CEOs Who Scaled Startups to Superstars
Amazon crossed the $590B mark in revenue for the financial year 2024. But do you know what Amazon used to look like in the beginning?
Amazon started its journey as a mere online bookstore and gradually started selling DVDs, CDs and other products. Now you can see it dominating the online space of the e-commerce industry.
It faced challenges for being a beginner in the online space and also faced cutthroat competition from established big stores. However, they navigated these hurdles and focussed on customer centric strategies, offered various types of products and brought innovative features like user-friendly interface and fast shipping benefits. They tried their hands on different strategies till they got recognized by their customers and built a loyal customer base in the e-commerce space.
Why do you need to know this? Because no start-up gets success without having struggled in the initial phase.
6 common challenges faced by startups
- Fierce competition: To stand out in a saturated market is difficult because no people would easily trust anyone other than the big players in the market. StarUps need to come up with innovative strategies that no one else is currently using to stand out.
- Unrealistic goals: It is important for startups to set realistic expectations for their company growth, instead of hyping over unrealistic dreams by seeing others’ success.
- Hiring the right fit: A startup depends heavily on its team. Hiring the right fit becomes crucial here. But startups struggle to attract and retain the qualified talents because of limited resources and growth opportunities.
- Partnership: Startups also grow faster with the right people at the helm. If the founders are not compatible with each other, then the company will struggle to flourish.
- Financial management: Managing finances is a big challenge for startups, just starting out. Because most of the time they become dependent on investors for funding.
- Product-market fit issue: Many startups often commit mistakes while evaluating the right market to target for their products because of limited resources for market research and difficulty in reaching the target audience.
These challenges can easily be overcome by CEOs who will succeed in the future. Their visionary leadership skills, strategic thinking, decisiveness, adaptability to changes, and great communication skills help them navigate different times. Here we have listed 10 most influential global CEOs that started small but are thriving now.
