startup strategies

Great startup business tips and strategies for launching a new brand

Taking a look at some of the top strategies and startup business tips for new entrepreneurs.

So, you’re looking to build a startup and follow in the footsteps of greats like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Michael Dell. Great choice!

But before you go about making the world a better place and filling your pockets, you’ll want to get some advice.

90% of startups fail, after all, so the right startup business tips can keep you from making these same mistakes. Keep reading to find out how you can prepare for success!

Don’t Chase Trends, Solve Problems

There’s money in chasing trends. However, that money dries up quickly once people move on to the newest flavor of the week.

For your startup to have longevity, you should aim to solve customers’ problems. How can your product or service make the lives of your customers easier?

If you can manage to make people’s lives a bit more convenient, you’ll find yourself with repeat customers, and thus, stronger revenue.

Set Your Business Apart with Custom Packaging

The more ways you can set yourself apart and stand out, the better. Custom packaging is an often overlooked way to help your company stand out.

Think about it: if you were in a room full of packages, you’d be able to suss out the Amazon package in a matter of seconds thanks to the logo on its shipping boxes and its custom tape.

You can use the same strategy for your business! Once you have a logo you’re satisfied with, order labels online and customize your shipping boxes. That way, customers will get excited about their order before evening opening the box.

Know When to Outsource

Even if you’re an expert multitasker, there’s never quite enough time in the day. But don’t think you have to tackle everything yourself.

In fact, doing so might be detrimental to your business.

Instead, consider outsourcing certain tasks that either take up too much time or require too many resources.

Let’s say you’re looking to market your company. Instead of dedicating hours to learning the ins-and-outs of managing a campaign, subscribing to services, and carrying out the task yourself, you’d be better off hiring a dedicated marketing company.

While it might cost a bit more upfront, you’ll ultimately get better results since you’re working with a team that knows their stuff.

Research Tax Tips

69% of startups are headquartered in the founder’s home, continuing the long tradition of home-based businesses like Apple, Amazon, and Google.

It’s a smart move, as working out of your home can save you tons of money on rental space. But did you know that you can write off the office space in your home for a tax bonus?

Small business taxes are killer, and you’ll need every tax cut you can get. Keep track of your expenditures, whether it’s a chair for your office, a hotel room for a conference, or even your Internet service.

Create the Next Big Thing with These Startup Business Tips

By following these startup business tips, you should have a strong foundation for your business that allows you to save money, time, and manpower. Now all that’s left to do is put your plan into action!

Don’t forget, we’re here for you! Keep checking back with our blog for more great startup tips.

8 beneficial social media marketing tools every company should use

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc have proved to be the best to promote products or services.

Social media marketing is an important form of marketing for all ventures today as the audiences on social media are growing and sharing content on the platforms is a good way to make people aware about products and services. Social media marketing allows a marketer to target his audience and keep them engaged for a long time. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc have proved to be the best to promote products or services.

Here are 8 social media tools a marketer could use:

1. PostPlanner

PostPlanner is an app built in Facebook which allows free flow of your strategy without hindrances. It offers a dashboard which allows you to manage and increase the value of your Facebook page or group. PostPlanner also gives you a list of status ideas, access to the most viral posts on Facebook and insights on trending content based on your industry.

2. Followerwonk

Through this brilliant tool, you can find analyse the growth of your followers on Twitter. Along with that, it gives you a fair idea of your follower demographics for more comprehensive understanding and lets you know what time they’re online at so that you can tweet accordingly. Also, if most of your followers are online at one time, you get an idea of when to engage them in a discussion with the use of this tool.

3. Inforgr.am

This tool allows to make simple yet very professional and great-looking charts or graphs of various infographics. The free version of this tool allows to you to choose from various designs and embed the infographics onto your website. To down the infographic, you need to use the paid version.

4. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a very handy and cool tool which all social media marketer need to know about and use. This tool gives you all the information about “most shared content and the key influencers” on social media. There’s a free and a paid version of this tool. The paid version allows you to export data and access domain reports.

5. Bit.ly

Bit.ly is a very important and handy social media tool which allows marketers to shorten URLs. They can take a long URL and shorten it into something remembrable and more feasible for platforms like Twitter which allow 140 characters. Also, Bit.ly allows you to see how many times the link has actually been clicked on and from which network platform.

6. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is a useful tool on instagram which helps the marketer to analyse the followers’ statistics. Through this tool, they can learn about the followers’ engagement as well as track lost and new followers on Instagram.

7. Tagboard

Hashtags are a huge phenomenon on social media currently. Tagboard is a hashtag-based search engine that lets you monitor mentions and related content on all platforms. If you have a custom hashtag for your venture, all you need to do is register it on Tagboard and add a description. When anyone uses Tagboard to search your hashtag, your description and image will pop up immediately.

8. BulkBuffer

BulkBuffer is a brilliant tool one needs to know to use if they’re uploading content in bulk on the platforms as it allows you to upload a huge load of content without any hassle. For weekly schedules or videos to be uploaded with minimal ease, BulkBuffer is the way to go.

9. PosterMyWall

PosterMyWall is a simple, end-to-end solution for social media marketers that helps them promote their brand effortlessly, efficiently and affordably by creating eye-catching social media graphics using its free online editor in minutes. Not just that, you can repurpose your social media graphics by resizing each design into as many different sizes as needed in a single click with the free Resize button. Once all your content is ready, you can directly publish your designs to your Facebook or Twitter pages without even leaving the platform, or even better, upgrade to the Premium plan and schedule all your posts at once.

Image credit: sellorelse.ogilvy.com

5 things to make sure of before you establish a startup

Here are few things entrepreneurs need to take care of before setting up their startup.

Start-ups can be tricky and caught in a haze of competition after the initiation if proper precautions aren’t taken. However, like other businesses, even a start-up requires different things at different points and it is the entrepreneur’s duty to make sure that all the requisites are met. However, it might be the first time for an entrepreneur as well and s/he might need guidance as well.

Never ignore things that you think can mess with the image of your company. If something is absolutely necessary, the entrepreneur should make sure that the start-up has it.

Here are 5 things entrepreneurs need to take care of:

1. Analyse the risks

It is crucial for an entrepreneur to analyse the risks before venturing into any market and actually setting up a start-up. The industry one is venturing in might be targeting only a niche audience which means lesser demand and this could lead to the company fizzling out due to less orders. One needs to take calculated risks and create back-up options for better functioning of a start-up.

2. Do your market research well

Always do your research extensively about the market you’re going to venture into, the competitors and customers’ responses through surveys. This will help in gaining better business insights and also come handy while expanding the business. Without proper research in place, you can end up making incorrect assumptions and hasty decisions which can be harmful for your venture.

Related Post: 5 motivation hacks for entrepreneurs

3. Have a proper Business plan

A business plan is important for any business as it contains information about the company, the team, industry, risks, the marketing plan and the financial plan. Internally, it’ll help the start-up in being more organised and an entrepreneur can keep a track of goals that are accomplished. Externally, it’s easier to get loans from banks, show to VCs and build strategic alliances if you have a proper business plan.

4. Get legal advice

You might think that a business plan is enough to establish a company but there are certain rules and regulations one needs to keep in mind and follow. There are many Government regulated bodies and statutory bodies looking after stuff like patents, copyrights, taxes etc. To be aware of the rules existing in your sector, it is important to hire a lawyer and have his expert advice before starting-up.

5. Set aside a budget for marketing

Marketing and advertising is very important in today’s day and time and the way you market your venture can make or break it. It is absolutely crucial to have a marketing plan which helps you reach out to your target audience better. And, for these plans to work, one needs to set aside a certain budget. An entrepreneur also needs to decide what tactics and channels of marketing he’ll be using- social media, websites, ads on Facebook/Google, billboard advertising etc.

Happy starting up!

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The new startup mantra: “learn, try, fail, and repeat”

What if Steve Jobs never created Apple? What if Bill Gates decided to keep his Microsoft idea to himself?

“Change is the only constant” is repeatedly taught to us as children and this stands true for one’s professional life as well. We are often caught in a world of possibilities where there are a million options to explore. So, while one is unsatisfied with the current positioning in life and wants to jump from one level to another, the most sensible thing to do is have an extended period of deep learning.

Earlier, even to switch from one thing to the other, people preferred learning the tricks and dos and don’ts while trying to master the craft. They underwent periods of intense study which was known as an “apprenticeship”. However, people now have realised the worth of practical application and hands-on which are the two times when a person can actually master the craft. Through trial and error methods, one can learn everything there is to.
For instance, a journalist learns about beats and stringers during his job. The practicalities and presence of mind cannot be taught in theory.

This system of trial and error consists of four major steps:
– learn
– try
– fail
– repeat

This method cannot be taught to an individual theoretically. One has to actually go out and do what s/he likes to. By no means, will it be easy in the beginning. Even after one tries really hard, one is likely to fail. This shouldn’t deter an individual from trying again and again. In fact, to achieve success, one has to encounter failure because of the invaluable results it holds. A true understanding of any task can come only from practical application. Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb failed over 1000 times before actually inventing the bulb. He claims that whilst most people would look at it as over 900 failures, he sees it as learning 900 ways a light bulb could never work. Two things everyone can learn from Edison are to keep trying and seek the positive points and to never give up.

We need to understand that successful people do not achieve everything overnight. There is a lot of hard work and determination that goes into such achievements. This mantra can be applied to entrepreneurs as well. If you think you have a brilliant and completely innovative idea, instead of closeting it, you should be embracing it and trying to make it work. The process of the idea materialising into a successful product or service will be challenging from looking for VCs to marketing but the end result will definitely be satisfying.

Related Post: Strategic marketing tips for startups

If one never tries, the regret will linger on forever as your idea could have been the one which changed the world. What if Ford never tried out his concept of assembly line? What if Steve Jobs never created Apple? What if Bill Gates decided to keep his Microsoft idea to himself?

The leaps that great entrepreneurs took are what led them to success. Similarly, you need to believe in your idea and yourself to make it work. Going out there and actually trying to change the world is what will count after you achieve success. If it doesn’t work, you can try again; if you don’t want to, you can always draw life lessons from it. You should always keep in mind “One who never tries has already failed”.

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