A multi-pronged strategy is needed for startups to take on established players. This includes knowing the competition, getting the first customer through relationships, offering niche products and services, competitive pricing, high service quality, advertising through word-of-mouth, motivating employees, constant innovation, and grabbing parts of projects from large corporations. Innovation, quality customer service, and competitive pricing are key to competing against bigger companies.

1. How startups can take on established players?How startups can take on established players?
Strategy/Competition

2. While the first customer could help break the ice, innovation,
networking, Competitive pricing and good service quality can help you
beat competition
It is a challenge for any entrepreneur to take on
big and established players in the market but
a multi-pronged strategy can help swim against
the tide. Here a few pointers that can help you
tackle the competition:

3. Know your competition:
It pays richly to research the competition.
Sometimes you are taken unawares of
What hits you when you enter the market
unprepared, Make a list of big players that
rule the market, their products and services
that are doing well, and also that are not so
good. Tracking companies on a regular basis
through the media can give you an insight
into their strategies and plan for the future. Competition can also come
from other startups vying for a piece of the pie and wooing customers in
their own way.
“Competition comes from two ends for us – the big established players
and the two-bit startups. We are always at the risk of getting sandwiched,”
Generally we approach any new business we zeal. We go back with real
solutions for real problems – not contrived. Therefore, we have to constantly
struggle to outthink the competition (small or big) on any given day.
Now that’s a challenge that we’re up to.

4. Getting your first customer:
A good rapport with your previous employer
or the people you have been in touch with in the
past can get you your first customer. If you are
starting in a totally new domain, You May have to
work hard in the beginning to make sales pitches to
bag your first order.
“Generally our first two three customers signed up
with us on the strength of the relationships
we shared with them in our previous engagements.”
Some of the new start ups opinions says that they
did not bother to poach into the customer base of
their competitors. Instead, they focused on new
customers who were entering India, looking to get
their research work done. Generally their first
customers were those who were coming to India for the first time and
did not know about India and Indian research companies.
They say. “If you react to the market then you become better, if you react
to your competition then you are dead.”

5. Offering niche products and services:
This has to be any startup’s best bet.
It is also its biggest challenge.
Offering those products and services
that either already exist or those in
which the bib players are in good
position will not work. As an
entrepreneur, you have to keep
thinking of how you can get noticed
by what you offer. Take, for instance,
the market research segment. They
were may such firms entered the
market, but few Entrepreneurs behind
the firm thus had to carve a niche for
themselves. They found that
using the Internet was one such area.
Thus, it made a mark for itself in the
already crowded segment.

6. Competitive Pricing:
It may sound clichéd, but a startup you
may have to put a competitive price tag to
be able to take on the big players who can
offer rebates at the drop of the hat.
“Therefore, its better to offer a variety of pricing and
deployment models to make pricing a non-issue
during the evaluation process”.
“Startups must price themselves competitively,
not necessarily lower than competition/existing
players,” One of the entrepreneur says –
An ‘entry pricing’ with an upward revision clause
may work in certain cases, but it may get difficult
to raise price quickly, so it becomes important to
think through the starting price tag, as we does not
want to lose a customer because of price constraints.

7. Service Quality:
No matter how good your product
or service, if it annoys the customer,
You have lost the
game… …………….
Thus, as a startup
you can set new
benchmarks for quality.
It can make the big players
jittery and also take note of U.
This could be a great differentiating
factor when it comes to competing against them.
Here you can look into shortcomings of the big companies and
in turn fill in with your service.
service quality and service satisfaction is always the function of
expectations. So you create expectations and accordingly you
make somebody satisfied

8. Advertising and PR:
When boot strapping is the order of the day, it may be unthinkable to take on the big names on the
advertising turf. But that does not mean that startups cannot reach out to new customers swiftly. Word
of the mouth is the best strategy. One satisfied customer can rope in many more.
Outsourcing work to smaller PR agencies that are themselves startups could also help. They will
understand the need for publicity from a startup’s point of view. Similarly, networking can also do
wonders. This can be done either through participation in conferences and events, meeting people
through channels such as TiE, or even social networking on the web. Linkedin, Orkut and Face book have
made it easier to spread the word.
 Most important is to build a mailing list and use it all the time

9. Employee motivation:
Startups can harp on the productivity of their employees by creating values such as hard work,
punctuality and customer service. While they may not be able to offer hefty pay packets,
as inspiring work environment can make them get the most out of their employees. In big
organizations most employees become a cog in a big wheel, while in the case of startups they can
experiment with
and come up with fresh ideas. Values such as integrity, hard work and motivation should percolate
from the level of the entrepreneur. This ought to go a long way in improving the productivity of
employees.
Employees will join startups only when they will be offered the following (the order does matter)
Secure present time – Salary (must be equal to his current salary)
Future – Stock option
“food to the brain” – Technological challenge

10. Constant Innovation:
It is through constant innovation that a startup can
retain customers and add more to its kitty.
As an entrepreneur, it becomes part and parcel of your
role to think out of the box and work upon improving
your products and services. Applying for patents is
another way of ensuring that your ideas do not get
stolen. An innovative streak can also help attract good
investors who are on the look out for such startups.
It is only through innovation that companies like
Microsoft, Apple and Google have reached the top
of the technology ladder. Innovative products and
services are great things to have in the portfolio.
But given the time and effort any new product/
service takes to sell, it is better to bring them onto
the forefront once the basic cash flows needs are
taken care of -

11. Grab a pie in big projects:
It helps to keep an eye on the work that large corporations get done
from outside agencies, and grab a part of that business.
You may be surprised at how big the money is. It can also lead to
big-ticket deals and a steady flow of projects. Take the case of
advertising. Large organizations that are consumer-focused have huge
advertising needs and thus hefty advertisement budgets.
Instead of giving the whole of it to a big advertising agency, they prefer
to opt for a number of smaller agencies. It makes good sense of grab
such business.

12. This Presentation holds good more for the design service
startups. All the points written are valid and approach can
be different for the companies based on the competency of
the company.
Ex- Based on the nature of the startup like product or service.
Critical things for the success of a startup are:
1. Goal
2. Checkpoints
3. Exit Criteria
4. Belief to be success
On the product based startup. The critical points to take on a
established players are:
1. Innovation
2. Time to market and differentiation
3. Cost & networking to establish the sales channel