Image credit: Average Internet speeds per country, reddit
In the recent years, digital startups have been disrupting traditional business models. This has been made possible by several digital companies tying in their services directly with otherwise offline or brick-and-mortar products. Take for example Uber, which has digitalized the taxi- and car-rental industry. Another example is Airbnb, which radically changed the way people lease and rent their properties on short-term.
With these disruptions, digital startups have made big changes in how companies provide products and services, and this trend is expected to continue through 2016 and beyond.
Why digital startups succeed
It is worth-noting here that when Uber and Airbnb launched, the car and apartment rentals industry already offered some form of digital access, through reservations and bookings made through the web. What set the two digital startups apart was the mobility and convenience angle – they were accessible to the customers at their very fingertips through their smartphones.
In addition, these applications have become the highlights of the “sharing economy,” with independent individuals exchanging their resources through the enabling apps. With immense convenience as their main proposition, these apps – and similar ones – have bagged a huge and loyal customer base in no time.
Being digital enablers, the success of such startups is heavily dependent on the infrastructure behind them. For instance, it will be frustrating for a user if he cannot book a cab in the middle of the night all because access to Uber is slow, whether from poor mobile data or server slowdowns.
The digital divide still exists
While broadband is easily available in developed countries, connectivity is a major concern in emerging economies. In countries such as India and Brazil, Internet speed is not as good as, say, in the U.S. Moreover, the available connections may not be very reliable.
For this reason, many budding digital startups in emerging economies have to work around these Internet accessibility limitations before they can vie for a solid user base. New technologies such as chip-based Wi-Fi devices promise to be immensely helpful in helping overcome this hurdle. Even in developed economies, such last-mile Internet access (in rural areas, for example) may become a game-changer for many new startups.
Entrepreneurs keen on establishing a new digital venture will thus greatly benefit from good Internet infrastructure – both on one’s own company infrastructure, as well as customers’ point of access. This is a key consideration that will help you evolve and grow your business in the following ways.
Local and Global Growth: Whether you are pushing for expansion into new local territories or intend to get traction across a more global presence, the Internet is going to be the backbone of your expansion. You will need to ensure that your website or app performs adequately and access is fast even from distant audiences.
In an increasingly mobile-centric world, website and application loading speeds are of critical importance. One reliable way of improving speed is using a content delivery network or CDN, which dynamically caches images, scripts, stylesheets and other components of your website in servers distributed around the world. When users access your website or service, their browser gets these components faster, since they are accessed from a server geographically closer, significantly trimming down page load speeds.
Distribution of Rich Media: The digital landscape has moved from a text-centric phase to a media-centric phase. Customers today prefer videos, photos and other forms of visual and rich media. Streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify and Netflix are currently among the top consumers of bandwidth, for example, taking up 70 percent of Internet bandwidth in North America.
As a startup, you will need the ability to deliver your content amid potentially clogged pipes and long distances. You may utilize the option of over-the-top content (OTT) delivery system, relying on a mainstream ISP’s infrastructure to deliver its rich media, much as Netflix does.
Enhanced Mobility: Mobility is a key advantage that many digital startups offer over their offline counterparts. Uber, for instance, became a smashing success because users could use its app to get impromptu car rentals right from their mobile devices with a few taps and swipes. Compared to real-world hassle of hailing a cab, Uber’s model offered mobility integrated with a quality offline service.
Such has inspired other startups to likewise provide similar services, but for other business models, and Uber itself has expanded into other areas like grocery delivery. If you want to garner a loyal customer base, offering mobility to your customers will be a vital part of your success strategy. And that will require a consistent and prevalent Internet connectivity, or else users will just be frustrated.
Agility, Flexibility, Adaptability: Businesses and startups need to evolve rapidly amid fast-changing environments. For a digital startup, adaption is the key to survival and continued growth. Sometimes, you might need to pivot, completely changing your business model or even your product. Deploying your applications over a robust infrastructure will be helpful towards this end, providing your business with a flexible and agile backbone. You can easily redesign and redeploy applications and overhaul your entire business model in rapid fashion.
A Cloud-Centric World: Businesses and consumers alike are increasingly moving toward a cloud-centric environment, where most data, applications and solutions are delivered via public, private or hybrid clouds. This extends far beyond the usual consumer-grade cloud services, as businesses today also deploy their compute requirements over cloud infrastructure, and likewise virtualize operations that are hosted elsewhere. This will require a robust connectivity, in order to best enjoy the scalability that the cloud affords.
Conclusion
The startup culture has boomed in the past few years, and startups have become the launchpad of many cutting-edge and innovative ideas. This has spawned many an incubator and accelerator, which help fresh ventures to get into the fast-lane. Much like startups, these accelerators also require the right infrastructure and the relevant tools in equipping their startups with resources and mentorship to grapple with real-world business challenges.
At the end of the day, the whole endeavor of a digital startup revolves around delivering an excellent customer experience, which ultimately relies on a solid infrastructure such as fast, reliable and consistent connectivity speeds.