Author: Marketing Team

We have all had that eureka moment, “That should be a business” you say. Or “I could make millions with this idea” you think to yourself. “I could do better” you shout at the TV whilst watching Dragons Den.

However, the main reason most of us don’t act upon these thoughts, no matter how good the idea, is that we all know the complexities and all demanding necessities of starting a business, giving it all up to work for yourself can seem both exciting and also very terrifying. So we have shared our top 5 business tips for startups!

The reality is that now one in ten people in the UK own their own business. With the difficulties induced by a turbulent economy. The necessity for self-employment and new business opportunities has become more and more pertinent in recent years.

However maintaining an encouraging outlook on starting a business is often overshadowed by overwhelming statistics. The majority inspiring pessimism.

More than 50% of startups fail in their first year and become redundant.

The leading causes of startup failures include:

Incompetence – 46%

Lack of managerial experience – 30%

Neglect, fraud – 13%

Lack of industry experience at 11%

Credit to smallbiztrends

https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/11/startup-statistics-small-business.html

Having said that, there is a plethora of information out there for those of us who are brave enough to take the plunge and start up our own business doing what we love.

Here are our top 5 business tips for startups!

1. Learn your craft

We all learn on the job from time to time but this is not the right ideology when it comes to running your own business. Many successful business owners spent years perfecting their craft before they invested any money into their potential business. Invest in yourself first, your skills, knowledge and expertise will take you a long way towards your business goals and will be the perfect foundation for your new career.

 

Nothing you do goes to waste. We are instinctual creatures and actually learn much more from our mistakes than our successes – you wouldn’t eat a poisonous berry for a second time.

2. Understand your customer

Going into business without sufficient market research can be a killer from the get go. I’ve seen it before and I will see it again. If there isn’t a demand for your product then why waste your time.

You may think you are onto something, or be so confident in your designs that you know it will sell. The reality is that most of us aren’t blessed with a commercial and psychological understanding that is sufficient for overnight success.

Even someone as gifted as the designer Tom Ford will have done his market research or been aware of a demand from his previous roles.

Spending your initial investment on designs to hand over to manufactures, without market research, is like going in blind. You need to know what your customers need before they want it, and before it gets anywhere near launch.

Yes, market research can be hard to do when you don’t have any customers but there are a bunch of businesses out there that are set up to help with this process. They can provide you with willing applicants (Guinea pigs) that are willing to test your product and give (startups) life changing feedback.

Alvin C. Burns and Ronald F. Bush highlight the steps to performing excellent market research in their book ‘Marketing Research’. These include;

 

• Establishing the need for market research
• Defining the problem
• Establishing research objectives
• Determining research design
• Identifying information types and sources
• Methods of accessing data
• Designing data collection forms
• Sample plans and sizes
• Collecting data
• Analyzing data
• Preparing and presenting the final research report

Again, there is plethora of information and books out there that can help you with this absolutely fundamental step.

There is another method that I think is a magical method for budding entrepreneurs..it’s called growth hacking.

3. Growth hack

Growth hacking. A term you may well have heard of.

Wikipedia defines growth hacking as ‘a set of both conventional and unconventional marketing experiments that lead to the growth of a business. Growth hackers are marketers, engineers and product managers that specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business.’

Growth hacking is generally a term that applies to marketers, but the same techniques can be applied to those who are designing both product and service type businesses.

Let’s jump into an example. Say you are designing an online platform that connects users X to customers Y. Your initial design phase is complete, you know who you would like to use the service and are close to launch.

STOP. You aren’t ready.

The product needs testing. It needs to be optimised before launch. This is where growth hacking techniques come into play. Start by testing your platform in a closed environment.

Get 10 – 20 users who are interested in the service and allow them to run riot. Get them to give feedback and monitor them closely – then optimize. (You can inspire people to sign-up by offering exclusivity, a technique used by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Exclusivity in itself can create demand).

These initial samples can be in the form of focus groups but must remained closed and exclusive to a small number of participants.

Repeat this process with the same users whilst adding an additional sample. Already, you have 30 – 50 people actively using the service and you are yet to launch.

Repeat the process over and over, moving through Alpha and Beta stages, filtering in more and more users. By the time you come to launch your product/service will be optimised, tested and most importantly you will be launching with a customer base!

This is common technique used by video game manufacturers who usually launch their new games with player bases made up of thousands of players.

4. Write a business plan

A business that intends to return a profit will make use of a well thought out business plan. You can download a template for a business plan from the princess trust. Their site is a great resource and provides great tips on writing a business plan. When it comes to investment it will be important that you can present a well written and polished document.

A business plan will help you to determine your company’s objectives. If this is clearly laid out, then when you inevitably come to find difficulties – the plan will stand as a resource for you to refer back to and may help you to maintain your focus through difficult and challenging times.

https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/help-for-young-people/tools-resources/business-tools/business-plans

A business plan isn’t just a tool for investment it’s a tool for understanding how your business is put together.

5. Find mentoring and free consulting

A final tip would be to seek free help and advice, and there are many ways of doing this;

Firstly, there are number of online resources available. Blogs, magazines and free consulting can be found in the most unusual of places. Sign-up for services and await a sales call. You don’t need to pay for a service but in selling you their product a sales person may impart great advice or knowledge that you can apply to your business. Many business will do free audits of your site in order to persuade you to pay for their service, more often than not this information can be incredibly useful.

6. Bonus

Why not join a shared work-space? You will meet a bunch of entrepreneurs, many of whom will be happy to help you and impart free advice and consulting. They will be more experienced than you and will help instantly ad they will have already overcome the issues you are facing and yet to face.

We hope you found our business tips helpful! You can sign-up to our newsletter to receive more free articles for startup advice.

 

Author: Marketing Team

Remote work, freelancing, flextime and zero-hours contracts offer a wide range of adaptable work. In any case, it’s remote work that is upsetting the customary tech industry 9-to-5 crush.

Here are the reasons why..

At the point when representatives divert out their obligations from the workplace, that is remote working — otherwise called working from home and telecommuting. It’s not a win or bust definition. Some telecommuters, such as voyaging business people and call focus specialists, are forever far from their offices. Tablet employing centre chiefs consistently appear at the workplace. A few representatives, however, work remotely, mainly when the workplace is ablaze.

The conventional office is under assault, thumped by remote video calls, outsourcing, and labourers in coffeehouses. It’s a danger that the CEO of Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer, broadly endeavoured to stamp out by driving all representatives to work nearby. In any case, who needs to work in the old central hub? “You know what I need to do today? Drive to the workplace!” Said, nobody. Ever.

What’s more, remote working is on the ascent. A US government report said that 47% of its representatives (that is 1,020,034 individuals — no, truly, more than a million people) were qualified to telecommuting — a major increment throughout the prior year.

So is the workplace biting the dust? Is the fascination of working from the couch wearing a nightgown just excessively sold, making it impossible to stand up to? Two years ago, a British industry board drove by national newspaper, The Guardian and telephone call organisation Powwownow led a round-table exchange to handle the issue of remote work. Among their worries: Can you believe it, a remote worker? Does non-attendance trump attendance? What will occur next? Here are some of their decisions.

1.Become less stressed.

Daryl Wilkinson, assemble head of computerised advancement at Nationwide Building Society, said he needed to urge remote attempting to enable his staff and as a show to whatever is left of the organisation. “There’s less worry in the workplace and the working environment — individuals feel engaged to work in a way that suits them and suits their business.”

2. Become well connected.

The pervasiveness of cell phones and web-based social networking mean you don’t need to be alongside somebody to impart viably. What’s more, new business patterns like remote organisation, cloud-based undertaking administration, video conferencing, and BYOD are expanding the adequacy of remote work.

4. Save on spending.

Empowering diverse methods for working enables organisations to lessen their lease and property costs, as per Ian Adams, head of strategic marketing development at outsourcing organisation Mitie.

5. Absenteeism is good.

“The capacity to work remotely wipes out the need for “presenteeism” — being in the workplace however much as could be expected,” said Jonathan Swan, arrangement and research officer for Working Families, a charity that specialises in work balance.

6. The new nimble working environment makes new occupations.

Better approaches for working require new parts in the organisation. “We’re seeing more prominent joint effort between HR, IT, property and offices administration and occupation titles like ‘work environment executive’ influence this light-footed work environment to happen,” Adams said.

7. Remote working gives decision.

As indicated by Robert Gorby, promoting chief of Powwownow, remote working gives decision. “Decision is critical. There shouldn’t be an innovation driven impulse to work unquestionably.”

8. Organisations take benefit from more joyful remote representatives.

Take a stab at crushing 40 winks into your office day. The truth is stranger than fiction; it’s inconceivable. “It’s tied in with working with the grain of individuals’ lives,” Swan said.

9. Telecommuters are more immersed.

Wilkinson stated, “When you’re tweeting with individuals in your group near midnight, it brings home that individuals are encountering something past ‘doing work’ — they’re occupied in an alternate way.”

10. Remote settings are superior to the workplace.

We’ve all caught wind of how J.K. Rowling composed a great deal of Harry Potter in her neighbourhood café. Presently office specialists can get some of that activity. “Adaptable working isn’t simply office or home — there might be some place close home with better offices,” said Celia Donne, worldwide operations chief of Regus, an office facilities supplier.

11. Driving is awful for you.

Indeed, even before the workday begins, working from home is an ideal situation and preferred to driving. As indicated by the UK Office of National Statistics, “Suburbanites have brought down life fulfilment, a lower sense that their day by day exercises are beneficial, bring down the levels of satisfaction and higher nervousness all things considered for non-workers.” Driving also means a higher carbon impression, making tree-huggers less joyful.

Thanks for reading, if you liked this post feel free to let me know and share it about.

Here is another great article about remote work – from onstartups.com