The 5 mistakes I made as a new founder that I hope you never have to

More often than not, founders learn a lot more from their mistakes throughout their entrepreneurial journey rather than their success, and this pretty much holds with my learning experiences too.

When I started out as an entrepreneur eight years ago, I had no clue whatsoever about creating a business plan, how to handle email marketing, or grow the business, let alone complex stuff like term sheets, local SEO, and PPC advertising.

The good part is that I turned what I learnt into new business verticals. We started Webfosys out as a content provider, and kept diversifying into verticals like website development, digital marketing, mobile app development, digital branding & PR, social media management, online lead generation, and eventually even startup consulting.

Thus, I decided to pen down this article to share some of what I learnt in this almost-a-decade-long struggle through the entrepreneurial journey.

1. Burning money on not-so-important activities

When the revenue start flowing in, the most common mistake committed by inexperienced startup founders is investing too much money into unwanted activities such as guest blogging, giveaways, and PR.

While some PR agencies may do a reasonably good job at a decent budget, many of them end up charging a bomb, and the ROI of these campaigns often do not justify their high cost.

I even burnt a good deal of money on TV ads! While the team was excited to see our company on national television, and some potential clients loved the fact that they were dealing with a company that’s on TV, I could never figure out if the return on that investment was ever justified.

On the other hand, investing in some PR activities and giveaways did help us a lot in getting brand recognition, and generating future sales. I’ve seen portals like DealsStreet, FreeKaaMaal, and CouponRaja doing this really well.

2. Very aggressive email marketing campaigns

Deals and discount sites often start pushing their emailers too aggressively to improve their traffic, and hope for greater conversions as they keep pumping up the numbers. But in reality, sending out bulk emailers of 100,000+ at a go usually has a negative impact on the open rate, as these mailers end up in the junk folder.

Additionally, once a lot of users report the mailers from a specific domain as “spam”, the future emailers directly land in spam, instead of under the Social or Promotions tab of the Gmail account.

Learning from my mistake

We accidentally sent out a blast of 19,000 emails once, and most of the recipients were Gmail users, so it ended up in their spam. I have since learnt my lesson of not sending 10,000+ emails in one shot.

3. Neglecting the importance of a chief marketing officer

Thirdly, entrepreneurs also often neglect the need of a chief marketing officer, who drives the marketing bit, and generates more revenues for the organization.

4. Not diversifying at the right time 

5. Focusing only on local markets