6 Mistakes That Startups Should Essentially Avoid Make your startup equipped and armed with knowledge and wisdom,and we elaborate more on the topic.

"Entrepreneur' is the new buzzword of the Gen Z. This sub-cult of millennials envisions opportunities even in the closed door mechanisms, and eventually, they are able to live up to the expectations a startup demands. An entrepreneur has to adorn various hats in his/her startup voyage: from planning and strategizing to landing clients, handling temporary failures and even performing accounting. Though the start of the entrepreneurial journey seems enthralling, things might derail if not planned and executed properly.

So, while you have a business idea, and you're launching your startup, here are six common mistakes which might be detrimental for the health of your startup and you should essentially avoid:

• Rome was not built in a day

With years of practice and expertise in a specific area, Startup founders find themselves individually fulfilling every possible role the company requires and eventually move to a true role of a mentor. This may seem promising in the start but months later it may become overwhelming leading to minor mistakes that might result in huge paybacks. Lay the foundation strong by measuring the pros and cons of the field, plan and make strategies, and then sit on that roller coaster ride. Yes, a roller coaster ride, one must be ready for this!!! As Cornelius Fichtner rightly quoted, "Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal."

• Consider Your Employees as Your Assets, not Liabilities \

Leena Nair, Chief HR Officer of Unilever on her recent visit to India said, "In today's world if a CEO is not spending 50% of the time on people agenda, there's a real problem. The only competitive advantage a company has are its people – their ideas and creativity". Managing people is a skill which develops with time as everybody when encouraged can bring something new to the table. It is nut natural for a start up to focus on and only on profits and money but at the same time if the focus is not on people development the efforts will not produce great results! Remember, be it a start up or a seasoned organization "People are the real asset'. Train them, coach them, mentor them, put them through rigorous internal growth and show that you "Value them'.

• No Pain, No Gain

One crucial element to consider while in a startup is knowing your potential customers. Without investing your time in learning your customer's demographics and personas, your services or products may vanish in the endless whirlpool of Internet. Market Research is as much essential as customers are to a company. "A lot of time, people don't know what they want until you show it to them," says Steve Jobs and we cannot agree less. Learning must be continuous journey regardless of the age, experience and knowledge. The temporary pain of continuously upgrading knowledge and exploring will go a long way for everyone.

• Don't Let Temporary Failures be a Guide to Your Permanent Decisions

Handling a Startup is definitely not a cakewalk. It has its own highs and lows which creates a greater impact on the foundation of the Startup. However, Crisis Management with anxiety and lack of confidence can lead to daunting results. Avoiding failures won't affect the graph of the startup but tackling them down with a positive outlook and Plan B definitely would. Have sessions of introspection and brainstorming with your employees, let the ideas flow across the table, and discuss the setbacks and the necessary steps to avoid the same in future. Remember, faster growth requires higher risk and higher risk brings in more temporary failures. Learning from failures brings in higher success and that's how they are all interlinked!!!

• Never Lose Your Equilibrium

It's hard to reach the curve of success in a short period of time. Success comes in many forms and it depends entirely on the goals set by the startups. It can be in the monetary terms or entirely on the growth aspect of the company. The much difficult part after being successful is to maintain it. Some wrong moves and all the efforts would go down the drain. Spend and plan wisely as your success rate lies in the decisions you take. Rules change and so does your adaptability towards it. It is important to keep the creative juices "ON' even when things are moving else the plateau state can be the biggest block.

• Lack of Branding and presence in today's digital world

Essentially, without a website and appropriate optimization in this era of digitization, Startups fail to exist. Google is the Internet for almost half of the population of the world and if you don't exist on it, then you do not exist at all. Whether its goods or services, people nowadays use the Internet to check for the best reviewed in the specific field. Having a website with optimization is a must. To get the desired rank of your website on the Search Engine, you need the right SEO strategy. With the right use of keywords, titles, descriptions, title tags, and the content body, you can improve the ranking of your website. A perfect combination of catchy website and accurate SEO strategy, and your startup will definitely set sail. Make your startup equipped and armed with knowledge and wisdom from the people who have been there and done that. To err is human but repeating the same mistake is not. Circumvent these startup mistakes in order to survive and succeed in the long term.

We can however conclude that "The journey' is an exciting one and one must embark on this. If we just keep few on these points in mind the journey becomes worthwhile, memorable for many and life transforming for some!