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How do I perform a SWOT analysis in my startup?
27/11/2023. If you are an entrepreneur you’ve probably come across the term SWOT analysis, but do you know what SWOT stands for? And do you know why is this such an important analysis tool?
What is a SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a great analysis tool for businesses and startups in order to evaluate and know their current situation and, based on the obtained results, make decisions and develop strategic planning. SWOT analyses work as a diagnostic of your company and they’re very useful for minimizing risks when it comes to making decisions.
This exercise is of vital importance for large companies, medium-sized companies and small businesses, as well as for startups and entrepreneurs with a project they want to develop. It is also interesting for any participant of a hackathon who wants to test the feasibility of their idea, in the last edition of our III Hackathon Valenciaport also took on special importance.
Doing a SWOT analysis involves investigating both internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) factors that affect your startup and are fundamental to its functioning. There are some questions in each analyzed element that you can ask yourself so as to facilitate the SWOT analysis:
- Strengths. What things does your startup do well? Which are your competitive advantages? What makes your startup unique? Which qualities do you have that separate you from your competitors?
- Weaknesses. What makes your startup not grow like it should? What do you need to improve? Which resource limitations do you have? What does your startup lack
- Opportunities. Which external options can allow your startup to grow? What brings you the opportunity to introduce improvements?
- Threats. What can prevent your startup from succeeding? Which risky factors can put your startup in danger?
How to do a SWOT analysis
There is no mystery when it comes to doing a SWOT analysis, you only need to do a 2×2 matrix where you have to write the aspects that you have found in each analyzed element. It’s common to separate the positive factors from the negative ones, so if you want to do this, you only have to write the Strengths and Opportunities in one column and the Weaknesses and Threats in the other one. By doing this you will have a lot of information at a glance.
SWOT analysis online tools
As SWOT analyses are so common and important, there are a lot of useful online tools that you can use for your startup. Here are some of our favorites:
From Opentop, the Valenciaport innovation HUB, we hope that these great tools and this brief guide about SWOT analysis that we have given you are useful for your startup. So the next time that you have to make decisions and plans for your startup don’t forget to use a SWOT analysis. If you want to know more about Opentop and our initiatives don’t hesitate to visit our website!
