The importance of speed is an under-represented topic in business. In a world of instant messaging, 140-character Tweets, and six-second Vine videos, though, your audience is demanding it. The risks of rushing your product to market are obvious: a negative first impression can be difficult to shake off, but the benefits of being the first name out there can also be considerable. Here’s what you need to know in order to strike the right balance.
Why Speed Is So Crucial
Delaying the launch of a product for too long gives way for one of your competitors to beat you to the punch. While you’re sitting there thinking of new ways to differentiate yourself, they’re benefiting from first-hand experience in the market. This is invaluable when it comes to iterating on the idea in the future. There’s an old saying that goes, “You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time.”
We used to believe that the large companies would continue to dominate any emerging markets simply because they had the most resources. Microsoft’s control in the desktop space led many to believe that it was a formality that this trend would continue into a new, mobile-focused world. As they were indebted to the old ways of the PC, though, companies like Apple and Google were instead allowed to move in and completely re-imagine what the market could be.
How You Can Improve
The advent of the internet has meant that businesses can now scale more quickly than ever before. As cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft’s Azure promise to handle the backend, online businesses can grow faster to meet ever increasing demand. Meanwhile, the latest trend in crowdsourcing has enabled a company like Uber to spread to over seventy different countries in just a few years despite not technically employing any drivers.
In an ideal scenario, a business would control all of its core competencies. However, this is unrealistic for most companies, especially small startups, so you should instead look to forge strategic partnerships with third-parties whose interests line up with yours. For e-commerce businesses, for instance, finding reliable courier services like TNT is essential. Fortunately, the supplier to distributor relationship is mutually beneficial. As your business grows, your partner also takes in more revenue which will allow them to invest in future services.