By Fernando Berrocal

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You, as a brand-new startup entrepreneur in the market, might have a series of business goals to achieve on a very tight budget. One typical method to ensure that you reach your business objectives is emphasizing your efficiency right from the very beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. You might begin by thinking about ways to streamline your regular startup operations–and processes to accomplish that.

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Even though you'll invest time attempting to make your startup leaner, the advantages will eventually pay off. Achieving efficiency from the beginning has numerous important advantages. The most apparent benefit is that you won't have to spend money and frustration later on trying to fix ineffective workflows on your operations. Second, even if the economy continues to fluctuate, you'll be better able to compete in the market of your choice. You'll already have strict business procedures in place while competitors struggle to accomplish more with fewer resources.

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Startup leanness has one more benefit for your business: it improves the culture of your organization. Effective startup cultures tend to draw tenacious, resourceful, and all-around satisfied startup employees. These individuals are in it for the long term and will be your right hand during the tough times. They have a bootstrapper mentality and are willing to innovate, all of which are long-term assets for your business. The next question to ask yourself should be: When it comes to increasing the effectiveness of your operations, where should you start?  First things first, try to follow these business procedures:

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Automate time-consuming, repetitive manual chores.  

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Your organization's efficiency may suffer as a result of manual tasks. According to a UiPath survey, around two-thirds of employees feel burdened by repetitive tasks. All of that repetition results in 4.5 hours of work weekly. Keep in mind that most repetitious chores have a valid cause for starting. They are frequently overlooked as common until you attempt to scale them. For example, there are customized emails. Creating each business-to-business (B2B) client from scratch may make sense if you just have a small number of them. Over time, this labor grows too large, taking time away from other tasks that your employees may be working on.

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Do a deep dive and talk to your team about what is holding them back. Exist any operational procedures or processes that could be automated? Is there an excessive reliance on manual input in your product? Trying to extract business data manually can take a very long time, therefore you should use various business tools to try to automate this procedure. It is advised that you concentrate on the skills your startup team possesses and identify the times of the day when it could be beneficial to have them perform work that cannot be automated. Automating time-consuming operations speeds up the procedure and lowers the chance of human error. By leveraging automation, you may capitalize on your team's advantages while automating inefficient operations that are reducing output.

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Schedule brief, daily meetings. 

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Concise daily meetings with your immediate business reports are one approach to make sure you don't miss any opportunities to be effective. These discussions shouldn't go on for longer than 15 minutes and are intended to inform everyone of recent events rather than to address serious issues. Try to use simple business language to express your results.

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Have everyone in your daily meeting discuss what they have planned for the day. Encourage them to make everything a business priority. Look for redundancy as you discuss what is happening. Your daily meetings should be brief and efficient. At least, in the beginning, try restricting them with a timer. Make sure everyone is aware that the purpose of these sessions is not to become very technical. They serve to identify prospective learning opportunities by providing a high-level overview of what is on the agenda.

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Give workers as much autonomy as you possibly can.

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Your business benefits from having workers that are empowered and free to make their own decisions. They may assist you in achieving astounding levels of efficiency as long as they are aware of their parameters. It's not difficult to understand how and why when you consider conventional approval procedures. Getting approvals from Chief Executive Officers (CEO) or other persons who aren't always available might cause delays in the process.

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Employee longevity may be a benefit of relinquishing authority that will support your leanness goals. You may spend a lot of money on a business turnover. The authors of an article on the future of work in the Harvard Business Review suggest that employee engagement may be reached through autonomy. There is also the notion that the more engaged your team members are, the more probable it is that they'll want to stick around and provide outstanding outcomes for your business. You'll have more legacy knowledge on staff the longer they've been around. Additionally, they'll understand you want to work effectively.

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Sync the components of your technology stack.

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You'll probably "test drive" several different tech stack possibilities when you initially start. This is not only sensible, but it may also help you stay within your allotted budget for technology. Many vendors of technological solutions provide free trials or discounted initial prices. However, avoid switching from one technology to another. You have to choose platforms, software, and systems that work for you.

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Just be cautious not to agree to a multitude of incompatible technological solutions as I t will take time for your staff to switch between user experiences. That is too much, especially with logins. Additionally, you'll have isolated data pools. Data in silos are prevented from being completely processed and evaluated. This prevents you from benefiting from all the insights you could have.

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When should you start incorporating all of your technology? Try to do this sooner than later. Later modifications will be more challenging the longer you wait. When you're still developing your brand, integrating technology is faster and less complicated. The key point here is to always remember that operational efficiency isn't something you can just "fix and forget." Your effort must be directed toward developing ongoing lean improvements if you want to be and remain efficient.

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Ready to bring your startup to the next level? Apply to MassLight’s next batch. MassLight supplies capital and a dedicated tech team. We take equity in return. Have questions? Refer to our FAQ page.