Inside The Mind Of A Startup Entrepreneur [Infographic]

Top Management Degrees, a blog that serves as a guide to management degree programs, has compiled some good data that promises to take a look “inside the mind of a startup entrepreneur.”

The infographic below highlights some of the things that help a startup entrepreneur go from idea to an actual startup. The infographic starts out by suggesting that there are two types of leaders: transactional and transformational. The transactional leader is destined to be the CEO of a well-established company, often traveling up the ladder of success. The transformational leader, on the other hand, is the one who’s cut out to “shift the paradigm”.

They’ve also assembled a wide range of quotes to support their theory about startup founders, entrepreneurs, and eventually leaders.

Does this infographic describe you? Check it out below:

Now check out Billion Dollar Startups In A Beautiful Infographic

How To Start That Online Startup You’ve Been Thinking About

Is this the year you will finally launch that brilliant new business idea?

It’s a good time to start — never before has it been easier or cheaper to build your own Web-based business. Technology has come a long way in the last few years in making tools for building sites more accessible to everyone (not just technologists).

Here are some easy ways to get a head start:

Map your “lean canvas,” not your business plan. Business plans are so last century. Don’t waste time writing multi-paged business plans that are just layer upon layer of hypotheses based on market research. Experienced entrepreneurs know the secret to success lies in execution rather than extensive planning. So instead, invest your initial planning in a Lean Canvas: a succinct approach to proving hypotheses about your business.
Pick a great domain name. The domain name of your site should be memorable and preferably have a dot-com. That means there are likely slim pickings, so you may have to pick the name of your site based on what domain is available. LeanDomainSearch is the perfect tool to figure this out. Just enter a word you like and their search engine will comb the Web for available dot-com combinations.
Find a developer to build your website. A great website takes a great developer who will help you build exactly what you want. Although you could outsource your site, in my experience, it’s better to hire someone you trust and can collaborate with directly — particularly if you’re building an e-commerce site. If you don’t have a referral or a developer in mind, check out matchist – a service we built specifically to bring together entrepreneurs and top U.S.-based freelance developers. The site helps you understand what technologies and skills are needed to build exactly what you’re looking for so you can find the right developer to make that dream a reality.
Put up a landing page ASAP. While your site is getting built, start building buzz (and collecting data) by putting up a landing page. New sites like LaunchRock make this super easy. You can start gathering email addresses for people interested in learning about when your site launches right away for a head start on marketing.
Start testing — and keep learning! Get up to date on Lean Startup Methodology, an approach to building a business (pioneered by Eric Ries) that involves making and testing hypotheses to figure out exactly what combination of product and marketing will make your business successful. And read blogs like KISSMetrics, Startup Lessons Learned, and Practice Trumps Theory to learn how other online businesses are paving the way quickly and cheaply.

Don’t spend yet another year dreaming of starting a business — instead, take these steps to get started as early as possible. The quicker you start learning, testing and collecting data, the quicker you will build that successful venture you’ve been dreaming of.

Tim Jahn is the co-founder of matchist, a curated service for freelance developers to connect with quality clients and projects. He’s also the co-founder of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, an events and media company that helps entrepreneurs move their businesses forward. As an active member of the Chicago tech community, Tim has made his mark interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the world.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

6 Reasons To Start Your Startup Now!

You don’t have to have a Harvard MBA to know that the economy hasn’t climbed out of its slump entirely just yet. Household debt has grown, unemployment remains relatively high, and Americans aren’t spending the way they once did. With all these obstacles, you’d think it would be the worst time to start your own business. But a struggling economy presents opportunities for ambitious entrepreneurs — you just have to know where to find them.

1. Real Estate Is Cheap
With so many businesses failing in recent years, commercial real estate is widely available. Do your research — find a space that’s conveniently located and reasonably priced. Once you narrow the field to a few candidates, play hardball with your prospective landlord. If you can’t get a reduced monthly rent, try to get other concessions, such as paid utilities, free renovations, or lease termination flexibility.

2. Staffing Will Be a Breeze
With the national unemployment rate hovering just under 8 percent, there are a lot of qualified workers out there looking for a good opportunity. Dig deep during the interview process to find folks who share your vision and passion. You should get a lot of resume submissions, so be discerning. When you interview candidates, try to get a sense of who’s in it for the long haul. Overqualified applicants may intend to coast through a job until the one they really want comes along.

3. You Have Protection Against Unemployment
When layoffs and cutbacks are rampant, the best way to avoid being fired is to be your own boss. You may not be able to control how successful your business is, but you can control every decision, work every hour of every day, and if your business fails, it won’t be because some faraway board decided to cut 10,000 jobs. Success or failure lie primarily in your hands when you run the show.

4. The Economy Doesn’t Matter
When Steve Jobs dropped out of college to found Apple Computer in 1976, the United States was coming out one of its worst recessions in recent memory. Do you think his parents thought that was a good idea? Ambition, intelligence, and drive are three entrepreneurial essentials that cannot be stopped, even by the weakest economy. If you surround yourself with the right people, create a work-friendly environment, and keep customer service at a high level, you can succeed in any economic climate.

5. History Is on Your Side
Not only Apple, but CNN, Microsoft, and Burger King were all launched during recessions. Add to that MTV, Hyatt, FedEx, and General Electric and you’ve got an all-star roster of American success stories. The founders of these companies didn’t let a challenging economy stop them from pursuing their dreams. If the entrepreneurial bug has bitten you, waiting around for three years won’t increase your chances of success. Work hard, market yourself aggressively, and don’t take no for an answer.

Final Thoughts
When you do pull the trigger on that startup, make sure you save on costs wherever you can. Market your business for free through social media, hire free labor from students looking to bolster their resume with internships, and negotiate with every contractor and vendor. Remember, they’re more likely to give you a discount in today’s economy. Success is out there waiting for you, so don’t let it wait any longer.

If you have a business idea in mind, what are you waiting for?

Andrew Schrage is co-owner of the MoneyCrashers.com Personal Finance website. The site strives to educate readers on a wide variety of topics, including how to budget for retirement, tips to increase your income, and the best small business credit cards. Schrage hopes to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives as they work to gain and maintain financial freedom.

Image: Transitionaldata.com

The 2-Second “Rule”: Or,What Your Startup’s Homepage Should Really Do

I’m not sure where it originated, but there’s an oft-quoted “rule” of marketing in startup circles that claims the first priority of a website is to explain what the company or product does.

It goes a little something like this, as captured in a recent comment on a Hacker News post:

It took me about 7-10 seconds to understand what your product is. I should be able to understand within 2 seconds.

When put this way, statements like these sound like truisms that a logical person may agree with, even repeat. But really, the whole notion that your homepage’s messaging should try to quickly explain what your product does is totally misleading. This isn’t a rule at all.

Certainly, plenty of studies show that there is indeed a small amount of time during which you must capture a visitor’s attention. But if that’s true, wouldn’t you rather say something meaningful and interesting versus spouting out a basic description of your features?

I’d suggest opting for something that’s both true to your brand and useful to your visitors. Getting straight to the point about what you do is largely unnecessary, since visitors will have some idea of that anyway.

Are most of your site’s visitors arriving with zero context of who you are and what you do? How is that even possible?

Users land on a site with a specific intent, either to purchase something or to explore a solution. The primary goal, at least of the homepage, should not be to educate all visitors on what your product does, since most will already have some idea. So a primary goal should be to move them to the next step of the decision making process.

Let’s consider the main ways in which most visitors will arrive at your site:

1. Search – the visitor is seeking something specific

2. Social – the visitor has clicked a link, typically with accompanying context from those in their network

3. Display – your copy and layout, likely with a clear marketing message, enticed the visitor to click

4. Email – similar to display, something about your messaging compelling the visitor to click

In each situation, people have a pretty good idea of what they’re getting themselves into when visiting your site. So really there’s potentially only one scenario in which explaining what you do is the top priority:

1. Randomness – most of these visitors won’t be in your target audience anyway

Optimizing for random visitors is obviously ill-advised, so we’re left with the four previous inbound channels. And all of those imply context, some level of understanding on the part of the visitor as to who you are and what you do.

So does the 2-second rule really apply?

I’d say no. Focus less on these kinds of false aphorisms and spend time understanding potential users, how they arrive at your site, and how your homepage can pull them one step further in the process of choosing your solution.

Still need help? I’m offering free 30-minute Google Hangout office hour sessions to take questions about startup branding and messaging. No strings attached. Get in touch if that interests you.

Patrick Woods is a hybrid ad man/startup guy. As director of a>m ventures, he connects startups with awesome branding, PR, and marketing strategy.

*Originally posted on Medium.

**Nibletz Media, Inc is an a>m ventures portfolio company.

Now check out 5 Rules For Naming Your Startup

Here It Is, The Secret To Entrepreneurial Happiness

During our childhood years, measuring success was as simple as counting gold stars and smiley face stickers. In high school and college, we relied on report cards. But how do we determine success now, as entrepreneurs?

In Southern California’s bustling startup scene, known as “Silicon Beach,” many professionals leave the comfort of a steady paycheck to pursue the American dream of starting something they can call their own. And after numerous conversations with like-minded entrepreneurs, we found that many of these entrepreneurs measured their venture’s success not in dollars, but by their own satisfaction or happiness.

It’s no secret that money can’t buy happiness. In fact, according to an oft-cited study by Stanford University economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, once you’re pulling in a salary of $75,000, any additional dollar earned does nothing more to increase personal life satisfaction.

So if happiness cannot be bought — and yet we use it to measure our business success — what can we do to attain it? Over the last decade, researchers in Positive Psychology have discovered a number of behaviors that boost happiness. To boost your own, practice these four behaviors:

1. Create a social circle of like-minded entrepreneurs.

Two heads are better than one when it comes to problem solving. A team of entrepreneurial peers can see what escapes our own attention, point out pitfalls ahead of time, and become a sounding board for critical decisions and actions.

Commit to creating a circle of like-minded entrepreneurs in which no money is exchanged between members.

2. Give your time away.

Many entrepreneurs think that devoting every waking moment to their company will ultimately be the key to success. But when you spend time helping others instead of yourself, your sense of time expands.

Professor Cassie Mogilner, a researcher on happiness and time management atthe Wharton School, explained this recently: “The results show that giving your time to others can make you feel more ‘time affluent’ and less time-constrained than wasting your time, spending it on yourself, or even getting a windfall of free time.”

Whether it be through mentorship, volunteering, showing interest, or lending an ear to a friend, giving time to others expands your sense of time and results in greater life satisfaction.

3. Set attainable goals.

The art of goal-setting can take years to master. As entrepreneurs, we all have big goals, and to experience success we have to learn to break large goals into smaller goals that are within our daily reach.

Try creating one goal per day that you want to accomplish outside of your day-to-day emails and meeting commitments — then do everything in your power to turn this into a lasting habit.

4. Practice gratitude.

There are a variety of ways to practice gratitude that entrepreneurs can easily incorporate into their daily routine. One approach is to set aside time every week to write thank you notes, sent via snail mail or over email.

If you thank a client, that’s expected. But if you thank someone for an unexpected task, research from Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California suggests that your mind becomes more sensitive to positive interactions — and less sensitive to negative ones.

By practicing gratitude, you will begin to cultivate a chronic state of happiness.

Happiness is the new gold standard.

The traditional gold standard for measuring professional success is money, yet entrepreneurs almost always cite happiness as the highest-priority goal for attaining success.

Do you already practice any of these four happiness-promoting behaviors? If not, try integrating them into your daily practice today.

And guess what? Happiness can also lead to better health, more energy, productivity, and yes — more money.

Dmitriy Katsel is the founder of Spring Theory, an organization that matches corporations with universities in semester-long collaborations to explore solutions to big challenges. Sara Gershfeld, behavior analyst and founder of LoveMyProvider, also contributed to this article.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Startup Tips: 9 Challenges To Partnering With A Bigger Company

Question: Are there any disadvantages to partnering with a company much bigger than yours, and how do you manage them?

Where’s the Control?

“The chief disadvantage of partnering with larger companies is loosing control over timeline and positioning. Typically, you are rate-limited in progress by how fast the larger organization can move, and you won’t be able to directly control the channel partner to do what you want. You can’t manage your partners, but what you can do is set firm expectations and legal obligations from the onset.”

– Victor Wong | CEO, PaperG

Watch the Time Sink

“Bigger companies, by their nature, move much slower than your company. Keeping things moving can be a struggle when you aren’t use to dealing with as much bureaucracy.”

– Wade Foster | Co-founder, Zapier

Beware of Bureaucracy

“When working with a large company, it is important to recognize that it may take some time to identify the appropriate contact, and that the person you’re working with may or may not have the influence or bandwidth to get things done. Consequently, these relationships are time-consuming to build and can take a lot of effort for a small team to manage effectively.”

– Garrett Neiman | Co-founder and CEO, CollegeSpring

Just Word of Mouth?

“Partnering with a larger company can be great, but when it comes down to it, you are just another word of mouth for them. You sometimes do more work for them while they just let your name “appear” with them. Do what works best for you and do ask yourself if you really need to partner with them. If not, then don’t even jump on the boat.”

– Ashley Bodi | co-founder, Business Beware

Getting Lost in the Shuffle

“A good partnership means that you have to have clear communication, which can be tough when you’re dealing with a company with multiple layers of stakeholders — each of whom may leave her position, veto a step or otherwise make the partnership more difficult to deal with. It’s not impossible to deal with, but when you have fewer personnel to shepherd a deal, it’s something you need to be aware of.”

– Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Feature Creep!

“When you partner with a large company, beware the “just add one more thing” disease. Large companies are used to getting what they want and will try to push you to write more features, add more support or customize your business around their needs, sometimes to the overall detriment of your business.”

– Nathan Lustig | cofounder, Entrustet

Retention vs. Innovation

“Working with partners much bigger than you are rarely works out. Big companies are often very inflexible, slow moving, and sometimes require massive contracts that take months to negotiate and that they have no hesitation about pulling out of very quickly. The culture at many big businesses is about “job retention” rather than “innovation”, and biz dev people often keep themselves busy with meetings that go nowhere while trying to cover their behind. Despite numerous attempts, and thousands of hours, I’ve never had a partnership that made a big difference to our bottom line.”

– Matt Mickiewicz | Co-Founder, Flippa and 99designsAdjust Your Timelin

“Manage your expectations regarding timelines. Everything takes forever in larger bureaucracies. Decisions have to be reviewed and approved by three layers of management and usually one committee — the red tape can really hamper your plans if you’re not realistic about the timelines you’re working with.”

– Brent Beshore | Owner/CEO, AdVentures

Don’t Be Bullied

“A bigger company can sometimes bully you around since you are the smaller partner. You can easily manage the relationship by being very clear with expectations and and terms of the relationship.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Now check out: Learn to pitch BEFORE you raise capital.

Some Of Atlanta’s Top Startups Talk About Competing For Talent

Startups face a myriad of challenges as they evolve from concept to validation, launch to revenue generation. None of these stages is easy. All require effort, perseverance, and talent. Attracting and retaining top talent is not a number one priority when held up against other pressing issues such as product development and, in some cases, attracting capital.

But when they are ready, startups have to vie for talent in a tight market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for IT professionals is in the low single digits. Projections indicate that by 2016, the increase in technical hiring will more than double the growth rate of all other occupations. In this hyper-competitive market where the competition is large, established corporations that can afford to extend attractive compensation packages and startups with personnel needs face an uphill climb.

In this red-hot labor market, wise startups realize that it’s not always about cash. Instead, offering a unique culture and creative perks can be just as compelling. It also helps to recruit in places that others do not.

MailChimp CEO Ben Chestnut knows firsthand how hard it is to attract talent, but it’s not because Atlanta is a barren wasteland. He uses the fact that Atlanta is a top market in the region to his advantage. “It’s very much a ‘leave no stone unturned’ approach we take, and I’d add that we tend to look under really weird stones. It helps a ton to be in Atlanta, because we’re an attractive city for talent in surrounding areas to move to.”

Soletron CEO A.J. Steigman, an Emory graduate, uses being in Atlanta, and connections with the local universities to his advantage. “The business conditions in the city are superb for startups,” says Steigman. “The positive business environment plus the ability to recruit top notch talent from local universities were the primary reasons for us getting our Buckhead office.”

Startups know there are intangibles that come into play when trying to attract talent. Founders and CEO’s alike find themselves having to sell their vision to potential employees. This is difficult in the earlier stages of a startup’s life but does get increasingly easier as it gains traction. Consistency and clarity of vision is key.

“Our sell is always the same,” offers up Michael Tavani, co-founder of Scoutmob. ”We have a huge and unique opportunity to do something magical that’s never been done before and doesn’t happen much, if ever, out of Atlanta.”

Scoutmob is one of the few business-to-consumer startups showing traction in a town known more for successes among business-to-business startups.

Unique perks go a long way toward attracting Millennial and Gen Z candidates who make up much of Scoutmob’s employee base. Located in the hip Krog Street area, this is Tavani’s description of the “vibe” at Scoutmob: “a casual environment, no set hours or vacation policy and working with a bunch of people that are determined to create something delightful that millions of people will use.”

Continue reading, and see what Adam Bitzer cofounder of Pardot and Bill Fasig CMO at Sports Challenge network have to say.

Why The Perfect Startup Pitch Isn’t A Pitch At All

Everyone loves a good story. Some of our favorite stories are from movies we watched as children. They all have the same ending: “…and they lived happily ever after.”

We know the ending before the movie even begins, so why do we watch them? We watch to see the journey. The journey that started with a struggle or a problem is finally resolved as the prince and princess ride off into the sunset.

So why, then, do most investment pitches start with, “And my company is the next Apple or Facebook”? I mean, that’s the fairytale ending, isn’t it? That our startup is the next multibillion-dollar company?

Apple and Facebook didn’t start out as multibillion-dollar companies. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built their first product, the Apple I, on the mere vision that computers would be used by consumers — at a time when computers were exclusively used by businesses. Through innovation after innovation, Apple evolved into the company we know today, but the journey was not done without its struggles. (If you want to get the full picture of all the company’s struggles, read the nearly 600-page biography of Steve Jobs written by Walter Isaacson.)

Besides, as an early-stage startup, there are no great revenue numbers to put on a slide – only predictions. You may have a business plan, but it could completely change tomorrow.

What you do have is a story. You have experienced a problem or seen a need. Now you are actively working to provide a solution to that problem, or fill that need. Not only that, there have been bumps in the road thus far and there will be even more in the future — so your determination and passion to get the job done needs to show.

For example, my company provides expiration date management software to the grocery industry, but my investment pitch never starts out with, “I made Date Check Pro, and it will make millions!”

Instead, I start out by describing how I used to work in a grocery store. I checked far too many expiration dates on far too many cereal boxes, and realized there had to be a better way.

The goal of starting with the story is to show that you are personally connected to the problem you are looking to solve, and that you are the right person for the job.

Knowing this, investors are more likely to connect with you, the entrepreneur. One of our investors — Peter Layton, a former partner at Goldman Sachs turned serial entrepreneur and angel investor – told me recently, “I invest in people first and the idea second. I want to hear the entrepreneur’s experience with the problem they are looking to solve, their passion to solve it, and how they plan to do so. If the story is good, I am more likely to invest since I know there is a good founder behind the idea.”

So before your next pitch, remember these key tips:

Share your story instead of pitching your company.
Keep it short — six minutes or less.
You’re running an early-stage startup. You don’t have perfect financial projections or a fireproof business plan. Include your plan to grow the company into your story, but be open to suggestions.
Practice, practice, practice. Yes it’s a cliché, but you don’t write your story in one sitting. How could you tell it perfectly on the first try?
Remember: You’re not “pitching,” just telling a story. Relax!

Andrew Hoeft is the founder of Pinpoint Software, Inc. His company has created Date Check Pro, expiration date management software that allows for proactive management of inventory and will be launching a second product late 2013. He is a co-founder of StartupMKE, a founding member of StartupWI, and a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater studying entrepreneurship. In addition, his company is a member of the Gener8tor accelerator program which provides numerous resources to start-up technology companies.

Now read: Why bootstrapping might be the smartest choice you make

Jason Fried of 37signals Talks Product Design at Chicago TechWeek

It’s Chicago’s big week, and they have some awesome speakers and panels lined up.

First up, Jason Fried with Designing Products with Purpose. You probably know that 37signals builds collaboration apps for small businesses. Which means you probably know that they know what they’re talking about when it comes to product design. They’ve been in business for more than 10 years, so they’ve been through every change out there.

In the video below, Fried talks defines product design. In his view, product design doesn’t end when the product ships. Instead, designers need to think about the product and its usability years down the road.

He cautions entrepreneurs to focus and not try to do too much.

I’m always a fan of taking a vision that you have and cut it down to a manageable size so that you can actually do something.

Check out the rest of Fried’s video, and stay tuned for more TechWeek coverage.

3 Reasons Women Should Pitch Their Startups More Often

Women entrepreneurs don’t pitch as often as their male peers. I encourage women to step up to the plate, whether it’s asking for capital to fund their startup, or asking for a raise at work.

In 2012, only 16 percent of startups pitching to angels in the U.S. were women-led, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. Out of that 16 percent, 25 percent secured funding.

3 benefits of pitching your startup:

Feedback

Pitching your startup is a way that you can receive advice and suggestions from potential investors that can help your business model get closer to meeting market needs.

Connections

Don’t view pitching as a zero-sum game, where you either get funding or you don’t. Instead, view pitching as an opportunity for you to meet key influencers. While a potential investor may not be interested in investing in your startup, she/he may know someone who might want to learn more and, by pitching, you increase your network, as well as you chances of securing a relevant introduction.

And yes, capital.

One of my favorite sayings is, “If you want money, ask for feedback” (and we come full circle…). Pitching is an opportunity for you to share your startup, engage people, and secure funding. Whether someone wants to invest on the spot, or you receive a referral to a potential investor, remember that putting yourself out there can get you closer to raising capital.

Need a pep talk before venturing out to pitch? Check out the Pipeline Fellowship Blog, which features candid interviews with members of our community, as well as an Entrepreneur Prep section.

Article originally posted at Ideas Lab.

Natalia (aka Ms. Oberti Noguera) is Founder and CEO of the Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women philanthropists. Natalia holds a BA in Comparative Literature & Economics from Yale. Women’s eNews recognized her as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century for 2012 and Business Insider included her on its 2013 list “The 30 Most Important Women in Tech under 30.” You can find Natalia on Twitter (@nakisnakis).

A programmer’s guide to getting hired by a startup

3 Components Of An Indispensable Product

At Shop It To Me, we believe companies can disrupt a market and have long-term loyalty not just by building a great or insanely fun product, but by building an indispensable product.

Look at some of the services today with the most avid users — Google Search, Apple’s iPhone (when it first came out), Twitter, Etsy, eBay, Pinterest — all have one thing in common: they have built a product that is indispensable for certain audiences.

What is indispensable?

So, what exactly is an indispensable product? I believe you can divide it into three different components:

1. An indispensable product solves an important or meaningful problem.

Every indispensable product out there solves important problems for its users. VCs often refer to this as as the “aspirin” vs “vitamin” scenario (whenever you have a headache or pain, aspirin is a must-have; vitamins are a nice-to-have).

There’s a reason Google Search is so popular — it is indispensable in two ways. Users of Google search trust it to give them answers to the most important questions. For advertisers, Google SEM and SEO has traditionally been the best place to find customers with active intent to buy their service. Selling your amazing new tax software for businesses? Get to be at the top of the search results for “business tax software” and you’ll have the huge number of highly targeted leads you need to crush your quarterly goals.

2. An indispensable product has no good substitutes.

To gain real traction, an indispensable product not only needs to solve an important need; it must lack good substitutes when it first comes out. Your product won’t be indispensable if users can easily find an alternative.

When the Apple iPhone first came out, there were no other products remotely like it. It was terrible as an actual phone, but it was the only phone out there for consumers that would let you actually search and view real web pages (as opposed to just mobile versions), or see your emails in a visually appealing and simple way.

If you want to build an indispensable product, you need to make your product unique for the customers you are going after — you can’t just be a slightly better version of a popular product and expect people to switch.

3. An indispensable product is ideally something you need on a frequent basis.

The third point is not a true requirement of indispensability, but an important attribute if you want to build a habit and get frequent usage. If people find your product indispensable but only need it once every 5 years (or once at all), you may have a great product, but you won’t be building a habit for when competitors enter the space. On the other hand, if people need your product frequently, you have the ability to train them to be accustomed to your service. This will keep users coming back long after other competitors make similar products (think of the millions of people still using MyYahoo! 10 years later).

A quick test for indispensability

So you think your product has all three of the criteria for an indispensable product. How do you know for sure that it’s indispensable? Here’s one easy test: take it away from your users and see how they react. If people start screaming that the service you provide is gone, there’s a pretty decent chance you have an indispensable product.

Think about the products that are indispensable to you. Smartphones, webmail and Twitter are all indispensable to certain people. Think of how people tense up when their phone goes missing for 15 minutes, or how a reporter would feel if they could not access their Twitter feed and had to wait until news appeared on a website.

From inadvertent tests, we know our Shop It To Me emails can be indispensable. Every once in a while our emails get delayed. When that happens, we often hear about it not only from our data but from our support box — users email us demanding (occasionally with profanity) why their salemail has not yet arrived. And with our new product, Shop It To Me Threads, we occasionally test the waters of indispensability by asking user-testers how they would feel if we removed certain features. We’ve had a number of features that users say are “really great” that we removed from our system because they didn’t notice when they were gone.

So for all of you working on the next big thing: as you build out your product, and start prioritizing features, figure out what parts are needed to make your product more indispensable. Focus your energies on that. You’ll build a stronger product and have a much larger chance of turning your idea into a wild success.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Charlie Graham is the founder and CEO of Shop It To Me, an intuitive personal shopping assistant that knows what you want and delivers it on sale in your size.

Are today’s “world changing” startups, really world changing?

4 Useful Apps To Help You Manage Your Startup

The modern business world is mobile — it’s not about brick-and-mortar offices and storefronts. It’s not about desks and computers wired to the spot. To work effectively on the go and with an equally tech-savvy customer base, you need to put together a custom array of business apps to get the job done. The following apps are excellent resources for startups, from media and marketing firms to goods and commodities retailers.

1. Square

If you’re a point-of-sale retailer and you don’t know about Square, now is the time to learn. With the help a simple peripheral, Square allows businesses of all sizes to create a mobile point-of-sale, eschewing cash registers and clunky credit card swipers altogether. Square lets you take payments, send receipts by email, set prices and track your cash flow by the minute. This is a must-have for any retailer, whether operating out of a single location or on the go.

2. Business Plan

Tracking your fledgling company’s data and presenting it to potential clients, investors, and employees is both essential and difficult. Business Plan allows you to keep all of this information in one, tidy package. It’s a great app for those who have never written a business plan before, presenting you with a simple, step-by-step template with clean graphics and a simple interface. As a bonus, Business Plan links to another app, Start-up Budget, that lets you calculate your base finances dynamically.

3. Basecamp

Just because your startup is lean and full of driven, talented people doesn’t mean it’s easy to keep all your ducks in a row. Basecamp is a full-service project management app that keeps track of info big and small. It’s a personal planner, memo-maker, inbox and filing cabinet all in one. Use it to create to-do lists, upload files to share with others in the company, and send and receive feedback to everyone on every project. Most conveniently, Basecamp isn’t entirely bound by its central app. Users can access their Basecamp account on any device that has Internet access, from a mobile device to a laptop or desktop computer.

4. BizXpenseTracker

When you’re on a tight budget (and startups are always on a tight budget), expenses can get out of hand very quickly without proper monitoring. BizXpenseTracker allows you to keep a handle on every cent you spend at home and on the road. It features trip-specific expense reports, mileage tracking, timetables, and other features to keep all the P’s and Q’s in order. It also has a handy receipt photo uploader that lets you digitize all the little purchases along the way. All of this info is easy to share via email and file managers like Dropbox.

These are just a few of the best apps out there that help startup businesses stay informed and efficient. There are many other tools for the small business community that make daily operations and networking that much easier. Apps let you run your startup free from paper, confusion, and miscommunication while saving you money and helping you make the most of the versatile technology at your disposal.

Need more knowledge check out these 10 startup tips at nibletz.com

Droppin’ Knowledge, 10 Great Startup Tips Worth Reading

Whether you’re new to startups and entrepreneurship or you need a refresher course, the startup tips here at Nibletz are definitely worth checking out. Here are 10 to start with.

How to find the right venture capitalist for your startup.

10 must read startup tips for young brands.

Traction trumps team when going for the million dollar round.

Startups is your public relations strategy outdated?

5 rules for naming your startup.

Recruiting for success, tapping into your local university.

My favorite startup wisdom came from critics.

How startups can identify their core values.

Top 5 reasons startup founders blow through money.

5 Steps for calculating your startup costs.

This startup conference will be chalk full of tips for startups everywhere else.

Image: Incrowdnow

Learn to Pitch BEFORE You Start Raising Capital

It only took about six months of deal flow and a handful of “pitches” before I realized that most entrepreneurs are really, really bad at “selling themselves” and “pitching” their ideas and companies to investors.

I cringe every time I listen to a great start-up idea or read a well-written executive summary, and then watch in horror as the founder stumbles and trips throughout the “pitch.” So many good ideas and businesses never get funding and/or fail to receive the benefits of a properly funded startup – all because of a poor presentation during the “pitch.”

The sad part is that as I’m sitting there taking notes, I’m thinking to myself, if only I could have spent a few hours with this poor guy or gal BEFORE his/her presentation. We could have highlighted “this or that,” deleted a whole section here, added more about “this” and not talked about “that” –then they probably would have at least gotten a second look and due diligence follow-up.

This is not the only way to give a “pitch,” but hopefully it will help improve your presentation and increase your chances of obtaining funds. By following these eight simple suggestions you’ll be setting yourself apart from the other poor “pitches.”

1. Tell us what you do in as few words as possible.

Maybe it’s me, but it seems like most Angels and VCs are people with type “A” personalities. We have short attention spans and don’t like to waste time. Give us the “short version,” and if or when we ask questions, then you can provide us with more details. The first thing we want to do is understand what it is that you do – in plain and simple English. Next on the list, we want to know what problem you solve and why your solution is important to your customer.

2. What’s the plan? How does it scale?

As investors, we aren’t always interested in your product, but we are interested in “returns.” Your mission statement is important to me, but what is really rolling around in my head while you’re up there giving us the “pitch” is: Will this work? Is this the right guy/gal for the job? How much money will we be able to make when we sell our shares? Does this thing scale? Explain to me how you are going to market and grow the business. Most investors are in it to make a profit, and if your business doesn’t scale, it probably won’t be very profitable. I’m not interested.

3. Talk about the team.

This is very important to investors. Don’t just put up a slide of your team and their past job experiences. Tell us why you’ve assembled this team for this opportunity and highlight your expertise. We know everyone has to start somewhere. Personally, I like to see and hear your passion about the product. Because, I know that passionate people find ways to get things done when they hit the “bumps in the road,” and there will always be “bumps” along the startup highway. Startups are hard; passionate people can make it over the “bumps”.

4. What’s your go-to-market strategy?

Your great idea is useless if no one hears about it or knows it even exists. So many people spend time developing a great product, only to find out no one wants it. How are you going to get it into the hands of your customers? What is your Marketing plan? What is your customer acquisition cost? Do you have any sales channels besides your sales team?

5. What is your competitive advantage?

Chances are that you’re not the first person to see this problem and offer a solution. There are probably about 28 people working on the exact same problem in some form or another. As VCs, we have probably heard a “similar” pitch within the last several months, if not weeks. More often than not, it’s not about the idea, but about “execution of that idea” that we are all betting on. Tell us “what it is” that your team brings to the table that can help you out-execute your competition – your IP, your marketing advantage, your knowledge or your network?

6. Let us touch and feel your product.

A short demo or actual product sample is really key. I want to use it, at least see it. Is it simple? Does it solve your customer’s problem? Is it easy to use from a user’s point of view? We don’t need to understand all the features or really any of the code – I just want to know that it’s clean, works and is simple to use. It’s hard to invest in things that look too complicated and things we can’t fully understand.

7. Expose your weaknesses before we do.

Successful people understand their strengths and weaknesses. Go ahead and acknowledge your weaknesses because I guarantee that everyone in the room is asking themselves: What is it that I don’t like about this? Where are the holes in this plan? What’s holding me back from investing in these people? Does this team have what it takes? Let us know about the risks you see moving forward and tell us how you plan to handle them. Be honest.

8. Show us the FINANCIALS.

It’s hard to forecast projections for an early stage company, but show us what you’ve got; we know they’re probably wrong anyway. Explain what it will take to double or triple the sales and what kind of timeframe you will need to accomplish this. We also want to know your “breakeven” numbers. Plus, as investors we don’t particularly like to see the funds going to Founder salaries; we want you spending money in marketing, development, and sales. Oh, and make sure you tell us how much money you are trying to raise. What’s the Ask?

This isn’t the only way to get funded, but I hope it helps. If you nail these 8 key points in the “pitch” and can answer some basic questions about your product, valuation, and your competition, you’ll have a much better chance of raising funds and building your awesome company.

Dr. Tony Ratliff is a dad, dentist, entrepreneur and investor in the Indianapolis Start-up Community. He practices dentistry throughout the week, but has a passion for angel investing, business strategies, technology and start-ups. You can follow him @drtonyratliff or check out his blog Venture Capital, Start-ups and Dentistry.