Tuesday, 28 June 2016

How Much Do Small Businesses Spend on Facebook Marketing? Not That Much

Millions of small businesses are using Facebook but only half are spending any marketing dollars there.

New data from Alignable shows that half of the small businesses it surveyed — among more than 1,200 of its users — spent $0 last quarter on their Facebook marketing efforts.

Entrepreneurs can often be so focused on making the company culture fun and lighthearted, that employees don’t understand the importance of productivity. That’s why we asked 12 founders from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) how they make their expectations clear without damping the mood.
Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

Can Eco-Friendly Office Help Save Money and Improve Employee Morale?

Green is good! This slogan is not only useful for propaganda, but in reality the eco friendly office can help small business owners save money in the long-term. Not only that, studies have proved that by implementing eco friendly philosophy and policies in the office can boost employee morale and productivity by making them feel better overall.

Benefits of the Franchise Model for Business Expansion

Managing a business can be risky, but at the same time very rewarding. Some businesses have the right formula or get lucky and are able to attract customers and grow sales rapidly. This is the time when they should look into expansion. Sometimes, this means growing the business organically, and in other cases it’s more sensible to turn the business into a franchise.

If you want to start your own business, perhaps you should consider the internet cafe sweepstakes business. The internet cafe business has proven to be lucrative for number of people. One reason for this is that everyone likes to do things that are fun and exciting and internet café provides just that.

When you sense a conflict brewing in the business situation what do you do? Do you put your head down and focus on your own work to stay out of it? Do you play peacekeeper and attempt to help everyone just get along? Or do you add fuel to the fire?

How to Evaluate Business Before Buying

For many would-be small business entrepreneurs the path to business ownership starts with purchasing an existing business. While you will be paying a premium for the existing business in terms of goodwill, it gives you peace of mind knowing that the business is already established.
While this is true to some extent; we believe that you still have to be extra careful when purchasing an existing business.

Do you know how well your business is performing?

If you answer this question with “Oh! It’s OK” or “Just like everyone else”; without backing that up with the sales, cost or profit numbers your business may be heading for trouble.
Whenever we meet with our business colleagues and clients we ask this general question to get a sense of whether the business owner has a grip on his/her business. Many times the answers are what we mentioned earlier.

3 Must Follow Tips for Self Employed

Running a business of your own is everyone’s dream, but it also is one that you need to think long and hard before chasing. As with everything in life there are pros and cons of being a self-employed. Among the big benefits are the fact that you will be your own boss, leaving you free to work hours that suit you and pick your own holiday times.

Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset: Business Data and Information

You have built a strong customer base in your CRM system, and all information related to them – Their profiles, their preferences, their interests and their histories. I’m not sure that you can afford to lose any single of them!

Why is Failing at Your First Startup a Good Thing for Your Entrepreneurial Career?
The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launchedBusinessCollective,

Does Small Business Saturday Really Matter?

On Saturday, November 28th, communities across the nation will be celebrating Small Business Saturday. Falling immediately after Black Friday, and just two days before Cyber Monday, this annual observance has become an integral part of the holiday season’s retail surge.

Is there any connection between how your office is furnished and employee productivity? If you look at the amenities provided by Google, Facebook and other innovative companies you could argue that creating right atmosphere and furnishing the office properly can encourage creativity and make your employees more productive.

Do not Make these 7 Mistakes in Business Negotiations

Negotiation is more art than science. Just as some people have natural ability for art, I believe there are people born with “negotiation” genes. They already possess virtues required to succeed at negotiations.However, not all is lost for those who do not have these natural skills. By understanding your limitations and making plans to overcome them anyone can improve their success rates in the negotiation process.

One of the ways you can do this is by asking open ended questions to your customers, employees and other business owners to understand the reasons behind numbers. Below we have identified 10 questions that will get them talking.

Importance of Workplace Safety for Small Business Owners

Starting a new business is never an easy prospect, especially for those who are trying to be entrepreneurs for the first time. In many ways, it can be similar to attempting to keep several plates spinning without letting any of them crash to the floor. Apart from anything else, the experience is centred on sheer hard work.

Overcome Social Media Fears with 3-step Approach

Depending on whom you ask social media phenomenon of the last few years has either been a great boon to small business owners or a complete nightmare.

How do You know if your Business Idea will Succeed

Majority of small businesses fail in the first three years. As remarkable as this statistic is, it doesn’t stop number of aspiring entrepreneurs from pursuing their dream of owning a business. They think about their idea as the best thing since sliced bread was invented and are convinced that there is a huge untapped market out there that nobody as cracked. They have run their idea by close confidants and got their endorsement. Uncle Bob likes their product and Aunt Ann can’t wait to get her hand on it. There is only one problem. It is still an idea in your head!!!

5 Qualities of a Good Business Broker

Majority of small business owners use a business broker when buying or selling their business. A business broker takes the headache out of buying or selling process and lets you focus on your primary tasks. A broker also presents you with more and targeted opportunities that you cannot otherwise find yourself.

Checklist to Understand Marketing Benefits of Franchise

In the post about benefits of buying a franchise versus independent business we argued that one of the primary benefits provided by franchise is better marketing at a lower cost. By leveraging their size and expertise a franchise can create better brand and improve sales for all franchisees. Subway positioned itself as the Diet Sandwich Shop in the minds of all Americans by running the “Jared” campaign for number of years.

When many people think about trademarks, they think of those belonging to large businesses. Trademarks like Nike, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Mercedes-Benz are owned by corporations that spend tens of millions just on their brands. But all businesses can and should takeproactive steps to protect their brands and avoid the more expensive, nearly inevitable, alternative.

What you do NOT do is more Important than what you do DO

Here is a simple question you should be able to answer quickly – how much asset do you own in your small business?

According to Andy Warhol, “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”

You can also argue that art is an attempt to bring order out of chaos – and when it comes to your business’ washroom services, this statement can occasionally ring true.

Running a business, no matter what its size, can be full of difficulties and challenges. One of the main aspectswhich any business owner needs to come to terms with is time. How you spend your time is of paramount importance within the confines of your business.

In the rush to get orders completed, client projects started, and inventory put away, some small businesses end up neglecting record keeping processes.

5 Ways To Find Your Blogging Niche

Blogging is a great way for a business to show their personal side. You can give people a behind the scenes view of how you run your business. Maybe you want to share how you choose the business tools you use. You might even want to introduce your team members

7 Steps to a Healthy Mind for Healthy Business

Stress is an accepted part of business life, but left unchecked, it can transition from being an essential tool for getting through that task list to something that affects both our mental and physical health.

4 Best Practices in Social Media Marketing

In case you missed it, a certain corner of the social media world experienced an influx of joy, celebratory actions and a splash of a surprise this week when it was announced there would be changes coming to Twitter’s character limit and the way we will tweet.

5 Warning Signs that Tell you if your Business is Headed for Trouble

Smart International Trading for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

4 Weaknesses that can Hurt Your Trading Performance

Pros and Cons of Unconventional Startup Funding

6 Smart Reasons to Hire a Professional to Prepare Tax Return

4 Inexpensive Ways to Obtain Equipment for Manufacturing Companies

How To Add "READ MORE >>" to your Blogger Post. to display only title and few lines

When should I use Unsecured Loans for my Business?

When you heard or read somewhere about unsecured loans, chances are you’ll hear that they are bad loans, and you should stay away from them as far as you can. Well, as I’m always interested in alternative financing (including investing!) and I learn that even high-interest loans (except those that are coming from loan sharks!) can be great sources for your business – if you know how to manage them.

5 Less Conventional Ways to Fund Your Small Business

5 Less Conventional Ways to Fund Your Small Business

4 Unique Ways to Use Facebook for Your Business

Internet Advertising – A Must for Small Business

How to Grow your Business without Spending a Fortune

Below we summarize them for your convenience.

10 Most Unusual Ways to Promote Your Business

There are hundreds of ways to market your brand if you know where to look

Innovative Approaches to Generate Huge Sales

3 Essential Ways You Need to Allow Customers to Contact Your Business

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Does your website need an SSL certificate?

What’s an SSL certificate?
First things first. “SSL” is short for Secure Socket Layer. In simpler terms, it’s how small business communicate with customers that they can browse, buy products or services, and share information safely with you online. Without getting overly technical, adding an SSL creates a safe connection for those kinds of activities.
Think of an SSL certificate as a giant windshield for when you drive on the information super-highway. You wouldn’t head out on your local freeway — especially at night in a rural area — without something between you and all the bugs. You likely couldn’t see, and besides, you’ve already had your protein for breakfast. In much the same way, an SSL certificate protects your site — and its visitors — from many digital bugs, worms and other nasty web creatures.
Before quickly dismissing your site as “too small to be a target,” bear in mind that most interceptions are done electronically without a human deciding who is attacked. A web creepy crawly doesn’t care how big you are or what you do for a living. They have one goal, and that is to find vulnerabilities. Once discovered, its dirty work begins.
This brings us back to the original question: Does your website need an SSL certificate? Here are a few tips to help you decide.
Accept payment securely

Do you plan to accept major credit cards online? You’ll likely need amerchant account, and most of them will require you to use an SSL certificate. Some web hosting companies, including GoDaddy, have terms of service requiring websites to be secured with an SSL before accepting credit cards. Besides, would you really want to put your customers at risk of having their credit card information stolen while shopping on your site?
It’s not exactly a great way to attract repeat business.
Some online store and shopping cart programs come with a built-in secure payment system. In these cases, a third party handles the credit cards or provides another method of paying online. If this applies, it’s possible that your small business might not need the added protection of an SSL for your checkout page.
There are other reasons, however, to add an SSL.
Protect password logins
A major reason you might want to add an SSL certificate to your website is if any of your pages are password protected. This includes WordPress or Joomla! or other database-driven sites with a login page for the administrator.
Membership sites with multiple logins also create more opportunities for black-hat hackers to attack.
Remember, anything that needs to be secure online needs to operate under the safety net of an SSL certificate.
The web is filled with bots lurking around seeking poorly protected password pages to provide them access to your website. You don’t want to log on only to find your pages have been defaced or deleted.
Beware of outside content
Does your website include photos or text which originate somewhere outside of your hosting account? An SSL certificate will block unsafe content from appearing on your page. Because malicious code can be transmitted by images or text in ads or any content you allow to render on your page, adding an SSL certificate will give you the added safety of keeping potentially bad guys out.
Secure all web forms
Not everyone collects money online. Some websites collect information. These could be leads for potential home buyers. Or questionnaires about your client’s employment history. Or anything. If you are collecting even the most basic information such as name, address, phone number and email address, chances are your clients would not want that information leaked.
Without an SSL certificate, some types of form mail can be intercepted. Some code is more reliable than others. Do you want to take chances that yours is susceptible to hacking?
Probably not.
This is why securing your online forms with an SSL certificate is also a must. You wouldn’t do business with someone who skipped this step. Don’t give anyone this as a reason not to do business with you.

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

3 Inexpensive Businesses You Can Start to Try Your Hand as an Entrepreneur

Starting a Car Dealership

Car dealership

If you’ve got a plan in the works to start a car dealership, it may not seem very clear where you should begin. After all, starting a car dealership isn’t exactly a common ambition, but there are some clear steps you should take to get the ball rolling.

One of the first things you should do is secure a location for your car dealership as it will be required when you apply for your car dealer license. Selling more than five cars a year requires a dealer’s license in most states, so there is virtually no work-around for this. When looking for your location, you’ll need to keep a few things in mind. Your potential dealership location should have enough space to sport five vehicles and the lot should be visible from the road. Once you have found the location, financially secure it.

Next, you will need to get a surety bond. Think of a surety bond as an insurance policy that can be purchased for your dealership. The surety bond should be somewhere around $25k, and you should only end up paying a few hundred dollars to purchase it. The surety bond usually entails an application process that may request information about your business model/plan, letters of recommendation, organization charts, and more. Additionally, you will need to make sure your criminal record is clean.

Once you’ve taken care of all of these aspects, you should be ready to apply for your car dealer license. You can begin this process by contacting your local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). Sometimes, states will have varying prerequisites for applying for a car deal license, so be sure to clarify this when contacting the DMV. During the application process with your local DMV, you will need to show the DMV inspector to your commercially zoned lot for inspection and approval. After getting your car dealer’s license, you should be ready to go! Additionally, remember to get all of the proper paperwork such as buyer’s agreements, odometer disclosures, documents to transfer titles, and more.

Your last item of business is establishing your name and increasing sales! You should not rely completely upon word of mouth to propel your business. You should create a strong advertising/marketing plan to pitch to your target audience. Invest in a website and work with an SEO company to bring significant traffic to your site. There are all sorts of things you can do to get the word out about your new business.

13 Business Ideas Successful Entrepreneurs Wish They Thought Up Themselves

What is one business idea you wish you came up with yourself?

photo credit: pimthida

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

1. Waterproof Shower Notepad

I had this idea, but never executed. Now it exists on Amazon. I get almost 100 percent of my best ideas in the shower, but I forget a huge percentage of them if I don’t write them down in time. I wanted to design a waterproof note-taking device that would record ideas before they were lost. Someone else beat me to it!

– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

2. HubSpot

I’m beyond obsessed with HubSpot’s amazing marketing and sales tools. The inbound marketing software and sales management CRM are two of the most powerful, interesting things I’ve ever interfaced with. They’ve totally changed the way I think about analytics and business development, and they’re constantly improving with tools like the Sidekick email plugin.

– Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

3. The Java Jacket

The coffee sleeve that is on every Starbucks cup is patented by a company called Java Jacket, and they sell well over 1 billion jackets per year.

– Jon Cline, Rokit SEO

4. Bench

Bench is an online bookkeeping service. Despite being a CPA, I never found the time to do our accounting, as my focus was on building the business. It’s a known fact that the best startups are those that solve problems that the founders have experienced themselves and have the expertise to solve. As an accountant and technologist, I’d have loved to build a business like Bench.

– Vishal Shah, NoPaperForms

5. Seamless

Most people order out for food at least some of the time, and many families do so regularly. I wish I had thought of a way to make it easier for people ordering delivery and restaurants to effortlessly connect. It’s a genius business model and a great example of facilitating an everyday transaction. There’s also a huge potential for overseas expansion to Europe, Latin America and Asia.

– Jared Brown, Hubstaff

6. Coinstar

They solved a simple, offline problem (an alternative to cashing loose change) that affected nearly 100 percent of the population — to such a degree that the U.S. Mint essentially partnered with them.

– Sam Saxton, Salter Spiral Stair and Mylen Stairs

7. Square

Square has revolutionized the credit card processing industry. Prior to Square, if you were running a small business, there were a slew of steps associated with being approved and prepared to handle credit card transactions. With the introduction of Square, practically any business can be on board, allowing one to keep up with many larger competitors to an extent.

– Stanley Meytin, True Film Production

8. Snapchat

We love the idea of market pull — and there may be no better example than Snapchat. It would be great to see the amount of fruitless Google searches for “private messaging” prior to their launch. Snapchat truly answered a pent-up customer need, and more importantly, set the example for all of us on focusing on true market pull innovations, not simply pushing what’s convenient.

– Aman Advani, Ministry of Supply

9. Acorns

Like most Millennials, I have a hard time saving money, let alone investing it to secure a strong financial future after retirement. Acorns is an app that invests money from everyday purchases on your debit card by rounding up each amount to the next dollar automatically. Whether you’re investment-savvy or not, this app is a step in the right direction for financial security.

– Mark Krassner, Knee Walker Central

10. StoreDot

StoreDot has invented a solution to charge phone batteries fully within 30 seconds. I think this is going to change the world of mobile as we know it and has so many more applications. Wish I had come up with the technology know-how for this.

– Ben Lang, Mapme

11. Yelp

Yelp is the exemplar of seamlessly connecting people with quality goods and services. Every time I explore a new city or even a new neighborhood in my area, I open up the Yelp app on my phone to discover what’s around me. Eating at top-rated restaurants and finding local hotspots has never been easier!

– Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

12. Crowdfunding

Kickstarter, Indiegogo, you name it — I wish I’d come up with the idea to help people fund their dreams and causes they care about through the crowd. It’s an idea that has generated millions of dollars in financing, and it also has huge potential for expansion in emerging markets, especially Latin America and China.

– Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

13. Evernote

I love this app. I’ve used notes in Outlook for years, but there are a lot of issues with sync, formatting, etc. Evernote allows me to add pictures, video, time and location, voice notes and just about anything to my notes. Plus I can organize it by notebook as well, such as Marketing, Finance, Personal, etc. I love this thing! The sync works perfectly, too.

– Josh Sprague, Orange Mud

5 Proved Methods of Attracting Traffic!!

5 Proved Methods of Attracting Traffic

If you ever had a task of keeping a company website afloat, you’ve probably asked yourself (and Google, for that matter): how are you supposed to attract more visitors and, preferably, persuade them to buy something? Of course, there are no surefire approaches to this problem – but at the very least, there is a number of methods that have proved their effectiveness and keep bringing results even in the changing SEO playfield. Here are some of them.

1. Give Something Valuable for Free

People like freebies. Always did and always will. Therefore, a very viable method of attracting people to your website, making them interested in you and what you do and, possibly, turning them into clients and returning visitors is to give them something they perceive as valuable without making them pay for it.

It may be anything from a coupon for signing up with you, to a fragment of your e-book, to a YouTube channel with advice concerning your chosen industry. If they perceive your website as a source of useful free things, they will flock to it.

2. Guest Posting

Guest blogging is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow traffic, get in front of new audiences, and improve your search engine ranking. It utilizes content – the most important thing in today’s Internet.

A few years ago guest posting was gaining a lot of bad cred due to its results being mostly mechanical – people used it to gain more backlinks without bothering about the quality of posts per se – but since then Google went hard on that practice, and today’s guest posting is all about quality over quantity. Just make sure you find reliable guest posting company, and everything will be alright.

3. Utilize Social Media

Social media are not just for people inanely tweeting about what kind of food they are eating right now. They are for getting your content in front of new audiences, attracting visitors, running advertising campaigns.

Make sure you have accounts in Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and/or some other, less well-known time-eating behemoths. If people spend so much time in them, they can certainly use some of this time stumbling upon your content.

4. Update Regularly

Nothing serves as a greater turn-off for visitors than a website that obviously wasn’t updated in half a year. If you want to create a trustworthy image, start a blog and make sure you update it regularly. Experiment with different frequency of posts to decide upon something that will be both comfortable for you and will create the sense of a living website that doesn’t hibernate for a month after every update.

5. Don’t Be Annoying

Primarily it means that you shouldn’t always be obviously trying to sell something – even if you desperately want to do so. People want to believe they make their own decisions, which means that you should act with a little bit of finesse and give them a break from selling pitch from time to time.

Attracting new visitors and managing the old ones is one of the most difficult tasks facing a webmaster – but we hope that these tips will make it a little bit easier.

Does Physical Presence Have Any Room in Today’s Digital World?

In today’s age, everywhere you turn, you see the push toward digital marketing and advertising. Web browsers use complex algorithms and tracking software to tailor your ads to your personal tastes. Your inbox fills with solicitations, and your social media accounts get banners, updates, and other ads.

Electronic retailing is just as ubiquitous. We buy and sell online, reserve hotels and plane tickets, and review the goods and services we use, all without ever touching a piece of paper.

To see all this virtual commerce, you would think that’s the only way business is done anymore. But you would be very, very wrong.

The traditional means of handling business–specifically, doing it on paper–is not obsolete. There is obviously a large share of the market that prefers electronic methods, largely for convenience.

Yet there persists a large group of people and purposes for which paper has no substitute, and it’s in those situations where presenting yourself on quality stationery with a professional mail envelope makes all the difference. Neglecting this physical presence of your business can be far more damaging than the electronic world would have you believe.

Look at a few of the ways that physical will always beat virtual:

Durability

The downside of all electronic commerce is that its ease of use is equaled by its ease of disuse. In other words, the email that is so easy to send is just as easy to delete.

Paper is different. When you send business by paper mail, the recipient has a tactile reminder of your work. Even if the plan is to throw it away, the letter likely lies around in the car, briefcase, or desk for a little while, giving you the potential for a reprieve fro their immediate response of disinterest. Try doing that with an email.

But it isn’t just about sticking around for the customer to have a change of heart. It’s also about the customer who does have an interest. Imagine going to a trade show and writing up a quote for a customer. You tuck it into an envelope, smile and tell them you’ll be in touch. After a long day of visiting vendors, the client unpacks everything from the trade show and sees your professional envelope with professional content inside, and you have instantly reminded them of the great impression you made at your booth.

Verification

You’ve heard the expression that if it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen. The reliability and credibility of paper are without equal. Retention of records is critical for everything from litigation to tax audits, and if you are going on the cheap with your envelopes, you may not be able to preserve the legibility of addresses, postmarks, and receipt verification stamps.

And even in the course of normal business, this will matter. Imagine a city accepting sealed bids for ten new garbage trucks. The potential sale here is huge for the sales representative, so it’s critically important that his or her bid be received on time and in a legible format. If the city official can’t read a receipt stamp or postmark because the sales rep used a cheap envelope, the benefit of doubt may not be exercised, and the sale may go elsewhere.

Image

Your image is such a big part of your chances for success. While it may be exhilarating in your early days of business to produce some DIY envelopes, this should be one of the first areas that you upgrade when your finances tolerate it. By the same token, you can certainly reach more customers for less money with an email campaign, but again, when money allows it, you should go with hard copies.

A big reason for this is credibility. Customers of all types are wary of even the most believable emails these days. Hackers and spammers have accumulated and generated enough quality clip art that their products look convincing. When your company has invested in quality envelopes, good stationery, and the postage to send them, it has taken on a mantel of reputability that will build far more revenue than cheap alternatives will.

One of the most important skills a business operator needs to have is the ability to strategize when to save money and when to spend money. It’s the difference between an expenditure and an investment.

While a lot can be done electronically in business these days, much more work should be left to paper. Without it, it is tougher to preserve, verify, and market your business.

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Can you Start Up a £1 Million Business Whilst Still in a Full Time Job?

Many a start-up website will tell you to jump into your new business with both feet. Take the plunge and make your dreams a reality. But, in the real world you’ve got bills to pay and mouths to feed – let alone the security of a good job with a regular pay cheque. So, needless to say, many people don’t want to just tank their career on something that isn’t guaranteed.

But the dream still persists…

You want your new startup to be a reality. You know you can do it, but the risk is a real issue. So, can you start up a £1 million plus business whilst holding down a full time job?

The simple answer is yes.

My co-founders and I started www.lovethesales.com, a business valued at well over £1 million after its seed round, whilst all employed in senior full time roles. My hope is that this article will serve as inspiration for others that want to achieve the same.

Here’s what we did…

Framework

Firstly, we had to make sure we had a team that were up for the challenge. We all wanted something more than the 9-5, but had financial responsibilities that made taking a leap of faith too risky.

We knew we’d be spending a lot of our spare time on this project so we all committed to a weekly workload based on a ‘sprint’. This kept workload fair.

We didn’t want to jeopardise our current employment so we agreed that nothing should be planned or expected that could potentially be seen as a conflict of interests or affect our day job.

A simple agreement was penned that meant our shares were ‘vested’. This kept everyone interested in the project without having the ability to damage it should they wish to leave early in the process.

Finally, we were bootstrapping the project initially and knew we would need a little bit of capital to work with. We determined what sort of money we would need and then all committed to a monthly payment into the company to keep cash available.

Goal

Ultimately, we wanted to get to a position where we could attract and secure a seed round of investment. This meant we would then be able to give up our day jobs without the risk of having no money, as well as start spending on proper growth.

Setting some idea here about what that looks like is useful. What do you think would be sufficient KPI’s to attract seed investment in your market? Revenue growth, user base etc.

Strategy

Given that this project was about minimising risk, we did not want to spend time on something that was destined to fail. We wanted to work on the idea we had of making every sale on the internet available through one website and figured people would love it. But, we also knew we might be wrong – it could be a massive fail and we could be well off the mark of what people want. So, an MVP was the first thing to build.

If the MVP proved effective we would build a more robust site that allowed us to focus on KPI growth. This allows a switch from pure product, to marketing. With a better product available we could start to focus on SEO and PR.

With basic acquisition covered, we could switch some focus back to the product and start to work on retention.

This strategy allowed us to ensure we had a working product that was starting to find its fit in the market – an essential for attracting investment.

photo credit: Love the Sales

Tactics

So, what tactics did we use to make this magic happen?

Weekly planning – keeping a robust plan of what everyone is doing is essential for team morale and for keeping momentum in the project.
Open communication – being able to speak to the team quickly and easily is important for avoiding roadblocks and issues.
Not sleeping – this sounds rubbish, but something has to give if you are starting a business in your spare time. You simply have to find time in the day to get your work done, so sleeping less was a genuine tactic.
Effective use of time – inevitably you’ll get to a point where you have to make calls or have meetings during your working day. Early or late calls around your day job are a good way to squeeze this in, as well as using your lunch break. We also committed to using holiday allowance as a way to be available during a working day when necessary (this became more relevant as we started to meet investors).
Free stuff, as long as it is useful – there are many free resources available to startups, but many are not very good or are simply trying to get you to spend money you don’t have. Find every free resource you can, but verify its use. For example, Bizspark from Microsoft is genuinely useful because it gives you free hosting for a long time – something that can be cost prohibitive for an early stage web business.

Outcome

So, after doing all this, what happened?

Firstly, we worked a lot of hours. We definitely had to burn the midnight oil to get all of the work done. As well as the weekend oil, the early morning oil…

But, it paid off. We built an MVP as planned and that made a few thousand pounds worth of sales. It helped us prove an initial concept and learn lots about what we had to do with the product. From there we could build a full version of the site and start to tweak it and improve it where necessary.

We focussed on our KPI’s and managed to increase them month on month as you would want to. This in turn gave us the confidence that we had some product / market fit and that we were a good prospect for seed investment.

With that in mind, we were able to secure a seed round at a valuation well over £1 million and eventually hand in our notice and go full time on the project.

Since then we have seen huge growth. Full time hours on the company meant a lot more focus and a lot more improvement. To that end we are now closing a Series A round and are about to set a course for world domination! Well, huge growth anyway…

Takeaways

The biggest thing to remember if you want to minimise risk and start up whilst in a full time job is the amount of time it takes. We gave up most of our spare time for a year. Lots of weekends and evenings working. Lots of lunch breaks making phone calls or meeting people. This certainly takes its toll. Be prepared for that.

Aside from that, the main thing is to have a good team of people you know and understand. Team morale is tested heavily in those moments where everyone is fatigued so it’s important to set out the ground rules and remain positive. As I said earlier, communication is key to this.

In regards to business focus, having a clear plan really helped us. We knew we were aiming specifically for a seed round and that we would have a better chance of securing that quickly and favourably if we had a working product. Although we didn’t have a specific date to hit, we had an end goal and this is great for focussing the mind.

So, if like us, you want to get a business going without the risk of leaving your job first, hopefully this inspires you to try our method. Good luck.

The 7 Industries Where New Startups Are Thriving

Innovation and creativity thrive in the newest companies that are coming to the business world in the form of startups. Startups, which are rapidly expanding businesses that often recruit the help of technology to develop unique ideas, are becoming some of the top leaders in a variety of industries. Entrepreneurs poised to jump into this wildly changing market should look to begin in some of the hottest industries where startups are continuing to gain ground.

Here are some of the top sectors that are ripe for this type of business model.

photo credit: Brad Flickinger / Flickr

1. Learning Technology

Learning technology has come a long way since the days of the introduction of the personal computer decades ago. Today, there are hundreds of new startups that are devoted to the different niche markets of educational software or hardware. While some businesses focus on developing programs for educational institutions or the home, other organizations are devoted to creating new devices that help more students develop academic skills.

One of the biggest growing parts of this industry involves technology for special needs students. Students get to be more engaged with the curriculum in these situations.

2. Privacy Solutions

The concern for privacy is something that people are just now starting to realize the importance of. With online security constantly being challenged, financial information often getting breached, and personal data theft on the rise, many individuals are looking for ways to protect themselves.

New startups that are devoted to bringing more privacy to individuals and businesses for a price can look forward to being more in demand throughout the next decade.

3. Wellness for Businesses

While the health and wellness industry is always strong, there is a new narrow sector of this part of business. Now, corporations are beginning to invest in providing wellness services to employees. This may look differently for organizations depending on what industry it’s part of, but for the most part, the idea is to promote healthy habits in order to enjoy more cost savings from insurance claims.

When people practice good daily health routines, they tend to be sick less as well, helping the business’ bottom line.

Teens playing mobile games on their smartphones

4. Mobile Game Development

Another big place for opportunity for startup businesses is in mobile game development. With the explosion of the population that now uses smartphones, there is a constant need for the latest game to capture everyone’s interest. Games that feature in-app purchases are the hot ticket right now, as they continue to generate massive profits. Other types of apps that are popular are picture taking tools and social networking platforms.

5. Recruiting and Employment Services

Next, there is an increased need for more specialized firms that focus on recruiting employees for specific roles or industries. As the economy slowly starts to make gains, these agencies can help businesses find the right employees for their most skilled positions.

Startups in this industry have found that corporations are willing to invest even more in their future hires.

6. Natural Food Innovations

Another popular startup type that is getting noticed around the world is a concept that focuses on natural food development. Companies like Hampton Creek, which has created a product line that stresses natural ingredients, are using technology and new ingredient sources to create tasty and healthy products. Customers of today are more concerned about where their food comes from, and organizations that use plant materials for their products can provide more sustainable goods. Hampton Creek coupons that are linked through social media help give consumers even more exposure to these types of products.

7. Eco-Friendly Technology

Finally, the last hot industry for new startups to generate quick cash is eco-friendly technology. This wide and varied sector in business offers entrepreneurs many different opportunities depending on their interests or talents. From solar-poweredmachines for industry and business to personal care products that utilize smartphones in order to keep the space around consumers free from pollutants, there are many different options in this field.

As the tightening up of fossil fuels continues and the widening of alternative sources of energy increases, expect to see even more solutions for green living that could spell cash for lucky entrepreneurs.

Takeaway

Business investors who are looking for new ways to generate revenue sometimes decide to go with a startup company in the hopes of making a quick amount of cash. If you are thinking of placing an investment in a new startup, be sure to look in the industries above for the best possible chances of getting a return on your contribution.