Ahmed AlSawafiri, Founder, Startup MGZN
At Startup Bahrain, the key measure of success is the continuous growth of the install base of our Magazine app. This gives us an indication of how successful we are at promoting Entrepreneurship culture in Bahrain.
We also continuously measure our social media reach, our partnerships, profitability as well the ratings and reviews we get on the App Store. Since we publish a new issue every month, it is important for us to measure our progress on monthly basis.
Ehsan AlKooheji, General Manager, Kooheji Systems
I assess my progress every single day by asking one simple question: Am I happy doing what I am doing? One of the most important factors I considered when starting my own business was to do something I enjoyed and found constantly rewarding. I often put myself before the business, and believe that self actualization will ultimately lead to the success of the business. I only sign clients I enjoy working with and projects I find stimulating, in order to deliver the best work possible. I want to come to work every day feeling excited and glad to be in this position. I have found that this strategy of focusing inwards first leads to delivering the best results, and ultimately leads to the financial success and growth of the business.
Eyad Ebrahim, Director, Web avenue
One sure way of measuring a startup’s success is being profitable, if you’re profitable then you are on the right track towards success but before being profitable there are other things to look at to measure success. Setting milestones in your business plan is always a good measure to assess your progress, milestones can be anything from obtaining CR, achieving a set number of website hits per week, to sales targets. look at user engagement in social media and how much is your content being shared. It is always a good time to look at your progress and analyze the data on how to improve what your company is doing to attract new business and to keep existing customers loyal and engaged.
Wafa AlObaidat, Creative Director, Obai & Hill
I measure the success of my company if I meet the financial targets that I set with my team. As a growing company, it is important for us to review our progress quarterly and make sure we stick to our budgets and also meet those targets. We assess the success of our core services, our business efficiency, our financial position, making sure we meet our business goals especially when we redefine them every year. Each department at my firm has their own list of KPIS and 90-day actions to achieve, we pride ourselves on implementing internal and external training programs as well as maintaining 90% Bahrainization.
Yazin Alirhayim, Entrepreneur
The biggest challenge that startup founders (especially solo founders) face early on is discipline. That’s why it’s imperative that you stay on course. Accountability is the name of the game. Before finding a co-founder, I used to be part of an online group of entrepreneurs. We would meet weekly to discuss our goals, and progress made since the last meeting. It was great! The key metric varies by business. Ours at White is the number of transactions processed (we help startups get paid online). Facebook’s is monthly active users. Whatsapp’s is messages sent. Whatever it is, it’s crucial to have one figure — one target that everyone works towards. My co-founder and I review progress twice a week, and every goal that’s set influences this figure either directly, or indirectly.