has taught me, that the first game-changing idea for a business is usually a terrible one. It takes a lot of executions, exposure, refinements for a long period of time to finally become that ONE idea that is worth working towards. Once the idea is good, your business game is ready to take the next step.
Few months of solving problems
This is a stage where some of your excitement to execute your ideas might fade away and transform into stress. Even some of the amazing ideas are just worthless when they don't offer a solution to an existing problem. This is exactly the stage when founders realise their idea might or might not work based on the solutions they are offering. I'd bet that every entrepreneur at some point has been introduced with a successful product or unicorn and have thought, “I had that idea years ago. I have thought that as well." So even when you have the solution, make sure you design your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), test your product and refine it before launching your whole product.
Difficulties, Challenges & Debt
Becoming profitable should be your main goal. Despite having an incredible product, start-ups might lose money, nearly fail a couple of times before they hit the stride. The majority of them might end their journey half the walk. To go through this stage, you would need a lot of strength, motivation, resilience and a positive mindset. You want to work day in and day out to make yourself profitable. This stage is where the grind starts, so lean on those strengths to push those limits and build your start-up profitability despite the odds stacked against you.
Take a year to create scalable growth
Without false positives and head fakes, the scalable growth could take a year or so. Profitability and scalability play a major role in getting funding. Those start-ups that got funded overnight is a myth. There's always a long backstory that is often not highlighted behind a start-up’s funding.
In conclusion, all these stages take time, effort and most importantly patience. Sometimes you never even know that your idea is silently working towards its scalability.
As an investor & mentor, I have come across countless start-ups, funding rounds and mentoring sessions. Building a start-up from the ground is difficult, there is no shortcut and that's okay. The only way you can't see your start-up soaring is the time you decide to give up on it. All good things take time, just hold on.
About the Author
Devesh Chawla is the Founder of Chatur Ideas, one of India's largest start-up enabling platform with over 950 startups and 1500+ investors from India & USA.