Startup Tips Archives - Page 32 of 66

5 Things Every Great Online Startup Needs

Starting a new business is truly exciting. But if you want it to become a successful venture, it’s imperative that you follow the right procedures. This is especially true when dealing with the vicious online arena.

Of course, there is a degree of trial and error involved. Nevertheless, there are some lessons that you should know before jumping it at the deep end. Here are five essential items that will lead you down the pathway to success.

A Great Team

Every business owner should appreciate the fact that their venture can only be as successful as the team behind it. Your innovation and ideas are what will direct the company, but it’s the input of your staff that will drive it forward.

The key is to help them help you. This is the hallmark of a great boss and entrepreneur. The staff is your most important asset, build a better team and you’ll never look back.

A Great Website

No online business can achieve its goals without putting the right structures in place. The company website is clearly the most important, and should be the focus of your attentions until it is perfect.

Whether it’s a store or an online news site doesn’t matter. If you’re going to make money online, you’ll need visitors to stay. It’s important to remember that habits are changing too. Make the site optimized for small devices too, and you’ll be opening your doors to a much larger audience.

A Great Payment Structure

The website offers a great foundation for the online venture. But you cannot convert sales unless your facilities are ready to accommodate. It’s imperative that you accept as many payment options as possible, which is why Payline Data should be considered a must.

Online shopping is supposed to be a leisurely activity. Make it easier for your customers to complete a purchase, and you should reap the rewards of increased sales.

A Great Online Presence

Competition on the internet is fierce. In fact, there are over one billion websites in existence. If you are going to achieve your place in the market, it’s vital that you take the necessary steps to stand out from the crowd.

The best way to achieve this is through a combination of great SEO and social media marketing. Make your website visible and engaging, and there will be no limit to what you can achieve. Failure to do this will simply leave you lost among the crowded online environment.

A Great Relationship With Customers

Visibility is crucial, but it’s only effective if you are sparking interest from the intended audience. As a startup, building a community spirit is key. Make customers feel like participants rather than spectators. You’ll be amazed at the impact great customer care can bring.

This is the one area of business where you can have a huge advantage over bigger companies. Take advantage. After all, repeat business is the key to long-term profits. Apart from anything, those existing customers are likely to tell friends about the great service. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools available.

And there you have it. Follow those five items, and your online ventures should thrive.

Protect Your Startup From Crime With These Essential Tips

Criminal activity isn’t something you are likely to think about when you plan out your startup ideas. However, it’s something you need to consider if you want to protect your business.
There are many different ways that criminals can target your business, from inside and out. So, we thought we would put together this short guide on everything you need to know. Read on to find out more – and feel free to leave any tips in the comments section below.

Your intellectual property

First of all, let’s look at your intellectual property. You will need to cover yourself from the moment you have your idea, because as soon as you put yourself out there, it is open to theft.

Find a business lawyer that specializes in intellectual property law. Make sure that you take out patents, too, and copyright everything that needs protection. Industrial espionage is a real thing – and it would be a tragedy for you if someone stole your idea and made a lot of money from it.

Your premises

Make sure that you have robust security, wherever you work from. Offices should have lockable windows and doors, as well as security lighting to ward off burglars. CCTV is an excellent option, but above all, it’s important to train your staff to be more secure.

Get them into the habit of closing and locking doors and windows whenever they leave the room – not just the office. You will reduce the chances of an opportunistic thief taking a chance.

Your stock

If you sell products, then you will have a stockroom to hold your inventory. It’s important that you track this accurately and ensure that all your stock is accounted for. There are many ways that thieves can get hold of your property, so hold regular audits and stock takes to make sure you know where you are.

It’s also a good idea to tag all of your working equipment, from computers to fax machines. All of them are valuable to thieves, but much more valuable to you. Make sure that you give yourself the best chance of finding them if they ever go missing.

Your employees

Unfortunately, people can go through difficult times, and they can become more open to the idea of committing a crime. It could be as simple as stealing something off the shelves of your shop, or as complex as money laundering.

Make sure you learn about compliance. It can help protect your business from the threat of employee theft, bribery, and other criminal activity. It’s not a nice thought to think that all your employees might be thieves; that much is clear. But, compliance will help you lay the foundations that make it hard for any of them to give into any urges.

Your records

All businesses have a lot of records about their customers; that could prove to be fruitful for criminals. Make sure that all your databases and computer systems are secure. Also, shred any papers with confidential information before disposing of it.

As you can see, there are plenty of areas where crime can affect your business. It’s important to take the subject seriously, even when you are just starting out. Put a good plan in place, and it will be much easier to control and deal with. Let us know your thoughts…

EP 28: Angel Investor Ivan Raiklin Talks Sharing Economy

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In this episode I have a great conversation with former green beret now angel investor Ivan Raiklin about why he started investing in sharing economy startups. We talk about their potential impact on the economy, different ways to gain traction, and he shares insights into how to rapidly expand your knowledge as a startup founder.

The Essentials Of A Graphic Design Startup

Starting a new graphic business is never easy. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, but most fail before they even begin. To make sure that a new startup doesn’t fail, there are a few generic business rules that you need to be aware of first. Once you have those under control, it is time to move onto the next step – the essentials of graphic design.

There are certain things that every graphic design company needs to succeed, and here are a few just to get you started. As long as you have the following, you should be able to go from strength to strength.

The Relevant Skills

Graphic design is a not an industry that you can walk into and pick up right off the bat. Yes, it is possible to learn the skills through practice. However, most graphic designers have a natural sense and a gift as designing is like art. If you are not a creative person, the odds are that graphic design is not the industry for you. No one is saying that you should give up your dream, but you need to be realistic about what you can offer.

Training

There are elements of graphic design that you may never have encountered in your life. Obviously, that is a problem. Thankfully, this problem is easily rectified with some simple training. By attending training courses, you can learn the secrets of graphic design and the elements that are foreign. Plus, you also get the opportunity to invest more time in your abilities. The result is that the majority of people tend to become better at their jobs. Adobe Illustrator training by Training Connection is one course that graphic designers should obtain. But, there are plenty more.

Money

Unfortunately, you are going to need a lot of cash to get your business off the ground. There is just now getting around the fact as startups need to speculate to accumulate. So, do you have the money? If the answer is no, you may want to reconsider. Even though the idea is exciting, it will soon crumble if you cannot finance the company. Of course, there are alternative sources of finance, so you don’t always need the money in the bank. But, you need to be careful because the repayments can cripple you, and the bank may take collateral. Some people have lost their jobs, the businesses and their homes.

Commercial Awareness

Any business that cannot market itself is not going to survive. The way to make money and to grow is to get people to buy or invest. Investors or customers will only do that when they like what they see, and if they don’t see it, they won’t buy. Think carefully about how you are going to market the business and make people aware of your brand.

Legal Help

A lawyer is essential. They will take you through every part of the process and make sure that you don’t go wrong in a legal sense. The last thing you want is a lawsuit because you neglected the legal side of starting a new business.

Special Episode: Smart Crowdfunding & Clickable Prototypes

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In this special Thanksgiving episode Shane Liddell CEO of Smart Crowdfunding tell his story helping 100’s of startups have successful campaigns, and Kenn Palm, CEO of Pilgrim Consulting talks about entrepreneurship, investing, and how clickable prototypes are essential for tech startups.

How Important is the Right Domain Name for Your Startup?

In one word: extremely. We’ve spoken in the past about what to name your startup and touched on new top level domains (nTLDs), sometimes known as gTLDs or new domain extensions, yet the chatter of what’s better for your business out of .com or .io or even .pizza, is an ongoing debate in the world of startups.

Consider choosing your website name as important as naming your child (just don’t call your kid Google), as this is something you’re going to live with for a long time. Speaking to Forbes, entrepreneur Zalmi Duchman discusses the launch of his first startup over 10 years ago, how getting the ‘perfect’ domain name ended up costing him tens of thousands of dollars, and why it’s best to get things right the first time, instead of settling for second best. He says:

“Back in 2007 when I originally wanted to purchase the domain name, I should have spent more time strategizing how I might secure the domain without writing a large check. I knew that as I grew my brand the domain would become more expensive, but I was too inexperienced to realize the importance of getting it done immediately. Putting the problem aside in the present only assured that I would have to deal with a more expensive version of it in the future.”

Buchman was simply one of many startup businessmen who were essentially forced to buy their desired domain from an owner – at an exorbitant price.

The Dawn of New Top Level Domains

It’s been foretold many times that nTLDs will be a huge game-changer in terms of web-design and marketing, but if you’re a burgeoning startup about to pick a domain name, should you go with this new trend?

It sure seems like the current is heading that way, as proclaimed on the nTLDs page by experienced domain providers 1&1: “New domains, new possibilities.” It appears that the opportunity to demonstrate what exactly your startup specializes in, is a huge draw for working with nTLDs. Just going by the 1&1 page for example, new and available domain extensions range from .soccer, .expert, .music and even .lol (so you know that site is going to be funny).

However, Google themselves want you to be aware that using nTLDs won’t give your website any advantage in terms of rankings. Google’s own Trends Analyst Webmaster wrote on his G+ account, about what exactly they can and can’t do:

“They can perform well in search, just like any other TLD can perform well in search. They give you an opportunity to pick a name that better matches your web-presence. If you see posts claiming that early data suggests they’re doing well, keep in mind that’s this is not due to any artificial advantage in search: you can make a fantastic website that performs well in search on any TLD.”

What’s So Great About a nTLD Then?

No one wants to be the startup with a cooler-than-cool name, only to find that someone has snapped up your desired .com domain. Other than misspelling your own domain name on purpose (for example, fcebook.com or twttr.com) or adding extra (and unwanted) words, you run the risk of what Zalmi Duchman went through – potentially having to spend thousands to get the name that you
wanted from the start.

Luckily, the folks over at The Next Web prepared a useful list as to why a startup should make use of the new domain extensions. Here’s a quick summary:

Represent your roots – It’s easy to know where a business is from when it’s literally part of the domain. Some companies are using .paris, .nyc, or .london, for example.
Get in the game early – As evident by .com domains being taken left and right, the nTLD-era is still essentially in its infancy, so the quicker you start, the easier will be to get the domain name you want.
Branding – With more options, the chance to keep your domain shorter and relevant to your startup results in less ambiguity, such as name.photography or name.tech.

Of course a name is just a name, and won’t necessarily guarantee success just because it’s catchy or memorable. But hey, it’s sure to be a small and positive step in the right direction for an emerging startup.

Why Customer Satisfaction is Key to Startup Success

In order to take your company to the next level and stand out from among the competition, it is necessary to champion customer success. This means building a business that offers the absolute best customer experience possible.

What is CX?

The “Customer Experience” (CX) buzz phrase is everywhere these days, but it really just means how customers perceive their interactions with a company. According to the Sales Force blog:

“Customer experience incorporates the quality, quantity, and perceived value of all experiences a customer has with you and your company over the duration of your relationship. “

Customer experience is the key to retaining repeat customers, or generating brand loyalty, which is actually more profitable to a business than acquiring new customers. Because every business is different and therefore the needs and concerns of its customer base is unalike, every business needs to employ unique methods to best cater to their customer base.

I once encountered an e-commerce company that had a good marketing scheme were good, nice product, and the shopping experience was easy and pleasant. However, once I got to the checkout, I noticed an incredibly big oversight: there was only one payment method! On top of it all, it wasn’t even a major credit card company, but was payment via PayPal.

Regardless of how popular this option is becoming, not everyone has it and therefore they automatically lose any possible consumer without a PayPal account. Furthermore, aside from generating incredibly high levels of cart abandonment, they have guaranteed that a significant amount of web traffic will never again visit the site.

It’s best to ensure that your company website is easy to navigate or like in the example above, that you include a no-hassle checkout process. It’s beneficial to be relevant to the times and offer a wide array of differing payment methods to your customers, such as paysafecard, which uses a one-time PIN that can be bought at supermarkets and convenience stores. Paysafecard is currently being used with major players like Spotify and MasterCard’s prepaid option.

How to Evaluate CX

The secret to being able to better understand the wants and needs of your customer base, is to utilize CRM analytics software and incorporate that data into your business development and marketing approaches.

Analytics software might sound complicated, but it is really just a tool that produces data surrounding all of the activity on your site and around your brand: it produces what you have probably heard referred to as ‘big data’.

Ultimately, though, your data is important to track because it gives you all of the answers that you
seek. By seeing who is engaging with your brand, you get insight into your customer base and see who makes it through to purchase and re-purchase vs. those who don’t. This can give you insight into your product and the effectiveness of your presentation and marketing tactics. Even seeing where possible customers drop off can help you understand why and help you improve your business effort significantly in these weak areas.

Purposeful Communication

Tracking how people react to your product and brand while on your site is one thing, but tracking what people are saying about your brand is equally important. Often customers will abandon their cart without you ever really knowing why. If, however, they voice their experience with your company or products in some way, then you have insight into the why, which can help you improve your product, process, and business.

Something like a social CRM tool can help you track discussion over social media platforms and forums and not only be able to listen to what your current or potential customers are saying, but also to be able to respond to them. You are better able to control the conversation and maintain or preserve your brand identity. An Email customer experience survey to those who have made purchases is also a significant source of insight into what is working and what might work better as well.

In the end, success in B2C sales in this day and age is no longer achieved through smooth-talking, slick sales personnel; it is achieved through personable business professionals who take time to listen and react to their customer base.

A shot of Whiskey, a Shot of Espresso, and $22 Million from Andreessen Horowitz

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The following interview was conducted at Millennial Media’s Annual Developer Summit by Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice.com (they provide expert comparisons on the best crm solutions for entrepreneurs, marketing automation tools, project management platforms for small businesses, tech conferences and much more).

“No.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s wait.”

CEO and Co-founder of Skout Christian Wiklund was prepared for those answers. After all, he’d heard them before and he was pitching his social network to one of the most well-known venture capital firms in the world, Andreessen Horowitz.

Wiklund consoled himself with the fact that Skout didn’t necessarily need their investment. They’d already attained profitability, but who wouldn’t want to be invested in by that firm?

Following Wiklund’s keynote address at the Millennial Media Developer Summit in Baltimore, I spoke to him about that rapid-fire, 48-hour series of events that landed him in a pitch meeting with two of the world’s top venture capitalists.

Pitching from the Hip

Wiklund’s initial meeting with Marc Andreesson was to simply tell him about Skout’s upcoming fundraiser, an event still a few months into the future. On that particular Thursday night, Wiklund had no intentions to pitch Andreesson, but Wiklund had an 80-inch TV behind him during this meeting showing four key graphs outlining Skout’s health.

The numbers Andreesson saw in regard to revenue, daily active users, daily messages sent between users, and daily new connections caused him to call in his business partner Ben Horowitz. Andreesson then began pitching Horowitz on the site.

The next morning Wiklund received an email requesting his presence at a formal pitch meeting the following Monday.

Up on Deck

Over the weekend, Wiklund assembled a twelve-slide pitch deck to present Skout to the thirty or so venture capitalists he’d soon be seeing. His deck focused on three compelling areas:

Robust Recent Activity – In the previous eighteen months, a majority of Skout’s tracked metrics had increased tenfold. With such an obvious uptick in engagement, Wiklund used these stats to convey an instant sense of credibility, growth, and possibilities.
Core Identity – Investors want to know whether a company can sustain success. Consequently, it’s important for them to have an understanding of the company’s origin and history as well as the company’s value proposition for its customers (as well as its investors).
Future Potential – Lastly, Wiklund focused on what the investors most what to know about: future growth. To that end, he described how Skout would continue to generate and grow their revenue, how the social media site would continue to increase their user numbers, and what the company would do to smartly increase the size of their team when necessary.

Out of the Park

For other entrepreneurs seeking venture capital, Wiklund offers a few pieces of advice: don’t give up, create a simple yet compelling pitch deck, and try as hard as you can to raise money when you don’t need the money.

10 REASONS WHY EARLY-STAGE COMPANIES NEED MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

Smiling business people having a meeting in conference room

Management Consulting: Not Just for Established Businesses

Although entrepreneurs in start-up mode commonly think that management consulting is utilized only by businesses that have established themselves or grown to a significant size, the truth is that early-stage companies can benefit from management consulting a great deal. While I’m clearly an evangelist for business consulting services, having seen firsthand how they can turn things around for troubled companies and help new businesses get off the ground, I don’t think I’m too biased when I say that the start-up phase is one of the times when management consulting is most useful.

The purpose of management consulting is largely to offer advice. And who can really afford to turn down the advice of a seasoned professional? Certainly not entrepreneurs who are growing a business from scratch – even if they’re experts in their industry. There’s always value in having someone review your plans, offer second opinions on ideas and help identify areas for improvement.

So here are 10 reasons why early-stage companies especially can benefit from management consulting.

1. Management Consulting Helps You Keep up with Changes

Businesses, old and new alike, existing in an ever-changing landscape. What’s relevant, timely and appropriate one day can be tired, outdated and inefficient the next. A good business consultant stays abreast of fluctuations, from market instability to technological improvements to changes in standards or best practices, so entrepreneurs can stay focused on their primary goal: launching successfully.

2. Management Consulting Provides Honest, Unbiased Feedback

An entrepreneur will get glowing feedback about his idea from family, friends and even his professional networks. Before you know it, he starts thinking his concept is foolproof. But truly unbiased and actionable advice is hard to come by unless you harness management consulting to take a look at the big picture. You’ll get feedback not only about the concept behind your business, but about the details of execution, organization and other critical matters. At Shared CxO, we pride ourselves on having outsourced executives who offer completely honest advice without the personal agendas or blinders that entrepreneurs will encounter when seeking feedback from others.

3. Management Consulting Solves Problems

In my experience working with incubators and interacting with entrepreneurs daily in the busy start-up scene in San Francisco, I’ve seen plenty of entrepreneurs hit brick walls at critical moments in their business’s development. Whether the obstacle stems from a lack of planning, a lack of research, a lack of knowledge about a particular facet of business or something else, I’m positive that management consulting can help frustrated entrepreneurs solve problems. And the more experienced an executive is, and the more diverse his background, the quicker he can untangle even the most complicated issues facing early-stage companies. That’s why we’ve cherry picked only the most seasoned business veterans to work with our clients.

4. Management Consultants Love Forward Momentum

Management consultants simply love to see a company grow and achieve its goals. As such, an outsourced executive providing management consulting is incredibly motivated to help entrepreneurs overcome issues and move forward with their plans. They triumph when the start-up’s off the ground. And it’s easy to get caught up in this excitement. It’s one of the reasons I love working with early-stage companies!

5. Management Consulting Teaches Entrepreneurs Valuable Lessons

A good management consultant doesn’t just drop by, solve everybody’s problems and disappear. In management consulting an executive guides entrepreneurs through the process of finding solutions for the stumbling blocks they encounter. Entrepreneurs actually learn from the engagement, and become better equipped to handle issues in the future.

6. Management Consulting Helps Entrepreneurs Stay Focused and on Deadline

Because of the sheer amount of activities involved in starting a business, it’s easy for entrepreneurs to lose focus unless guided. Management consultants can keep entrepreneurs laser-focused on the tasks at hand. Management consulting also involves prioritizing activities so that entrepreneurs have a step-by-step walkthrough for what has to happen before the big launch. I’ve also seen entrepreneurs lose track of time or spend too much time on one particular aspect of business, at the expense of others. Business consultants can keep things running on time.

7. Management Consulting Involves Top-to-Bottom Analysis

Quality business consultants leave no stone unturned when analyzing an early-stage business – from the initial concept to the business plan, market research, company structure and organization, and post-launch next steps, management consulting examines everything holistically. Management consultants, as experienced executives, catch overlooked aspects of starting up a company. They’re a second pair of eyes and ears to watch things carefully.

8. Marketing Consulting Sets Companies up for Branding

One of the biggest challenges for start-ups is simply being discovered. Brand awareness comes with tremendous time and effort, and often financial investment. Part of management consulting is teaching you how to plan an initial marketing campaign that gives your brand a shot in the arm. You’ll learn the channels that will produce the biggest ROI and how to create a scalable, practical plan so that you don’t exceed budget or spend too much time on a potentially fruitless activity.

9. Trust is Implicit in Management Consulting

I completely understand the “play your cards close to your chest” attitude that some entrepreneurs adopt from the get-go. Nothing could be worse than investing time, effort and money in a unique business idea, only to find parts of the idea or the idea in whole stolen by someone with more resources to make it happen. But in management consulting, an outsourced executive honors privacy without question. Entrepreneurs don’t have to worry about details of their business plan leaked – everything is kept strictly confidential, which is not always the case if you appeal to peers or professional networks for advice.

10. Management Consulting Dots I’s and Crosses T’s

With a management consultant on board, you’re no longer solely responsible for everything. Management consulting involves quality assurance and identification of areas of improvement. While entrepreneurs still need to be vigilant, with an executive on their side to help make sure everything is complete, correct and ready for the next stage of growth, they can have peace of mind.

Ready for Management Consulting? Take a look at our CEO advisory and outsourcing services and browse our membership packages, or contact us to discuss your needs.

Why Entrepreneurs Need To Take Breaks

As an entrepreneur, it can be extremely difficult to take time out and re-calibrate.

Everything you are is focused on bringing your vision come to life, and making all of the stress, personal sacrifice and fatigue worthwhile.

But does it actually increase your chance of success to take a time out? Step back and make sure you’re making the right choices, and there isn’t a great opportunity staring you in the face. It is very easy to miss the obvious when you are buried in growing a company.

You must be willing to go over and above and push yourself more than the average person. No question. But what is rarely talked about are the physical and mental downsides of not taking breaks from your obsession.

Mental Downside Of Being Hyper-Focused

There is a never ending litany of people saying that the only way to be successful is to be focused, give it your all and it will all be worth it. I completely agree with this (and have lived it) but personally feel this needs to be further defined.

Studies show that optimal mental efficiency happens on 7.06 hours of sleep. There is significant decline with less than 6.47 hours or more than 8.03. Since you are making important decisions as a business owner, it is vital you operate at your peak mental ability as much as humanly possible.

Will this be possible all the time? Of course not. Just make sure you keep this reality in the back of your head. The last thing you want to do is make a dumb decision on a lack of sleep!

Physical Downside Of Being Hyper-Focused

I really don’t need to even dive into this. We all know what happens when we work to much and exercise to little, but did you know that stress has a direct impact on your immune system and rate of metabolism?

The hormone cortisol is released as part of your “fight or flight” response to stress. While there are temporary benefits to this, in the long term there is a significant reduction in both your immune system and digestive track. This leads to greater risk of serious diseases in general, and the slow down of your metabilism has been linked to things like diabetes and intestinal blockage.

Another study shows that AGE DOESN’T MATTER in how the body reacts to stress!

Personal Downside Of Being Hyper-Focused

Beating back weight gain, overcoming illness and getting caught up on sleep can usually be accomplished when you’ve either failed miserably or reached the mountain top.

The bad decisions made in business and more importantly your personal life are not so easily vanquished.

Losing clients, friends, significant others, or relationships with your children have serious impact on your mental health. While you may be able to suppress these issues in the short term, they will catch up with you.

There was a study released last year showing that married business owners had a divorce rate of 82%. With a national average of just under 50%, this is to great a coincidence to ignore.

In short, you need to think long and hard about how much these relationships mean to you. Not only can they damage you emotionally in the long term, destruction of your personal life will make business success that much harder.

Taking Breaks Doesn’t Mean Losing Focus

Having experienced almost everything mentioned in this article personally, I want to say that this has not turned off my entrepreneurial fire in the slightest.

It has just made me take the occasional timeout, re-calibrate, make sure the decisions being make are good ones, spend time with my daughter, friends and build great relationships with clients.

If you do the same, it will make those late nights and short term sacrifices easier to deal with and make them more rewarding when you have people to share them with!

Accelerating Startup Innovation Through Crowdfunding

Everyday I get pitched a new idea.

Choosing which to get involved in as a mentor, investor or connector is becoming easier as my personal network grows (many thanks LinkedIn) but more importantly because the ability to mitigate risk and prove viability quickly is becoming easier.

This is not to say that raising capital is becoming easier. For those of you who read “Open Letter To Angel Investors & VCs” you will understand where I’m going with this article.

In short, let’s quickly discuss new opportunities available to shorten the window of time needed to get seed stage capital, minimum viable product, and secure beta clients.

Crowdfunding Seed Stage Capital

Let’s face reality. Crowdfunding is the future, and if the SEC will ever get out of the way and allow equity crowdfunding to the masses, our current recession would be over in no time. In the meantime, while the regulators argue about how we can spend our money, let’s talk about leveraging this option to both raise initial seed capital to get proof of concept.

Putting together a great campaign is a skill in itself. It requires creative thought, excellent planning, significant time spent on PR strategy and connection with social media influencers. If you are able to put these pieces together with a great product or service, then communicate it well to the target demographic, it is reasonable you can get enough funding to build your proof of concept.

In the end, it boils down to your social media influence and public relations. If those two are accounted for, your chances of success are reasonable.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put as many things in place prior to the end of the campaign you will need to build the MVP. Whether that be vendors, manufacturers or advisers.

Building Minimum Viable Product

Now let’s assume your crowdfunding campaign was a success.

In the age of 3D printing, access to manufacturing globally and web/mobile development advancements, it never ceases to amaze me how so many startup founders REFUSE to quickly build an MVP (minimum viable product) and get to market.

If your campaign is a success, you have a potential customer base built in by default. Not only can you leverage the buzz created, you also have the ability to communicate with these potential customers and get their feedback on what they would like to see. Instead of hiding everything from them until launch, just ask questions.

It is better to make modifications prior to launch, than wait for the bombardment of feedback when you are slammed with customer service, fulfillment and the other headaches which come with company growth. Making pivots is a blunt reality in business. It is better to account for them as early as possible.

Leveraging Beta Clients

Growing your business requires getting an initial client base, whether you call them beta clients, early adopters or just plain customers.

By going the way of crowdfunding and heavy engagement with your backers, you have the opportunity to build a loyal customer base full of brand ambassadors. Not only is this vital to growing the company in the short term, in context of raising additional capital, being able to showcase a rapidly growing customer base enables proving market viability to investors.

While many investors shy away from crowdfunded projects in the early stages, this position is rapidly shifting as acceptance of crowd based idea validation expands. If you are able to prove how many backers have turned into ongoing customers, you now have an extremely valuable weapon at your disposal.

Accelerating Traditional Capital Raise

Since it realistically takes 6+ months to raise seed stage capital for 99% of startups, it makes sense to spend that same amount of time planning out your crowdfunding campaign with the next step goals as outlined above.

Not only does this enable you to be further down the road prior to raising traditional capital, you also have a much stronger position in equity negotiations and might not even need it. Investors are looking for proof of concept, minimum viable product, initial customer base and growing revenue. All of these are signals of risk mitigation on their investment.

By strategically leveraging crowdfunding, you have the opportunity to both accelerate growth of your company and the time spent raising additional capital. When risk is lowered, you will be amazed at how quickly the doors can open up.

This is just a top level of things to think about when planning your entrepreneurial journey in today’s world of opportunity. I would appreciate your feedback and ideas you can share with others getting ready to make the leap!

Anna Ruth Williams Talks About PR For Startups

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Founder of ARPR Anna Ruth Williams talks about how her firm specializes in startup PR and how to actually get covered!

WHY IS INTEGRATED MARKETING SO IMPORTANT?

In spite of the internet’s popularity, which really goes without saying you would think, there are still businesses relying on traditional media exclusively for marketing. At the same time, most businesses are using digital marketing in some way, but treat it like a separate entity.

No matter which medium is being used, it’s important to use both offline and online channels and create an integrated marketing campaign. Combining both mediums can increase the results of a marketing campaign for all kinds of businesses from startups, small businesses, to established companies.

How Prospects Follow Up With Businesses

There are several reasons why going with an integrated approach is so important. Prospects that come across ads through offline mediums such as magazines, newspapers, radio and TV often turn to the Internet to find more information about a business. This is especially the case for companies that favor branding campaigns more than direct response campaigns.

Surprisingly, the same thing applies to Internet businesses. Prospects try to see if an Internet business can be found offline, have phone numbers they can call, and have a real office location. This is to ensure that the business they are about to deal with isn’t some fly-by-night scammer that’s only interested in taking their money. This is one of the key reasons why it’s important to have a presence in both mediums.

Where Prospects Spend Their Time Looking Online

To be specific, people use the Internet to look up the reputation and reviews of businesses they’ve come across offline. Today, there are a large number of platforms to find information about businesses. There are search engines, review sites, social media sites, and community sites that can all be used to determine if it’s worth doing dealing with a business.

These platforms allow businesses to appear where consumers are searching after they’ve been exposed to their offline marketing, but only if they jump on that opportunity. One of the best ways to integrate offline and online is to build a SEO campaign. Your business will show up in related search terms about your brand, products and services. This puts you in control of your reputation and allows you to stay competitive in your industry.Digital Marketing Opens Your Business Up to a Bigger Audience and Increases Sales

An integrated advertising effort can really open up your business to a bigger audience as well. A large portion of your market will spend more of their time online, so investing in online ads can only extend your reach. In fact, many businesses find online campaigns to be more cost effective if not just as effective than offline campaigns.

Using display advertising and retargeting via pay per click can help maximize the effectiveness of your offline campaigns. It will help continue the conversation from your offline efforts, exposing consumers to more of your marketing. This increases conversions and your ROI because consumers tend to go with businesses they are more familiar with, and also because consumers are more likely to buy after multiple engagements.

The Integrated Approach Is Ideal When Gaining Momentum Is the Goal

Businesses that are trying to create buzz about their business or any kind of viral campaign need to go with an integrated approach. In one example, the Athens tourism board used offline info points to get locals to share their viewpoint of their city while also getting tourists to spent time with locals. The whole case study can be read here.

This was followed up by an online social media campaign where local submitted photos of events, special locations and the architecture that could be found in Athens. This user generated content turned viral and soon thousands of submissions were being sent in. The result was user generated content being used to create buzz and market tourism for Athens.

Conclusion

Going with an integrated approach is necessary to stay competitive in today’s market. Both mediums complement each other in many ways. Whether you’re a digital agency or a business that strictly uses traditional media, it is worth the effort and investment in building a campaign that combines and takes advantage of both mediums.

6 Tips On Pitching Your Startup Idea To Angel Investors

1. Put in sweat equity BEFORE you go after investors.

99% of investors have been in your shoes. Never forget that. They put in incredible time, effort and focus to become successful and now have the ability to help startups. If they don’t see themselves in you, the chances of them backing your company go down immensely.

2. Have real interaction with your target customers BEFORE you go pitch to investors.

So often startup founders get so tied up in their idea (and fear of it being stolen) all of their research is done in secret. No human interaction. Get out, talk to friends, co-workers and family. Call up people in your projected demographic and get their feedback on the idea. It’s amazing the insight and FREE feedback you will get that can help you answer questions from investors you never could have anticipated.

3. Do your homework and determine which investors are the right fit for your startup.

So many startup founders only focus on their pitch, not on who they are pitching to. Remember that you’re talking to a fellow human. While at the end of the day it may strictly come down to how good your idea is, most investors will tell you that it’s their faith in YOU as an entrepreneur that is the biggest factor.

4. Make sure to focus on the value proposition of your idea as a solution. Not just a how much money it can make.

No matter what your startup idea is, at the end of the day you have to appeal to investors as potential customers and paint a picture of how it solves a problem for the end user. If you are truly solving a problem, it then comes down to execution and marketing to gain success. If convince potential investors that your value proposition is realistic, they will pay attention to your valuation in much more detail.

5. Limit your pitch deck to 10 slides or less, have a short explainer video produced.

The investors get 30, 40, 50 ideas presented to them each month. Not to mention all of the companies they own and have invested in. Complex business plans and pitch decks often cause them to tune out of your presentation. Start your presentation with a well done video that explains your business and the value proposition. Then dive into your pitch deck. Video is a powerful way to gain attention, and also shows more dedication to your business idea than just a PowerPoint presentation.

6. Be prepared to fail over and over before you find an investor.

It’s amazing how many entrepreneurs become depressed after getting turned down on their first pitch and never do it again. Remember that gaining an investor is just like selling a potential customer. Not everyone will buy or believe in your product or service, so why would all investors? Make sure to walk in to your pitch confident that you will win investment capital. If you don’t…try try again.