Startup Tips Archives - Page 36 of 66

10 Best Lead Generating Tools

Question: What’s the most successful giveaway — eBooks, webinars, coupons or vouchers, etc. — you’ve used to drive lead generation, ever?

Full-Sized eBooks

“eBooks deliver a ton of value. The fact that a consumer is getting an entire book for free is perceived to have a LOT of value. For most people, it’s always worth taking the time to fill out a few lines on an opt-in form.”

Richard Lorenzen, Fifth Avenue Brands

A Customized Training Quiz

“I rolled out a fully customized training based on a quiz for my email opt-in early in 2012, and it has been really well-received. The idea is that you can get a little extra information about your prospects, even as you are delivering a ton of value to them. You can see my example at http://Websitecheckuptool.com.”

Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

Gift Cards

“Webinars and eBooks are attractive, but most potential customers are more motivated by cold, hard cash. But that’s not to say that your giveaways need to be expensive. Keep it at $5 and you’ll still get solid responses.”

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

Presentations on SlideShare

“Post a valuable presentation to SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net). Doing so will help your SEO, establish you in the industry, tease your business, tap into the existing SlideShare network and optimize your presentation for social media. You’ll be surprised by the number of views you get soon after posting. Secret tip: Load your presentation up with an SEO-rich script and use images over the top as the slides.”

Benjamin Leis, Sweat EquiTees

An Ultimate Industry Guide

“A while back, we created an “Ultimate Guide” eBook for our industry. Coupons and vouchers are good, but if you really want people to purchase your product or service, give them your expertise. eBooks offer great value to the clients and, in turn, make them more likely to view you as the authority in your industry.”

Nick Friedman, College Hunks Hauling Junk

One Product Each Day

“In March 2013, we created the “Mod-a-Day Giveaway.” The idea was to give away a different product each day for a month. By committing to doing this daily, we created a reason for people to continue to engage. Of course, we’re having other conversations on social media, too, which allows these prospects to learn more about what we stand for. Stand by your own product and offer that for leads!”

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

The Right eBook

“I have four eBooks that I wrote as a set several years ago that are still driving traffic to my website on a regular basis, as well as converting traffic to leads — despite having no gateway (such as a requirement to subscribe to a newsletter for access). These aren’t any old eBooks, though: They were written to specifically address the four questions I get most often from prospects.”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Discount Coupons

“Discount coupons are the clear winner for our e-commerce business to drive leads/sales. Once we added a coupon sign-up icon on our website, sales revenue increased by 30 percent. When the online shopper perceives he is getting a good deal in the form of a discount, he is far more likely to convert to a sale. Make sure you set an expiration date to create a sense of urgency to purchase. “

Anthony Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings

A Hardbound Book

“I wrote a book, and we offer delivery to your door for free! It really helps us stand out and has done a great job with lead gen. “60 Seconds: How to Tell Your Company’s Story and the Brain Science to Make It Stick” has useful info for people to make their own videos, hire and work with our competitors or work with us to produce a great video. “

Andrew Angus, Switch Video

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

6 Ways Startups Can Beat the Tax Man

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When you’re first starting a company, there are a lot of overhead costs. You have to pick up furniture, electronics, and a whole host of other things. You’ve also got to worry about employees, whether you’re going to provide benefits, and more. Fortunately, there are a few ways that your startup can beat the tax man.

Work Opportunity Tax Credit

If you hire employees from a certain group, you can get a tax credit. This group includes individuals that receive food stamps, certain qualified veterans, and certain residents in the community. On average, about 25 percent of all new hires are eligible for one of the targeted work opportunity tax credit groups. The credit is up to $2,400 per qualified employee in the first year of employment. However, the qualified veterans program offers up to a $9,600 tax credit in the first year.

Deduct Your Furniture

Consult with your tax preparer and see if they think you should expense or depreciate your furniture. This is an important decision, since you’re going to end up getting a ton of furniture.

You shouldn’t buy furniture just to get the tax deduction, though. Only get what you need now or furniture that you’ll anticipate needing in the very new future.

Travel Costs

Did you know that you can deduct any expenses related to traveling in your car? You can deduct all parking fees, tolls that you encounter while on a business trip, and mileage. You’ll need to keep track of the mileage, as well as the start and finish mark of the odometer. Also note the business purpose for each trip. You’ll also be able to deduct repairs, insurance, and maintenance costs.

Home Office Expenses

Sometimes you don’t need an office to run a business. If you’re using a dedicated space in your home as your home office, you can deduct it. The only catch is that the room must be used to conduct business. If you conduct business on the same couch that you lie on when you’re taking online courses for your Masters of Laws degree, you’re out of luck. You can also deduct a portion of utilities, rent, insurance, and taxes.

Loans

Did you know that you can deduct any loans you get when you’re starting your business? They can be fully deducted! If you borrow money from a relative, make sure that it conforms to IRS rules before attempting to deduct it. This certainly provides a much-needed break and should put your mind a bit more at ease when starting your business.

Advertising

Without advertising, no one will know your business exists. You can deduct the costs of advertising that cover multiple-year contracts, and the deductions must be spread out over all the contract years. This covers advertising on any form of medium, whether it be a billboard sign or a newspaper ad.

Startups take on a lot of costs, but these tax deductions can provide a bit of relief. Can you think of anything else that your startup can deduct? Leave a comment below and let us know!

Emily Green is a freelance writer with more than six years’ experience in blogging, copywriting, content, SEO, and dissertation, technical and thesis writing. She loves all things tech and and going on a jog with her dog.

5 Ways to Grow Your Business (Without Venture Capital)

Growth Hacking: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Not long ago, I sat patiently in my CEO’s spare bedroom while his mother removed her belongings from the family desk so I could work there for the day. We had no corporate office, no employees and no paychecks. Luckily for us, what we did have was product/market fit and a couple hundred paying customers. We did everything — literally — in order to grow the business.

At Mhelpdesk, we made a conscious decision not to raise venture capital. Because of this, being small and lean was our only path to success. Despite our lean approach, we built a product that people wanted and grew at an unusual rate for bootstrapped companies. For startups looking to keep their equity in their own pockets, here are some tips for continuing to grow while staying lean:

Join an incubator. Mhelpdesk was growing. We knew that we needed to hire and that working out of our CEO’s home was no longer an option. Our team lives in northern Virginia, where we decided to join our local incubator, Fishbowl Labs. There, we received free office space and got to be around other smart, interesting entrepreneurs carving out their own startup paths. At Fishbowl, we made great friendships and business relationships with other resident companies and had access to a variety of seasoned mentors. Our presence at the office allowed us to gain exposure in the startup world. Finally, access to affordable office space was a great move to decrease our overhead.
Listen to customer feedback. At Mhelpdesk, we take customer feedback very seriously. Requests are submitted to our forum and subscribers can vote them up or down based on popularity. Through this interactive process, we are able to prioritize our product roadmap based on the highest ranked features. We also respond to tickets within a couple of minutes. In the beginning stages of our company, us founders personally dealt with requests. Doing this kept costs down and fostered loyal and repeat customers based on personalized experience.
Have hustle. A necessary trait of any bootstrapped or funded startup — hustle. This may be even more important for startups who haven’t taken on any funding. Our founders make 200 cold calls per day, cold email CEOs to explore partnership opportunities, and reach out to bloggers to see if they’d be interested in picking up a news piece on our company. We are available to our customers around the clock, which gives them confidence in our ability to take care of potential issues immediately. We even caught the eye of famed hustler Gary Vaynerchuk, who mentioned in this video that the hustle coming out of our team “is intense and huge.”
Solicit word-of-mouth recommendations. Multiple online reviews have helped quickly accelerate our growth. Many of our reviews came in voluntarily. We prompted others to leave feedback based on their experience with the software at sites such as Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice. Prior to purchasing, customers shop around for a solution to their problem. If a well-known company in their industry is using our software successfully, that is a huge incentive to do business with us.
Create a community. Building champions around our brand is a great way to create meaningful relationships with the Mhelpdesk community. Call us crazy, but we give customers our personal cell phone numbers so they can reach us around the clock. We build deep relationships with each of them. Because we care about our customers, they care about us. They are loyal and willing to work through minor hiccups. Through this strong community, we receive many referrals. I believe this sets us apart from larger companies who can’t be lean. We are able to leverage our customer relationships to acquire more customers.

The traditional path to rapid startup growth and expansion is through the influx of outside investment. We decided to grow our business on revenue generated by offering a solid, needed platform. Without bringing in cash, growth does happen a little slower. But it can be worth it. By staying lean and customer-focused, we were able to reach profitability and keep growing Mhelpdesk the way we always intended.

Ryan Shank is the COO of Mhelpdesk, a field service software company that helps small businesses manage their jobs, scheduling and invoices.

The 3 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned from Starting Up

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I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than half my life. At 16, I founded Buzz Marketing Group, the youth marketing and influencer agency I still run today. It’s been a long road to get to where I am today, but I’ve loved every minute of this journey. Back in 1996, it was rare to be a teen entrepreneur. Now, I feel old!

But wisdom certainly comes with age and experience, and I’m happy to share with you some tips that have helped me throughout my career:

1. Always remember that everyone is important. There are no little people.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people ignore my assistant or employees, thinking they can directly connect with me. I surround myself with people much smarter and better than me in all areas, and those people deserve respect.

Today’s assistant is tomorrow’s Vice President. How you treat people matters. In today’s world, your main contact could change positions overnight. It’s important to treat everyone with equal importance. And make sure this is authentic. I genuinely care about the people I work with, their families, their lives. It’s important to be totally vested.

2. You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. Use your time wisely.

I’m more likely to be upset by a 30-minute delay in a meeting than a 10 percent reduction to an invoice! I always tell my team we can make more money, but we can never make more time. Repeat this to yourself all day long. Focus on ways to be more efficient, delegate projects to someone who can do it quicker and better, and do not waste time. And please, please, please don’t waste time in meetings that don’t yield results.

I’m a big fan of Action Method and their process for making ideas happen. Always make sure meetings include action steps so it’s easier to pass along info to the right person to yield the right results. Make sure that everyone understands next steps and owns their next step. This saves time that can ultimately be put to use doing something else. Miscommunication and lack of clarity are big time suckers, and getting a handle on these issues will save you time and increase your bottom line.

3. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

This doesn’t mean that you need to script every detail of your life, but you need to have a roadmap. Even though I use the word plan, I really mean you need to have a vision. Where do you see yourself? Do you meditate on this vision? Can you see what it takes to get to that vision? Too often we get caught up in the minute details of things, and we lose focus on the big picture.

You have to give yourself time to do a daily check-in. For me, this happens first thing in the morning. I spend 15 to 30 minutes in a quiet mental space. This helps me go into my day fully focused. I also spend at least 15 minutes “free writing,” hoping to open up my creative space. I always get new ideas or think of solutions to existing problems. As entrepreneurs, if we can’t get ourselves into a place where we can innovate or problem solve, this is a problem. So always make sure you have a notebook (or smartphone) with you to take quick notes when an idea or solution comes to you. And focus on your vision.

Tina Wells, founder and CEO of Buzz Marketing Group earned her B.A. in Communication Arts graduating with honors from Hood College in 2002. She is the author of the tween series Mackenzie Blue, published by HarperCollins Childrens Books.

9 Simple–But Hard–Lessons for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

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The first step in starting up is recognizing the right opportunity. Most opportunities are easy to spot: Just look at the problems you are already facing. For instance, my first startup (founded in ’08) was a banner network for social media networks called AdParlor, which a work colleague and I started in order to solve a problem we were facing ourselves: The need to invest in advertising to gain users on Facebook apps.

The idea for my second, BookMyCity, was hatched in 2012, when my girlfriend and I went for a mini-getaway to South Beach during “spa month.” We quickly discovered that there was no central location to book appointments for a service like spa treatments online (as you could for a restaurant table). A year later, BookMyCity was born to easily connect businesses and local customers online, managing availability and offering one-stop booking.

Throughout both experiences, however, I learned that the only way to really seize opportunities like these is to go all in and really get to know the audience you’re serving. It’s not easy, but here are a few of my personal lessons on success as an entrepreneur:

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. I like to call entrepreneurship a roller coaster. There are massive highs and massive lows. This is what drives me; the lows are inevitable, but the high coming from a massive low is exhilarating.
Commit yourself. You can have results or excuses; not both. Set your personal bar and own it – your center of influence is you. Don’t do things halfway and don’t procrastinate. If you are committing to become an entrepreneur, then put yourself 100 percent in it. Forget week-long vacations.
Really understand your clients/customers/target audience. Do your homework on who your clients are. Make sure that whatever you are creating, you have family members or friends who would actually use it. Find out all you can for free from them. After that, take your idea of the product or service, put it in a presentable format, and take it to a friend of a friend of a friend who won’t be afraid to tell you what they really think.
Get connected. Every interaction is a potential opportunity! Networking is the best way to get ahead in the world. In the online world, use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter to get connected with potential customers, investors, advisors. In the offline world, go to conferences and after-parties in your field and connect with entrepreneurs. You never know where or how your paths will cross.
Prioritize. Whatever you are producing, aim to be the best and don’t settle for mediocre. That being said, make sure to have priorities on which components should be done first and will have the most impact. Iterate countless times at the design phase until that component is simple to use/understand.
Team up. And if you want a partner, find a good one and be a good one. A good partner can make or break your company, especially if you are not used to the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. Having a partner to bounce ideas off of is much different than bouncing those ideas off of friends and family. You need someone who will be immersed in the business just as deeply as you are for an effective partnership.
Find your balance. Remember to take short day-long breaks here and there. Burning out is very inefficient and can happen quickly if you go too hard for too long. Take a weekend off and recharge once in a while.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. Keep promises. Don’t change meeting times. Be reliable.
Make it fun! Starting up is hard work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. If you’re doing something you love, this part is easy.

My advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is simple: Start by doing something you love. If you currently work full time, pursue your idea after your official work hours. Join groups, go to conferences, ask questions and always keep your eyes and ears open. With enough dedication, you will surely find something that can be created, done better or done more efficiently. When you do, jump in — that’s when the hard work (and roller-coaster life) really begins.

In June 2013, Kristaps founded BookMyCity.com. BookMyCity (https://www.bookmycity.com) is an online promotion, booking and scheduling platform for service-oriented businesses. It lets customers find all sorts of services in their area and book appointments right on the spot.

10 Simple Tips to Get Better at Multitasking

Question: Everyone’s favorite productivity tip is to simply focus. But when you have no choice, what is your best tip for multitasking smarter?

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Wear a Watch With a Timer

“I recommend deciding which tasks you’re going to complete each day and then wearing a watch that beeps every hour to help you keep track of passing time. It’s easy for us to get caught up in the details of a task and spend too much time on it, so staying conscious of how much time you’re spending on each task is the key to working faster and being more productive.”

Ziver Birg ZIVELO

Write It Down, and Take Three at a Time

“Only have three priorities at once. I am a sophomore in college, so I always write out what I need to do to complete my week. However, I star one thing in each category (work, school, other) that I need to complete first. When I cross that off, I star something else and if I finish a category, I am able to use that star in another category. Write it down!”

Bryan Silverman Star Toilet Paper

Only Multitask When You Don’t Need to Devote Your Full Attention

“All — and I do mean all — of the research currently available shows that multitasking is a productivity killer. Don’t do it. The only acceptable time to purposefully multitask is when you’re performing activities that don’t require your full attention. For example, you can respond to emails while listening to music or take a non-critical call while walking or driving. “

Emerson Spartz Spartz

Don’t Multitask

“I’m often amazed at how much more I can get done when I don’t multitask. If I’m going to go on social media, then I will just go and enjoy myself and not pretend that I’m doing other work. If I’m writing, I shut down all other distractions. The same goes for checking email, phone calls — you name it. Keep your focus lasered, and see how much faster you close the loop.”

Nathalie Lussier Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

Use Offline Email

“One of the main ways that folks multitask is by balancing email responses with other projects, but the biggest distractions are new incoming emails. Work in an “offline” state so you can multitask across known projects and avoid any new surprises that will just create more work.”

Aaron Schwartz Modify Watches

Know Your Limits

“Don’t try to handle too much at once. This is when mistakes are made. Instead, prioritize your tasks and make sure you are dedicating enough attention to the most important.”

Nicholas Gremion Free-eBooks.net

Get an Extra Set of Hands

“Everyone sings the praises of multitasking. It’s a simple math equation: More tasks can be completed with four hands than with two! To multitask smarter, hire someone to help. This isn’t just about delegating one-off tasks. With my executive assistant on my team, I am consistently able to be much more productive and effective. “

David Ehrenberg Early Growth Financial Services

Keep a List of Short Tasks Handy

“Multitasking is only effective if you’re just looking for ways to fill time when you are waiting for something else to finish. Keep a list of short tasks that you can work on while you’re waiting, like updating a contact in your address book or sending out a reminder email. Try to avoid anything that you can get sucked into (like social media) during these short bits of time.”

Thursday Bram Hyper Modern Consulting

Remember: Two Is Better Than One

“While it’s ideal to focus on one task at a time, it’s simply not realistic for the busy life of an entrepreneur. At my office, my dual-monitor setup allows me to fly through multiple tasks with countless tabs open. My productivity improved exponentially using dual monitors, and now I couldn’t imagine working any other way. “

Anthony Saladino Kitchen Cabinet Kings

Plan to Avoid It

“Take the time to build a schedule that avoids the need (as much as possible) to multitask. Generally with multitasking, you end up being less efficient. I diligently keep a running to-do list and a running follow-up list, and then I prioritize my time based on those lists. It is also important to give yourself a small break between tasks to keep your focus and energy level high all day long.”

Anderson Shoenrock ScanDigital

What Can You Learn from The New Kind of Workspaces?

The video game company Valve has some interesting ideas on how to arrange a workspace. The CEO, Gabe Newell, has been in tech since Windows competed with Doom for the program with most installs. Every employee at Valve has a desk that has wheels on it. There are no workgroups, per say, there are projects. You find a project you are interested in working on, or propose a new one, then move your desk accordingly.

In this way, everyone shares a work space and develops projects together. This commitment to team work has helped Valve produce some smash hits over the years, creating a loyal community/fanbase and developing a talented team with extremely high productivity. Newer CEOs are catching on to this trend of a different kind of take on the corner office, adapting a less-structured office to support a work day that is increasingly mobile and less-structured.

New evidence also suggests that employees like using their own technology, and prefer to stand and stretch their legs. That new data informs decisions when choosing furniture for the conference room or building the desks for the main floor. Read on for how the younger generation has decided to tackle the challenge of designing the modern office.

CoWorking

A new idea amongst young entrepreneurs is to break out of the confining and lonely space of one’s home, by renting a small space in a shared office. Coworking spaces are like big floors of free-floating desks. In Hong Kong, spaces can go for as little as $100 per month. The environment is very laid back, you won’t find a dress code here, but it also encourages professionalism. Entrepreneurs also have the advantage of a literal office space they can bring clients to, rather than scheduling a lunch meeting at a café with questionable Wi-fi. The print-infrastructure management software project Ezeep got its start in a German coworking space called Betahaus.

Social Cam/Justin.tv

Social Cam is a part of Justin.tv, a video and photo sharing application. The office is based in San Francisco, and the space is tight quarters to say the least. People are not crammed into cubicles, they are seated four to a table, with space to lean back and catch one’s breath. The office is separated by department, with mobile handling the bottom floor. One of the more unique concepts in the office is the shower. This isn’t entirely uncommon in bigger companies, but Social Cam executives would often shower and shave for meetings in the early days of the company, faking their intentions on return.

Overall the space encourages close collaboration amongst employees. There is a stocked kitchen so people are well fed, and as a result, productivity is up and Justin.tv (which recently changed itself to Twitch.tv) is one of the most-used streaming services for video on the Web.

Meebo

Meebo has a Meebochinko machine, which is based on a concept from the Price is Right. It’s part of a larger suite of gaming related rooms and meeting spaces. Meebo also uses the four to a table seating method, and it has a built in bar that is staffed on Fridays. There is a timeline on the wall that illustrates when someone joined the company, and the company builds an emoticon for each employee that has been there for over two years.

Meebo is very employee centric. It puts a lot of emphasis on encouraging collaboration and an overall jovial spirit. The offices are wide open, with plenty of room for people to lounge or catch a break from all the coding.

Each of these offices is different, but they all have something in common. The workspace encourages collaboration and togetherness. How you structure your office will be an important consideration when you want to promote company culture.

Kevin is an account director at Online Rep Management and has been working within internet marketing and public relations for over 8 years. Kevin got his start working online in SEO, link building, and some affiliate marketing. Kevin is most passionate about helping good brands become online entities. Read more on Google+ follow Kevin on twitter!

How Much Should You Spend On Marketing?

If you’re wondering what your marketing budget should be, you’re not alone. This is the million-dollar question: How can you be sure you’re spending the right amount of money on the right types of marketing? Many say it’s an art, not a science. Others argue that there is a clear equation that can help you to calculate exactly how much of your marketing dollars to place where. Simply figure out the equation, enter your variables, and voila.

In truth, it’s a little bit of both. With a little thought, a little math, a little data, and a little creativity, it is possible to have a good idea of how much to invest in marketing for the highest possible return. In terms of “return,” I have a strong finance view. Simply put, the role of marketing is to create leads and business opportunities. You should always return to this metric.

The key to ROI marketing is to not only determine your marketing budget, but to consistently building your company revenue. Your ROI always needs to link back to actual sales.

Return on Investment Marketing

ROI marketing is a measurement tool. It measures how much profit you make on a given marketing investment. To figure out the return on your investment, you need to identify a few figures to plug into your ROI formulas (as long as you are consistent, you can define your terms however you choose):

Cost of goods sold (COGS): The actual cost to produce your product (or provide your service)
Marketing investment: Media cost or production cost
Revenue: Your total revenue or your gross or net profit

The Components of ROI Marketing

There are six key components of ROI marketing:

Understanding lifetime customer value. Once you know this, you can begin to figure out how much you should expect to spend on new customer acquisition. To calculate the lifetime value of a customer, you need to identify the following variables: average annual revenue per customer, average gross profit margin (before any marketing expense), cost of capital, and average number of years per customer.
Estimating target acquisition cost per customer cost. Look at your company data. Take the total cost of your marketing budget and divide by the number of customers you won with this investment. This is your historic acquisition price.
Determining your marketing budget. Divide your target revenue by the average customer revenue. Then multiply this number by the target acquisition price. Once you have your ROI goal and overall annual revenue goal, calculate your targeted marketing spend.
Predicting which tactic will help you to realize your customer acquisition goals. Use the by-product of your calculations to make some informed decisions as to which marketing strategy will be most successful in helping you to achieve your goals.
Setting your marketing ROI goal. Once you have established your ROI threshold, stick to it. If a marketing initiative isn’t hitting the threshold, cut it. Put your marketing dollars where you know they will have a greater impact.
Monitoring your ROI. Measure, measure, and measure again. Use your results to continuously improve your campaigns and maximize your marketing dollars.

ROI Marketing: More Than a Measurement

How you choose to track your marketing spend and calculate your ROI marketing can differ from company to company. It’s important that you make the effort to add some rigor to your marketing activities. Even if your calculations aren’t exact, they can still show you clear trends of which marketing activities are getting real results and which aren’t. And again, results means actual sales.

With a small business, you can’t afford to waste your funds on marketing with low ROI. But calculating the best marketing spend isn’t just about managing your costs; it’s also about making sure that you are using your limited money to get the best ROI. You don’t want to miss any opportunities to help your business to acquire customers and earn revenue.

Ultimately, ROI marketing is more than a measure, it’s also a philosophy. But you can’t implement ROI marketing without making a larger organizational change. This is no small task.

Some early-stage startups with limited funding might view marketing as a low priority; an unnecessary cost. In fact, marketing is not just an outlay of capital. It’s an investment back into your company — not a drain on it. ROI marketing helps you to justify your investments, supporting the old adage that you need money to make money.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, an outsourced financial services firm that provides early-stage companies with day-to-day transactional accounting, CFO service, tax, and valuation services and support. He’s a financial expert and startup mentor whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best. Follow David @EarlyGrowthFS.

4 Tips For Going Into Business With Your Significant Other

In our network of friends and family, my husband and I are unique: We’re location independent, we home-school our two young children and we run a number of business ventures, both individually and together.

I’m the strategic, organized half; he’s the creative, disorganized half. A match made in heaven (or hell…you decide)!

Most of the time things run smoothly in our household and “office.” But every now and then, I’m reminded that living, working, sleeping and parenting with your other half 24 hours a day, seven days a week isn’t always as easy as it might seem.

If you’re considering going into business with your spouse or significant other – either working on a joint project, or making the leap to do your own thing together — here are a few insights I wish someone had shared with us.

Play to Your Respective Strengths

For a long while, I wished Jonathan would get better at the strategizing and planning of his business ventures. I’d force him to have a go at doing it, watching the hours go by as he struggled to knock out even the most basic of plans.

In the end, we realized and accepted that it’s a much better approach to play to our strengths, and divide and conquer the rest. That way, we can stick to the tasks we’re best at. This doesn’t apply only to business; it works in life too. Jonathan’s the cook/cleaner of our household and I’m the organizer.

Identify and stick to your respective strengths, and you’ll find that instead of fighting against each other, you can pull together and leverage them to your advantage.

Commit and Stick to Agreed-Upon Boundaries

As with most households, agreeing on and maintaining certain boundaries helps keep the peace. When you live, sleep, parent and work with your other half, there are even more potential boundaries to be crossed.

Any entrepreneur knows how easy it is to let your business take over your life. Setting boundaries that separate your work and family life is vital when you’re both in the business. Work-talk over dinner, work-talk in bed, work-talk when you go out for coffee… if you’re not careful, work becomes all you ever talk about.

Agree on certain boundaries, like specific periods of time out during the week and dedicated family time, in order to keep the different areas of your relationship distinct. Doing so can really help maintain the more personal and intimate aspects of your relationship, which can ultimately suffer when you’re in business (and life) together.

Pick Your Battles

As an entrepreneurial couple, not only do you experience each other’s performance as partners, you experience each other’s performance as entrepreneurs. You are bound to find fault with how your spouse does something in business.

If one of you is the nagging type, your business becomes yet another area to find fault in. It can cause friction and arguments that didn’t exist before. Once again, common relationship advice becomes invaluable: Pick your battles.

Know when to let things go or you’ll find that your business becomes one more battleground – which is something you can’t afford to let happen if your livelihood depends on it.

Agree on Your Business Values

You likely already share many common core and life values with your partner, but how about your business values? Are you on the same page when it comes to how to run a business, how to service customers and clients, and how to market and sell what you do?

When you’re building a business together, it’s vital the business is built on shared, common values – if it’s not, you’ll constantly be at loggerheads.

We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to do what we do: spend all day every day together and with our children. But does it come easily? Not at all. Like all the best things in life, it often takes a lot of hard work, ongoing communication and plenty of give and take.

Lea Woodward is a Business strategist for micro-businesses and first time entrepreneurs. She is location independent and the creator of the original Location Independent website, having coined the term in 2007. She is the founder of Startup Training School, an online school dedicated to empowering women with the skills they need to get their business online. Find out more about Lea at http://www.LeaWoodward.com

4 Things Every Founder Should Know Before Your Investor Meeting

In a previous piece, I discussed what early stage entrepreneurs needed to know in order to secure angel investment attention in 2014. For the fortunate few who were successful in landing a coveted “yes” to taking an actual meeting, there is usually little time left to prepare for the most important part of the funding process – the investor presentation. This is the first true opportunity for startups to provide an in-depth narrative and discuss financial expectations with an interested investor.

Fortunately, many entrepreneurs have already gone down this path and know that balancing the everyday role of running a startup and finding the time to prepare for investor meetings doesn’t have to be a constant struggle. Consider the four following ways to make sure you don’t lose investor attention now that you’ve got it and enter the negotiating room as prepared as possible.

Have a Command of the Facts

Now that you’ve managed to spark the interest of an investor after what was probably a brief initial encounter, preparing for the subsequent in-depth meeting is a much more intense experience. You must be prepared to speak in depth to every aspect of your venture—management’s experience, go-to-market strategies, competitive landscape, etc. Don’t guess; when asked a question to which you don’t know the answer, it’s better to acknowledge the quality of the question and tell the prospective investor that you would like further time to consider the question and that you will provide your answer in a follow-up email or phone call. Furthermore, don’t be defensive, because you will come off as someone with whom it would be difficult for the angel investor to work. Instead, recognize the questions for what they are; namely, not objections to you, your thinking, or the venture, but simply probes to learn

whether your venture meets the individual’s or group’s investment criteria.

Don’t shy away from your failures

It might seem like discussing past failures of the founder or its management team would reflect poorly on the startup and therefore should be avoided, but that is actually the opposite of what is likely to impress a potential investor. Instead, be prepared to discuss previous failures and what was learned from them; an experienced investor will have done his/her homework and know about them anyway so be upfront and use it to your advantage.

What kept you up night after night asking questions and vowing never to do again? How have your failures shaped your strategies for your current venture? An investor wants to be certain that if a financial relationship does result from the meeting, the founder and team are prepared to receive constructive criticism and learn from past mistakes. The ability to navigate uncomfortable situations and withstand scrutiny from an investor or group of investors demonstrates the startup’s capacity to handle the inevitable pressures that will result from running the business.

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Be realistic about the money

It’s easy to “spend” another person’s money. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the amount you are looking for is a pittance to the investor because of his/her wealth. Investors worked hard for their financial comfort, and they are likely to guard it preciously. The investors with whom you will be speaking have allocated a certain amount of their wealth to early stage investments, but from among the investment opportunities within that asset class they’ll favor the ventures that, all other factors being equal, offer the largest potential reward for the least amount of risk.

That means that you must establish a realistic and defensible pre-money valuation (“PMV”) or current value for your venture. Set it unrealistically high, and the investor is likely to screen you out both because the PMV would not yield the investor enough ownership to meet his/her return expectations and because by doing so you’ll have shined a bright light on your inexperience, unreasonableness, or arrogance.

Setting your PMV is an essential exercise in searching for equity investment. Do your research— what value have other companies in your space and geographic region recently sustained in their financings? Early stage venture attorneys in your area may be able to help you answer this question. There are also online tools like Worthworm to assist you with this exercise. Avail yourself of all of the tools and information available to you to set your value, because even like the best public stock, your investment opportunity will only be attractive at the “right” price.

Have clear go-to market and growth strategies

An investor is going to want to understand in very real and clear terms how you plan to reach your target audience and how that will scale over time. Be prepared to discuss revenue plans and business models, and to defend your decision for each. Create a narrative that proves why your venture is worth the current asking price and how that worth will continue to grow at an attractive pace.

The true tests of the validity of your strategies lies in customer acceptance and growth in your venture’s value. With respect to the former, do all that you can to show early sales, i.e., customer validation, and be prepared to discuss what you’ve learned from these customers. With respect to the latter, recognize that as an entrepreneur among your highest responsibilities is to implement strategies that will grow the value of your company, and by extension the value of an investor’s ownership in your company, to its highest points at the quickest pace. Ensure that you can articulate how you intend to build the company’s value quickly and consistently toward an exit event that will yield your investors their target rates of return.

Leading a startup team is a risky move. Thousands upon thousands of startups are seeking startup capital from a relatively limited number of investors. If a great idea does spark the interest of a potential investor, use the investor presentation as an opportunity not to extoll how great your idea is, but how prepared you and your team are to execute the idea and grow it into a highly valuable business.

Alan Lobock is the co-founder of Worthworm (www.worthworm.com) and SkyMall. Having been on both sides of the start-up investment scene– seeking investment for his ventures and as an angel investor himself, Alan launched Worthworm to solve one of the biggest challenges young companies and their prospective investors face—how to compute a credible and defensible PMV for an early stage venture seeking angel investment.

Should You Do A Crowdfunding Campaign?

Running a crowdfunding campaign is like living one year of a startup on steroids. You need to create a concise story for why folks should support you. Your team must execute a video (not an easy task). And most importantly, you have to hustle every day to get in front of new audiences; unfortunately, people won’t just show up, no matter how amazing your product is.

After going through the experience myself, I am starting to believe that all entrepreneurs should do a campaign as well. Whether you use a major site like Indiegogo or Kickstarter, or even some of the awesome up-and-comers like Teespring and Crowdtilt, executing a crowdfunding campaign will put your team and business through the fire and back.

Here’s why we decided to bite the bullet — and some advice for other entrepreneurs who might be considering a campaign of their own.

Our Story

Modify Watches just launched our first-ever Kickstarter campaign in February to produce something we have titled “Mod-to-Order.” At 4-year-old Modify, we design interchangeable wristwatches, and our vision has always been to allow people to wear their passion on their wrist. If you want a photo of your kid or an image that represents your wedding or a gift for your employees, we want to provide it to you. But to date, it’s been too costly to offer.

After a few years of crowdsourcing products from our fans — “Which of these 10 designs should we produce?” — we’re now using crowdfunding to validate that fans actually want to produce genuine, one-off custom products. We’ve been ignoring Steve Blank’s mantra to get outside of the building, so we figured we would go all-in and choose a make-or-break path; we’ll only be able to offer this IF our Kickstarter campaign is successful.

Why Crowdfunding?

I truly believe that there is no better way to validate that you have a market than by releasing your product and saying “buy now.”

In crowdfunding, you are telling folks, “We want this thing to exist, but it can only happen if you fund our vision.” If early adopters won’t fund you, either your idea isn’t all the way there, or you’re not ready to execute.

One week into our own campaign, and we’re 30 percent of the way to our goal. Our team is staying up late every night to do all of the “real” work we have after spending the 9-to-5 emailing everyone we know asking them to share our campaign.

Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

If you’re going to use one of the big-name crowdfunding sites, there are some definite pros and cons to consider.

Kickstarter has an incredibly strong brand name; even folks who don’t know what crowd-funding is have heard of Kickstarter. Oh, and they just funded their one billionth dollar. We chose the platform because of its historical strength in consumer goods.

In retrospect, Indiegogo would have been an amazing choice too. That platform has an incredibly strong name for artists, is growing in product and has a strong customer service bent. Most relevant, they have many fewer restrictions, which means that you can tailor your campaign more to your company’s specific needs. Indiegogo also has a new tool called Outpost, which allows you to embed your campaign on your site.

The Video

The most important part of your campaign is your video. It’s also one of the more time-consuming aspects of running a campaign like this.

To produce our video, we worked with the awesome team from Six Finger Films. We story-boarded, collected assets, engaged our fans to help tell our story, and shot the film over two days.

If you can’t do the video in-house, I strongly recommend that you find a partner that believes in you and cares about your vision and story.

What We Would Change Next Time

We’ve already learned a few lessons that could benefit other entrepreneurs. Next time, we’d do these things differently:

Contact press a few weeks in advance of launch, instead of on the day. It takes a while to explain your value, and reporters and bloggers are busy! Invest in them like you would in any partner.
Shorten our video. Our video is about 4 minutes long. It’s an incredible marketing tool — but we don’t get to the point of the campaign until 90 seconds in. By that point, you want to have already inspired the viewer to take action.
Simplify our reward tiers. Backers need to take time to understand what they get. That’s a major no-no. If they’re ready to give you support, make it easy with a clear value proposition.

Is It Really All-Consuming?

Yes. The key to crowdfunding success is that you engage your own network. That means personal emails appealing to all of your friends (and even acquaintances).

What I conveniently forgot was that we still had plenty of work to do for the ongoing Modify business – launching our new website, getting ready for Opening Day with our Major League Baseball watches and delivering great service to all of our current customers.

My adviser Bhavin from the Magoosh team always says that fundraising is a full-time job, so a co-founder should “quit” other parts of the business during the funding cycle. Personally, I have found this campaign to require even more work than raising our first round.

Nevertheless, while crowdfunding may seem daunting — it certainly does to me, only halfway through our campaign! – it’s still been an amazing experience. You get to interact with folks on a daily basis and your team has to come together for a very distinct shared goal. Most importantly, if you’re successful, you get to see your vision come to life with the support of fans who care.

Editor’s note: The author is pictured on the far right in the photo above, along with some other members of the Modify team. Check out their Kickstarter campaign here.

Aaron Schwartz is Founder and CEO at Modify Industries, Inc., which designs interchangeable custom watches known as Modify Watches. He loves working on startup ideas and has spent innumerable (happy) hours advising friends and former students on how to grow their ideas.

What My 1-Year-Old Taught Me About Marketing

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My wife, Erin, and I celebrated our daughter Violet’s first birthday recently. We joked that the celebration was really for us surviving a whole year with an infant. If you have kids, then you know exactly what I mean. That first year wasn’t pretty, but boy was it worth it!

In 365 days, Violet transformed from what I endearingly call her helpless, alien-looking newborn days, to a walking, babbling, playful, and extraordinarily cute baby girl (see proof below).

Violet's First Birthday

Looking back on 2013, I find there are many similarities between raising a 1-year-old and launching new marketing campaigns. Both require a significant time investment. Both require realistic expectations about results to avoid frustration. And there’s no question both are well worth the investment.

Recognizing these similarities will ensure you create a more realistic marketing plan and should help you push through the inevitable rough patches in 2014.

Invest the Time Required

Everyone knows babies need a LOT of attention. And even when they sleep, most new parents find it hard to relax. Then, as the infant grows, she starts to sleep through the night, hold her own bottle, and even play by herself. I found the first three months were the most stressful and required the most investment of time, but each subsequent month became easier and easier.

The same is true when launching a new marketing campaign. Let’s use Google AdWords as an example. When you set up a new AdWords campaign, you need to realize the first few months are going to be the most stressful and time consuming. There’s going to be a lot of trial and error to figure out what works for your particular “baby.” Sure, there are commonalities among top-performing ad campaigns across different industries and offers — just like every infant needs sleep, clean diapers and food. But you won’t figure out the specifics, like the best time of the day to run your ads or the best ad copy and bid for a particular keyword, until you and your baby have spent some quality time together.

You need to realize that the first three months of a new marketing campaign are going to be tough. This is true whether you’re implementing in-house or outsourcing to a marketing company. It’s going to be stressful and you need to commit the time required to learn what works in your particular market.

As a result, you also need to be realistic about how many new campaigns you can launch in a year. I can’t imagine having another newborn right now. I’m simply not ready for the time commitment. With that in mind, take a look at your 2014 marketing plan and make sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin by launching too many campaigns. It’s always better to get one campaign working before moving on to a second one. Otherwise, you could just end up babysitting a bunch of failed campaigns.

Set Realistic Expectations

I believe the biggest cause of frustration with online marketing comes from unrealistic expectations. We now live in a world where we all want instant gratification. I frequently hear stories about businesses that unsuccessfully tried Google AdWords, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, email marketing, or some other tactic. When I pry, I learn that the business “tried” for a month or two. That’s the equivalent of getting upset because your baby is not walking at 6 months old!

To be clear, I’m not saying you should continue to invest in a losing marketing campaign. However, as a general rule of thumb, I find that most businesses give up too quickly because they don’t have realistic expectations about how long it will take to see significant results.

For example, last month we sold 85 seats to our Google Analytics training by sending a couple emails to our in-house email list. Clearly, email marketing works. I could go on and on about all the benefits of email marketing, but I don’t need to. The sales speak for themselves. However, we worked very hard over the past three years to build our email database, form a strong relationship and continuously provide value to our subscribers. There’s no way we could have sold 85 seats if we had just started using email marketing in the past 6–12 months. That’s about as realistic as Violet reading one of her books tonight.

Be more realistic with your sales projections from online marketing. SEO, social media, and email marketing are all long-term marketing tactics. AdWords advertising can generate sales within hours, but it will typically take months to dial in your advertising so that you’re consistently generating a positive return. The most successful businesses use a long-term portfolio approach to marketing, similar to savvy investors.

Focus on Incremental Improvements

Up to this point, I realize I haven’t painted a very rosy picture. Maybe I’m a little cranky from so many sleepless nights with Violet this past year.

But seriously, I do believe businesses need to hear this if they are going to succeed in 2014. Competition is fierce, and I’m sorry to say that the days of “set-it-and-forget-it” online marketing campaigns are over. The businesses that take a long-term approach and implement pig-headed discipline will come out on top.

I’ll never forget the day in Central Park when Violet started walking on her own for the first time. It took almost a year to go from rolling over, to crawling, to walking. Every day she improved just a little bit more, until finally it all clicked, and she toddled away from me while uncontrollably laughing.

That’s the approach we all need to take with our marketing. Don’t expect overnight miracles. Focus on incremental improvements in your online marketing campaigns throughout the year.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Phil Frost is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Main Street ROI in New York, NY. Main Street ROI teaches internet marketing strategies that actually work for small businesses. Click here to get the Ultimate SEO Checklist to help you rank higher in Google.

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Communicating With Investors

Fundraising is incredibly important, but it’s only part of the equation. To make your vision a reality, you need to sell your potential to investors and continue to prove your worth down the road. This requires consistent communication before, during, and after your initial round of funding. Below is your guide to working with capitalists after the initial funding phase to ensure that you have the tools and knowledge to land repeat investments.

The Power of the JOBS Act

The JOBS Act has transformed investor relations from a necessary evil to an incredibly powerful tool in the entrepreneur’s arsenal. Before the JOBS Act, companies couldn’t advertise the fact that they were raising money. With the elimination of that ban, they were given permission to market their worth and financial needs to investors.

In the past, the s

cales were tipped heavily in favor of investors, who took a long time to get back to entrepreneurs, do due diligence, or fund deals. The investment options were plenty, but the market lacked efficiency and effectiveness.

All that changed with the rise of crowdfunding. With the rise of online funding platforms, new prospects are accessible to more investors, and savvy funders know they have to move quickly to gain access to the hottest companies. In addition, potential investors who might have only considered the public market before can now explore the private sector from the comfort of their homes.

This increased awareness translates into more investing in private companies, potentially making it easier to raise substantial amounts of funding without having to go public. But it also means the market is flooding, forcing entrepreneurs to stand out from the swells of startups online.

The Investor Communication Checklist

Investors who provided initial funds can be a resource for more capital as your company grows, but only if you give them the information they need and provide updates on how their investment is performing. Consider these necessities:

1. Updates on company progress: Provide updates on a monthly basis to engage your investors. Giving investors dire news at the last minute is not just unprofessional; it’s bad for business. The less time they have to absorb the news, the less motivated they will be to help. In my investor updates, I always include a section titled “Things Keeping Me Up at Night” that lays out the issues that most concern me. This gets everything on the table. Frequently, investors reach out to offer assistance if they can.

2. Monthly financial reports: It’s a reality in today’s startup environment: Nearly every company will need to ask current investors for more money. If you’re upfront, investors will understand your situation and might be more willing to help. Financial reports guarantee that everyone is on the same page.

3. Changes in capitalization: If you raise more money or set up an employee stock option pool, current investors will be affected. Typically, they need to approve anything that affects changes to their shares. Again, clear and consistent communication can smooth these transitions.

4. Tax information: If your company is an LLC, you will need to provide a K-1 form to each investor to indicate his or her share of the earnings for tax purposes. Organization will be key as more and more investors are added to the company.

5. Major ownership changes: Major transactions, such as selling the company, may require the approval of all shareholders. You need to inform your investors efficiently and get signed documents, approvals, or votes from shareholders to complete negotiations.

Building Your Reputation

Reputation is everything. You’re only as viable as your funders believe you to be, and the suggestions above will strengthen your company’s brand in the eyes of current and potential investors. Present information that is organized, accurate, and digestible.

The first thing a potential investor will do is call current investors for feedback. If those experienced investors feel uninformed about your company, they will likely convey a negative message to the newcomer. Moreover, new investors will check to see if current investors are putting up more capital for your company. If a new investor feels that older investors are abandoning ship, you have a communication problem and potentially a much more disastrous financial problem in your future.

Every communication to your investors is building a foundation for future investment. Investors saw promise in you and your ideas — it’s your responsibility to keep them educated about your goals, operations, and finances.

As it turns out, being the boss requires a lot of talking. Be proactive by connecting with your investors on a regular basis. After all, they’re the ones funding your dream.

Rachael Qualls is the founder and CEO of Venture 360, a platform that provides investors and investor groups with a great platform to manage their portfolios. Venture 360 also provides entrepreneurs the support they need to manage their relationships with investors so they can focus on running their businesses. Connect with Rachael on Twitter and Google+.

How to Take a Product Startup From Idea to Market [Infographic]

We talk a lot about software startups around here. Software is relatively cheap, pretty easy to iterate on, and more or less free to “ship.”

Product startups don’t really have the same luxury. Growing your product startup from idea to market can be difficult and expensive. But not impossible.

Just like with software, it’s important to validate your idea before building it. With physical products it can cost anywhere from $50k to $250k to develop your MVP. And that’s just the first iteration! You need to be sure you’ve really got a great idea on your hands before you dive in.

Competitive analysis, differentiation–we know all this from software startups, and it can apply to products as well. Product startups also have to think about markup, shipping, warehousing, and supply chains.

Autodesk and Lemonly came up with an infogrpahic series to outline the process. Check out the first one below:

Learn more about this Product Design Business Plan Infographic and small business best practices from Line//Shape//Space.