Five startup strategies

All successful enterprises started with a brilliant business concept. Come up with a mediocre concept and it sure hurts the chances of a business taking off.

This principle guided business partners and longtime friends Esel de Sagun and Em Somera in putting up a quirky concept store. Although de Sagun and Somera’s business is into selling cutesy products, Ready for Rain has become more than that. Proof of this is its survival of three rainy seasons, countless number of storms and even the global economic slump.

Now Ready for Rain, which sells rain gears such as Plueys and umbrellas, is well into its fourth year and boasts of a growing number of clients.  Besides coming up with a unique concept, the duo also shared  some of the lessons they learned in navigating their way from startup to success: 


 

1. Proper marketing and product awareness strategy

In starting a quirky concept, one major pitfall identified by the duo was the possibility of their products being misunderstood by the market as a mere fad.

“Being a new concept, education was key; we had to educate the consumers on exactly what the product was and what it wasn’t. Especially for a fashion product, people perceive that it is a fad that will come and go.  We have to reiterate to our customers over and over again the importance of rain gears. The rainy season will always come around every year,” Somera said.


 

2. Treat your business like your own baby

Being hands-on  has helped the partners truly understand their business’ nature. “It’s the first time for both of us to start our own business and we learned that when it’s your own business, you generally don’t stop working at it (especially at the beginning). We’re a very young company and we find ourselves fulfilling all roles from CEO to janitor to quality assurance to sales agent. It’s tiring but it is most fulfilling when we hear and see the satisfaction and excitement in our customers,” Somera said.

3. Emphasis on service

In ranking a company’s assets, coming in a strong second after a great product is  wonderful customer relations. In this age of social media, a bad customer service reputation easily travels across the globe, thanks or no thanks to Facebook and Twitter.

“We attend to online and phone queries ourselves, and work closely with our retail partners. This way we gain insight on people who actually use and sell our products, so we are always aware of our areas for improvement,” de Sagun said.

 4. Be proud of your product

Besides believing in yourself, you have to believe in your own product too, regardless of their quirkiness. After all, who else will believe in your product if you don’t?
 

“Don't be scared to put your product out there. The benefit in building a business based on a quirky idea/concept would probably be the ease of getting PR for your product. Being different or being the first automatically makes you interesting…In our case, printed rainboots were memorable, striking, exciting and possibly intimidating. It was a new idea, that’s why girls were hooked. Even guys were curious,” de Sagun said.

 “We got a lot of free media mileage after we joined the Rockwell bazaar for the first time, simply because our product stood out and people were intrigued by the concept.”


5. Think long-term

In business, always  plan for the long-term. Prospects may be rosy for the next few weeks, but what about the next few months or years? “When we look at our business, we started with rain boots, but we didn’t stop there. We expanded our line of products to include waterproof ballet flats, also galoshes for men, and limited edition hand-painted umbrellas for a cause. It would be good to start with a concept but also know how to branch it out, to find  alternatives to address the same need,” de Sagun said.