The document discusses critical success factors for online ventures. It identifies reaching the target audience, converting the audience to customers, and generating revenue as key factors. Other important factors include leadership and vision, understanding the target market, adequate financing, innovation, and managing competition. The document also examines reasons why some online ventures have failed, such as having an idea that was ahead of its time, poor market understanding, execution issues, insufficient funding, and lack of patience.
4. ⢠Reaching Target Audience - If the portal or we can call it
online solution is reaching successfully to the target
audience successfully and it has very good rate of hits then
this is first success.
⢠Converting Target Audience to Customers - how many of
those target audience which are successfully reached are
can be converted to customers.
⢠Revenue - When the portal will start making money,
⢠How much money it is making with every successful
conversion.
⢠How to increase the visit to conversion.
⢠How to increase the money for every conversion.
⢠How to keep this customer coming again and again.
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6. Leadership
⢠Leadership - There is no success and there cannot be success without the
right combination of the passion, the zeal to succeed.
⢠Leadership -The leader, his idea, his motivation, his passion for his idea
and patience along with knowledge and hands on will make it all happen.
⢠The leader who led from front and takes leads and motivates his team in
right directions is the one who will reach the goal. He remains committed
100% in difficult time, with patience and with all his passion takes the ship
out from the storm will sure to win.
⢠Team -The team is of equal importance. Team plays very important role in
the success of project. Without a good mix of team, their devotion and
commitment no project can success. They are the equal contributor to the
success.
⢠Along with team, mentor, family and friends are very important in
success. Their emotional and monetary support and motivation goes a
long way in success.
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7. Vision, Idea and Goal
⢠The second critical success
factor is vision. What really the
promoter wants from this
venture. What is the vision for
the venture? When the vision
is clear and can be quantified
and qualified then the journey
can be taken. With the vague
vision which is not clear
enough and cannot be
quantified then the planning
and execution of the Idea is
difficult. Having very clear
vision is the first part of
success story.
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8. Target Market, Strategy and Reach
⢠The third critical factor is your
audience. Define very critically
who is your target market? How
big is your target market? Does
this make business sense? Will
this make a break even? How
much customers is needed to
break even? How much hits are
required? How will you going to
get these hits?
⢠If you are able to understand your
market, then half of the battle is
won. When you are able to reach
them, another 25% is done. Then
there come the real difficult task
of conversion of these to
revenue.
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9. Finance
⢠Money is important. Availability
of enough cash till the venture
starts generating positive cash
and profits is very important. The
execution plan must have a
detailed budget for expenditure.
In my opinion at least cash for
1000 days must be available
whenever it is required.
Availability of cash makes a
person comfortable with working
on execution smoothly. Most of
the time small venture does not
have cash when required and this
was a major for the closing of
venture.
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10. Innovations ,Technology, and
Systems
⢠Customer Satisfaction is
the GOLDEN RULE. This
customer satisfaction
has many dimensions
and but I will right in
brief what can make
your customers
delighted.
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11. The Customer Life Cycle
Deliver What You Promised
Deliver on time
Accept Return and all complaints
Listen to them and engage with
them
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12. Competition
⢠Know thy competitor. This is important. Who
else is selling similar products and services?
How fast competition can come, if there is no
one today? How it can be taken care of? What
are the strength and weakness of the
competitor? These are the factors which can
make life easy in long term for new venture.
Without knowing the competition and their
strength and weakness ,it is difficult to win the
market.
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14. THE GREAT FAILURES
Being first and ahead of others may not always bring
you success. These are the great failures, because
they are first and ahead of others and ahead of
time. In internet ventures it has happened again and
again, ahead of time or being ahead of others may
not always result in success.
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17. SixDegrees.com
⢠SixDegrees.com was the
first online social
network. It has done
very well initially but
faltered after that. It
may be true that people
werenât ready at that
time for social mingling
and penetration of net
was not high enough.
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18. AskJeeves
⢠It has originally
developed arithmetic of
search based on
webpage hyperlinks and
also linguistic queries. It
has all the factors which
made a search engine
success but it is well
ahead of time.
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19. WebVan
⢠The story of wrong
planning, this is great
Idea but execution is
faulty. A home grocery
at your doorstep is the
real concept.
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20. Pets.com
⢠This is a startup that
had poor timing rather
than a poor concept. It
is a great idea, doing
very good today but
failed to deliver because
of timing. Today Pet
Supplies is a big
business.
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21. Dodgeball
⢠This is mobile social
network before time,
there were no 3G and 4G
networks, and messaging
( text message ) is the
only way which is very
friendly and attractive
enough for the idea to
click. Foursquare which
the same idea as Dogeball
is big hit.
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22. GO Corporation
⢠The idea is to develop
smart phone and touch
screen phone with
mobile operating
system but the idea was
too early to succeed.
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23. LetsBuyIt.com
⢠The original packed
online group buying
services failed because
of not enough
promotions available.
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24. WebTV
⢠This was original Web
TV, the idea is to bring
net on TV but failed
because it was too
early.
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26. WHY DO E VENTURES FAILED
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27. Reasons of Failure
Idea, Vision
Market
Technology,
Execution and
System
Strategy, Plan and
Marketing
Budget
Human
Patience and
commitment
Support
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28. Idea & Vision
⢠The first and foremost is
idea. What is idea and how
much appealing is idea. If
idea is great and can go in
long way to success then
this is best opportunity.
Online business needs mass
appeal and reach, so that it
can make great success.
Because most of the
ventures do not have this
appeal they could not break
even and die at early stage.
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29. Market
⢠Knowing your market is
very important factor.
Whom you want to sell?
What you want to sell?
How you want to sell?
How you want to reach
him?
⢠How big is opportunity?
Can you make money on
it? Who are the
competitors and how will
you get pie of the cake.
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30. Technology, Execution and
System
⢠Another challenge is
technology. Not only the
availability of technology
matters but also its
affordability and
commerciality makes it very
important factor. Early age
internet ventures fail because
they did not have access to
technology and so are today.
The systems must be at place.
How the business is going to
be run.
⢠Technology and system are in
place but fails execute the
plan, the business is doomed.
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31. Strategy, Plan and Marketing
⢠When plans go awry,
strategy fails to deliver
and no corrective steps
are taken, this is full
script of failure. The
marketing fails and
customer does not turn
up, because you never
reach them and donât
know what to do.
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32. Budget
⢠Going out of money is sure
failure. When business is
growing, there are needs
which are planned and
known but there are many
things come which are
many times not known, not
having enough cash pull
results in sure failure. Those
who do have enough cash
or cannot arrange enough
on time is reason for failure.
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33. Human
⢠The one who wins is
human; who run the show
is human. Not having right
people, at right time at right
place is reason for failure.
Most of the time not having
talent is the reason for
failure, the team effort get
you to the success, when
there is no team which can
deliver the failure is
eminent. This is one more
reason for failure.
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34. Patience and Commitment
⢠The patience plays very
important role. Many
startups lose patience
and leave the project
when they were very
close to success. Startups
need time and
commitment before they
can deliver the result,
unfortunately many
entrepreneurs loose the
patience and success with
it.
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35. Support
⢠Start loses many times
because they donât have
enough support. Not
having support of
mentors, family and
friends in difficult times
plays important role in
failure. It is a nail in the
coffin. Having good
support of family, friends
and mentors is very
important if venture has
to succeed.
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36. Who Are We
Dr. Zia Ahmed
MBA, CIFP, PhD
Global Expert on Value Creation
and Growth Strategist
LinkedIn
Slide Share
SME Blog
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