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Five Ways to Grow Your Startup Business

Like anything else in life or business, you have to put in the time if you’re looking to reap the benefits.

No matter what kind of business you run, you’re going to want to increase your sales and grow your revenue. There isn’t an easy one-size-fits-all business growth strategy for small business owners. However, this article focuses on the key strategies you can use to give your startup business the best chance of growing.

There isn’t an easy one-size-fits-all business growth strategy for small business owners

Understanding Startups

Startups are businesses that want to disrupt industries and change the world—and do it all at scale. Startup founders dream of giving society something it needs but hasn’t created yet—generating eye-popping valuations that lead to an initial public offering (IPO) and an astronomical return on investment.

On a high level, a startup works like any other company. A group of employees work together to create a product that customers will buy. What distinguishes a startup from other businesses, though, is the way a startup goes about doing that.

Regular companies duplicate what’s been done before. A startup aims to create an entirely new template.

Five Ways to Grow Your Startup Business

Build a Sales Funnel

The first way to quickly grow your business is by building a sales funnel. Think of a sales funnel as a customer’s journey. When they enter your business or visit your website, they’re at the top of the funnel. When they buy something or sign up for a service, they’ve successfully gone through the funnel. You should try to come up with ways to move people through the funnel to make a sale. This can include offering a discount or getting their contact information and sending them updates on your business. Remember that every sales funnel needs to be carefully conceptualized before it’s created.

Acquire New Customers

This is the most obvious and the most focused upon by business owners, managers, and the marketers they charge with execution. Unfortunately, it’s also the most challenging and expensive aspect of revenue growth. Regardless of the difficulty and expense, bringing on new customers is the lifeblood of any business since with growth and expansion comes more options for the business to make its desired impact. By focusing your customer engagement strategy and meeting customers where they are with effective content, you can find and attract interested customers. And loyalty programs and personalized messages can keep those customers interested, and your business growing.

Increase Customer Retention

It’s not enough to just get new customers for your business. You also need to keep your existing customers coming back. When you increase customer retention, you’re building customer loyalty, which can increase sales. Considering it costs five times as much to get a new customer than it does to keep a current one, focusing on retaining customers means your business won’t spend money on something that isn’t a guaranteed investment.

You can increase your customer retention by prioritizing customer service, creating a customer loyalty program, engaging with customers on social media, or launching an email campaign.

Build a Bigger Online Presence

Even if you don’t have an online business, expanding your online brand presence is crucial to getting your product in front of more eyes, especially if your product sells directly to consumers.

The key to building an online presence lies in the consistent posting of content. Whether you share content via a blog, newsletter, or Twitter account, posting regularly will help your followers stay interested and engaged with your brand. Whichever online platform you use to promote your business, make sure the content you post is consistent with your brand’s identity.

Form Strategic Partnerships

Entering a strategic partnership with another business can give you the chance to reach a broader network of customers or align growth with strategic goals in your business plan. You may even form a strategic partnership with a vendor to help expand your business. Whatever type of partnership you form, you must manage business relationships and maintain effective vendor relationships.

Sometimes, acquiring other businesses is a very quick way to grow your own business. If you can find competitors or businesses in other industries that would complement your own, you could use them as platforms to scale fast.

Conclusion

Like anything else in life or business, you have to put in the time if you’re looking to reap the benefits. Don’t focus on the short-term outcome of your work. Look to the long term. Build sincere value and look to help your customers. Genuinely care. That should be the foundation. After that, it’s simply a matter of taking action and putting in the work to scale.

What is Market Fit and Why Does It Matter?

Like in cards, when it comes to starting a business, an entrepreneur must know when to hold them and when to fold them.

One of the biggest differences between successful startups and those that fail is how soon they begin confirming that real demand exists for the product they’re offering. If you want to make sure you’re in the minority of startups experiencing consistent growth, give yourself the best start possible and make sure you have market fit before shipping the product. Keep reading to learn how to ensure a strong product-market fit.

*Product-market fit describes a scenario in which a company’s target customers are buying, using, and telling others about the company’s product*

What is Product-Market Fit?

The most simplified definition of product-market fit is in the name: your product fits into the market, is where it is supposed to be, and you grow your business because of it.

Product-market fit is when your customers become your salespeople. In business, it is a magical moment when three things happen:

Existing users recognize your product’s value.
They tell others about their great experience with the product.
Your company replicates the excellent experience for the new users.

After all, the end goal of likely every business is to provide enough value to customers that they become your advocates and help you grow your customer base.

Product-market fit is a well-known idea in the startup community. It refers to a situation in which a company’s target consumers buy, use, and tell others about its product in sufficient numbers to keep it growing and profitable. It is the degree to which a product satisfies strong market demand. Product-market fit happens when you successfully identify your target customer and serve them with the right product.

How to Measure Product-Market Fit?

In theory, you may test product/market fit through surveys that determine what proportion of your consumers consider your new product to be a must-have. However, product-market fit is more about an in-depth and realistic grasp of who your consumers are and how they feel about you and your product than it is about hypothetical statistics and percentages.

Is it creating organic growth, where people spread the word on their own? Are people willing to pay for your product? If they are, you have a product-market fit.

Your product/service will most likely satisfy a tiny part of the market as a startup or early-stage firm. If you want to acquire this knowledge in the first place, you must first establish a relationship with your consumers and communicate to them (over and over again).

Who is Responsible for Creating a Product-Market Fit?

We usually link product-market fit with product management and marketing, but, in reality, achieving it is a company-wide effort. All departments contribute to the company’s achievement of this significant milestone, including sales, business development, support, and finance.

The Importance of Product-Market Fit

Paying attention to market fit, sometimes called product-market fit, is what keeps us from selling dentures to people with teeth or snow shoes in the deserts of Rajasthan.

Like in cards, when it comes to starting a business, an entrepreneur must know when to hold them and when to fold them. In this regard, we cannot overstress the importance of product-market fit for entrepreneurs.

Product-market fit is important because, until that point, you don’t know whether or not what you are building solves a real problem that a large enough market has. Without clarity on this, you could continue investing in building something that is not commercially viable. Worse still, you could burn cash by hiring prematurely or investing in sales and marketing that will not generate a return (premature scaling is often cited as one of the main reasons startups fail).

The effort of confirming product-market fit has several upsides, many of which go beyond avoiding the time, expense, and raw pain of backing a poor idea. Benefits include:

You gain the opportunity to make changes and serve a real need in the market.
You gain a valuable tool that you can use to attract investment.
Confirming your assumptions is great for morale and can motivate you to keep going when things get tough.
If you have an in-demand product, you will have an easier time finding business funding that can help you accelerate your company.

*when it comes to starting a business, an entrepreneur must know when to hold them and when to fold them.*

The Downsides of Poor Market Fit

Failing to challenge your assumptions is highly risky. So, here are some downsides of a poor market fit.

Burning money and wasting time: However passionate you may be about your product, the sad truth is that potential users may not feel the same. Learning that sooner rather than later saves you resources (time, as well as the treasure) to pursue a project that can succeed. Give yourself that opportunity.
Wasted potential: Your product might have been transformative with just a few adjustments. However, by not doing the research and analysis to ensure a good market fit, you deny yourself the information you need to make vital changes (which might be small) to your product or target market that could lead to astonishing success.
Lack of a clear business case: The startup market is highly competitive. While it’s hard to quantify, there are potentially thousands of competitors for each segment of the market who are hungry for the funding they need to put rockets under their enterprise. So, when you go to an investor, don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Instead, have real research in your pocket that shows you’re a winner, or be prepared to lose out to your better-prepared competitors.

Conclusion

Building a business is hard. Knowing you’re on the right path is motivating. When it’s good, it’s good. You can see your way to the finish line, believe in yourself, and have every confidence that your hard work will pay off.

We hope you found this guide helpful. Now it’s time to turn that knowledge into business results.

Skills Required to be a Successful Entrepreneur

Developing entrepreneurial skills can lead to developing several types of skill sets together.

Entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bring good new ideas to market. Since there is so much at stake when starting and growing a successful business, there are specific skills that an entrepreneur usually needs to hone or acquire to be successful.

Successful entrepreneurs have mastery over both hard and soft skills. Hard skills like accounting, marketing, and financial planning are critical for running and managing a business. On the other hand, soft skills like communication, problem-solving, and decision-making help you scale up your business. Mastery of entrepreneur skills requires practice and a dedicated learning plan.

Below, we highlight seven such skills required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Who is an Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is typically an individual who creates a new business, plays an active role in its operations, assumes most of the financial risk, and enjoys most of its success. The process of creating a new business – often driven by new ideas for products or services – is known as entrepreneurship.

He is a person who pursues an opportunity, often commercially driven, to bring a new product or service to market with limited resources and high risk. The process of creating a new business is entrepreneurship, also defined as organizing limited resources to capitalize on a business opportunity.

What are Entrepreneurial Skills?

Entrepreneurial skills are those associated with being an entrepreneur, although anyone can develop them. Being an entrepreneur usually means starting and building your own successful business, but people with entrepreneurial skills can thrive within larger organizations, too.

Entrepreneurial skills can encompass a range of various skill sets like technical skills, leadership and business management skills, and creative thinking. You can apply entrepreneurial skills to many different job roles and industries. Thus, developing entrepreneurial skills can lead to developing several types of skill sets together.

7 Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have

1. Communication Skills

Every entrepreneur needs to be an effective communicator. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or running a Fortune 500 company, you need to understand how to communicate effectively to all stakeholders and potential stakeholders that touch the business.

Whether through verbal communication during meetings or sending reports and messages through emails about the project, entrepreneurs require superior written and verbal communication skills. Apart from communication skills, entrepreneurs must be excellent listeners to understand the project requirements and discussion during project meetings.

2. Business Management Skills

Regardless of whether you like it or not, you will always need to manage your company.

Business management skills are traits an entrepreneur must have to run a business and ensure all business goals are met. Entrepreneurs with this skill set can oversee and manage the operations of different departments because they possess a good understanding of the functions of each department. Business management skills include multitasking, delegating responsibilities, and making critical business decisions. Often, entrepreneurs achieve success in their businesses through their sheer strength of will.

3. Sales Skills

It is the most crucial entrepreneurial skill you need to have. A startup cannot survive without selling something to its customers. Entrepreneurs who develop skills in sales will learn how to stay on top of a competitive market, regardless of industry.

Learning sales helps entrepreneurs develop tenacity and deep comprehension of their business process. Developing sales skills helps entrepreneurs make necessary failures, climb the learning curve, and gain the insights required to do well in business.

4. Time Management Skills

Time management: Among other soft skills, time management skills – such as prioritizing, scheduling, task management, and delegation – are of utmost importance to being a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs with time management and organizational skills understand different ways to prioritize tasks and avoid procrastination.

If you can manage your time well, you may find it easier to be more productive and more likely to finish your projects by the deadline. Developing time management skills will help you focus on time-sensitive tasks and reduce wasted time.

5. Leadership Skills

As an entrepreneur, you lead.

Being able to inspire colleagues, empower the workforce and lead from the front requires excellent leadership skills. Exemplary leaders lead by example and can take a leadership role and work as a part of a team. Entrepreneurs with leadership skills motivate their employees, manage operations, and delegate tasks to reach the business goal.

Entrepreneurs also need to be able to train and manage the people they add to their team. When business owners learn how to encourage, develop and motivate staff, it boosts morale and keeps the company moving in the right direction.

6. Persistence

Persistence is a defining trait of successful entrepreneurs and one of the top qualities of the famous success iceberg. This quality helps entrepreneurs handle rejections, stress, and slow progress.

Persistent entrepreneurs are able to watch their ideas grow from nothing to the business they always envisioned. Entrepreneurship is not an easy route, and it requires a tremendous amount of patience to be able to see any results. Patience and persistence are keys to success for any entrepreneur, as well as learning how to view failures as valuable learning moments.

7. Networking Skills

Another valuable entrepreneurial skill is networking. Building a strong network of potential clients and business partners is what enables your business to grow. Networking allows you to search out and take advantage of opportunities you might not have had access to otherwise. Entrepreneurs need to learn how to develop mutually beneficial relationships with others. Networking is not all about what you can get from the other person. Rather, it is based on good communication and an exchange of value.

Through a solid network, entrepreneurs can meet professionals to fund their ideas, access professional business expertise, and get feedback on their new venture or idea.

***“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein***

Importance of Entrepreneurial Skills in the Workplace

With the job market constantly changing, one should stay up to date on the top in-demand skills of the market and strive to learn or improve on them. Here are a few reasons why entrepreneurial skills are important:

Ensures adaptability: Life skills make you more adaptable by preparing you to face difficulties and overcome them.
Helps deal with failure: With life skills, you develop the ability to recover from failures and view them as learning opportunities.
Assists in team collaboration: Mastering these skills will help you work collaboratively with others which will help build team collaboration.
Increases accountability: Life skills teach you to be accountable for all your actions. It encourages new ideas and helps you stand for yourself.

How to Make a Fundraising Presentation?

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors.

The fundraising presentation is one of the primary documents essential to any early-stage company fundraising process. The time spent with potential investors becomes most effective if you have an impactful fundraising presentation.

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors and displaying the narrative of the business. Going through a successful pitch deck slide by slide is one of the most effective ways to learn how to build a flow.

There is no single formula for a pitch deck. Otherwise, startup founders wouldn’t spend so much time banging their heads against walls trying to get them just right. However, we have listed some ideas that you can apply immediately so that your next investor presentation leaves you – and your investor – smiling and happy.

The fundraising presentation is one of the primary documents essential to any early-stage company fundraising process.

Know your audience

Knowing your audience is key to good communication. At a startup, you will pitch to multiple audiences: customers, partners, recruits, and investors. Although you may be able to reuse some content between these audiences, you’ll need to make sure you devote time to a slide deck that focuses on the investor perspective.

Ask yourself:

Who exactly is my potential investor – and what do they want?

What do I want to achieve – how will I sell our investment opportunity?

How can I hook people – by grabbing their attention early on?

What is my takeaway message – the one that I want them to remember afterward?

Define and refine your investment story

The way you frame your investment story influences how an investor sees you. Most successful fundraisers craft a compelling story around their strategy and tell it passionately. According to Forbes, the perfect selling story involves being relatable, detailing a conflict, presenting the resolution, and demonstrating results. The investors need to understand why your opportunity is special and what makes it stand out from others.

Structure your presentation like a story

The best fundraising presentations are ones where you take the investors on a journey. A simple structure – with a clear beginning, middle and end – demonstrates the command of your own story. It also helps investors quickly grasp what you do.

But remember, all you’re trying to do with the pitch deck is get their “greed glands” flowing. If you do that, there will be plenty of opportunities to give them more details. If you overwhelm them with too much detail at this point, they may miss the big picture.

Make sure you are ready

The best way to communicate your business to investors is to know your business!

Investors get frustrated by presenters who avoid, second-guess or provide scrambled answers to questions. Remember that it is their job to ask questions and be critical. We recommend that you prepare for the Q&A session as much as you do for the fundraising presentation itself. Prepare your answers and rehearse delivering them confidently together as a team – the last thing you want is your team being surprised by each other’s answers.

Make a good impression

Impressions are everything – investors’ perception of your team when you are with them is what matters.

Apart from preparing the presentation, you should also prepare yourself and the team. Remember that nonverbal communication can be just as important as what is said.

So, do extensive rehearsals on camera with the team so they are investor-ready. During the presentation, pay attention to what you do when your colleagues speak.

Look engaged and interested – show that you are as interested in your investors as you want them to be in you.

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment and some qualities acts as a deciding factor for Funding.

What Do Investors Look For In Startups?

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment. Here are some qualities investors look for in a startup that acts as deciding factors for funding.

Objective and Problem Solving: The offering of any startup should be differentiated to solve a unique customer problem or meet specific customer needs. Ideas or products that are patented show high growth potential for investors.
Management & Team: The passion, experience, and skills of the founders and the management team to drive the company forward are equally crucial deciding factors for investors.
Market Landscape: Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers for the market you plan to target in the funding proposal.
Scalability & Sustainability: Startups should showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. They should also consider barriers to entry, imitation costs, growth rate, and expansion plans.
Customers & Suppliers: In the funding proposal, state a clear identification of your buyers and suppliers. Consider customer relationships, stickiness to your product, vendor terms, and existing vendors.
Competitive Analysis: Highlight the true picture of competition and other players in the market working on similar things in the proposal. There can never be an apple-to-apple comparison but highlighting the service or product offerings of similar players in the industry is important.
Sales & Marketing: No matter how good your product or service may be, if it does not find any end-use, it is no good. Consider things like a sales forecast, targeted audiences, product mix, conversion and retention ratio, etc.
Financial Assessment: A detailed financial business model that showcases cash inflows over the years, investments required key milestones, break-even points, and growth rates. Assumptions used at this stage should be reasonable and mentioned in the proposal.
Exit Avenues: A startup showcasing potential future acquirers or alliance partners becomes a valuable decision parameter for the investor. Initial public offerings, acquisitions, and subsequent rounds of funding are all examples of exit options.

How to Make a Funding Proposal?

Whether you are a startup founder, business owner, or corporate entrepreneur, your funding proposal is very important. After all, it captures your rationale for why people should invest in your idea and give you a lot of money.

In this guide, we explore what a startup funding proposal is and how you can leverage it to build momentum in your fundraising.

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

What is Startup Funding?

Funding refers to the money required to start and run a business. It is a financial investment in a company for product development, manufacturing, expansion, sales and marketing, office spaces, and inventory. Many startups choose not to raise funding from third parties and are funded by their founders only (to prevent debts and equity dilution). However, most startups raise funding, especially as they grow and scale their operations. This page shall be your virtual guide to Startup funding.

Why Do Startups Require Funding?

A startup might require funding for one, a few, or all of the following purposes. An entrepreneur must be clear about why they are raising funds. Founders should have a detailed financial and business plan before they approach investors.

1. Prototype Creation

2. Product Development

3. Team Hiring

4. Working Capital

5. Legal and Consulting Services

6. Raw Materials and Equipment

7. Licenses and Certifications

8. Marketing and Sales

9. Office Space

10. Admin Expenses

What Is a Startup Funding Proposal?

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

Simply put, it is a text document, PDF, or slideshow presentation which gives a complete overview of the company and its goals. Through the proposal, investors can understand the what, why, and how of the company and get a better idea of why you are looking to raise a certain amount of money. It also helps investors who like to remain actively involved understand whether the company is worth their effort or not.

How To Make a Funding Proposal?

There is a basic structure to every business proposal. Here are the four parts, in order:

Introduce yourself
Show that you understand your customers/clients and their needs
Describe how your goods and services meet those needs and present your expected expenses and profits
Persuade the bank or committee that you have the integrity to be trusted with the money.

You don’t need to start with blank pages, either. You can speed up the proposal writing process using pre-designed templates and samples.

Here is a short list of all the different points an investment proposal should touch upon:

1. Summary of your project:

Start the document with an abstract of your project and its purpose. It is the part that most investors will use to determine if they wish to continue reading. In it, make sure you discuss the key points that offer clarity to investors. You can include details of what your company does and how is it different from existing solutions to pressing problems. You may also emphasize the importance of your product in your industry and how it improves the industry.

2. Current performance of your company:

Here, you give a more in-depth overview of your company. Point out what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what you are building. List your current assets and liabilities to help investors understand your startup’s strengths and weaknesses. If your company is still at its ideation stage, pair the proposal with an MVP presentation. If you are at a later funding stage, it is also important to add a paragraph where investors can find out more about your financial reports.

3. Details of existing investors, partners, and team:

Briefly introduce existing business partners (including investors), their background, and the amount you have managed to raise from them. If applicable, enter the number of funding rounds your company has already been through and the amount raised. At this stage, you should also briefly introduce the existing team members, their background and skill set, and a link for those who wish to see their complete CV and LinkedIn profile.

4. Information related to the product market:

Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers of the market you plan to target in the funding proposal. Briefly describe the results of your market potential analysis and showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. If your business is already generating income, make sure you indicate and break down your revenue numbers.

5. Operational feasibility:

Create an overview of the projected operating costs by splitting them into different categories of expenditures. Describe the assumed operational costs of your biggest competitors and how these translate into their growth (if applicable). Further, describe the challenges and limitations related to the technical aspects of your company and the team’s skillset.

6. Company’s current valuation, investment requirements, and expected returns:

Start by pointing out the current valuation of your company and list the sources that derive this conclusion. Make sure to get your company’s valuation done by a trusted third party. Based on the company valuation, describe the amount and type of funding you are looking to acquire and the amount of equity you are willing to give up. Now, give an overview of how the funds will be utilized by creating a generic overview of the next steps. Spend a lot of time on this one as it is the most important subchapter for investors.

How to Approach Product Design?

When it comes to the product design process, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

When it comes to the product design process, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. An entrepreneur must tailor the process to fit the business and functional needs of the project.

This article explores the concept of product design and outlines four widely used approaches to product designing.

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.” – designer, educator and author Victor Papanek

What is Product Design?

Product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem, and validating the solution with real users.

In simple words, product designing is creating and designing products that address a specific requirement and solve a problem. It provides a comprehensive understanding of what the final product would look and feel like and what problem it will solve.

Who are Product Designers?

Product designers are creative design professionals who use their abilities to develop digital products that address the unmet demands of users.

A product designer gets to wear multiple hats, which means your day-to-day will never look the same. As a product designer, you play the role of a problem solver, researcher, designer, product manager, data analyst, and marketer.

To create useful products, a designer experiment with and tests multiple versions of the same product. It helps a product designer identify improvements. Also, they understand the company’s products, user requirements, and production costs to execute high-quality product designs at an affordable rate. Usually, product designers work in smaller groups or independently to conduct market research and gather the information required to design a digital product.

Four Approaches to Successful Product Design

Designing a great product doesn’t happen overnight. An entrepreneur can take many product development strategies to reach a breakthrough design. Here are the different approaches to designing a new product.

Traditional Business Approach

The traditional business approach considers two factors when designing a product — Will the product be viable, i.e., how does it benefit the business? What is the operational and technical feasibility of the product design? Using the traditional business approach to design, a company would identify a problem (or a set of problems) and then derive what the company thought it could offer as a profitable solution.

The traditional business approach to product development strategy seems straightforward but doesn’t always bring success. It focuses on the how and what rather than the why. It doesn’t answer a key question, i.e., why does a customer need a product? The metrics for product design emphasized in the traditional business approach, namely viability and feasibility, are company-centric and inconsiderate of the consumer needs.

Design Thinking Approach

Design thinking incorporates the user experience into the design process, moving beyond the simple look and feel of product design. IDEO founder Tim Brown popularized design thinking. He describes it as a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

One of the aspects of design thinking that makes it successful is the prototyping phase. Designers can help lower the risk of launching a new product by testing the product design with small groups of users throughout the development process. A prototype helps validate that the product is something a customer can understand and use and that the design is appealing before the product goes to mass production.

Lean UX Approach

The Lean Start-up and Lean UX approaches take design thinking further, putting the prototyping process front and center. Lean start-up is an approach to starting a business venture that takes an idea, translates it into a product or service, measures how customers respond, and then takes the learnings to pivot or iterate. Lean UX takes that same approach and applies it specifically to design.

This approach focuses on the human experience behind the design. The deliverables of the entire product development strategy are less important than the learnings the design process delivers. The core objective is to obtain feedback as early as possible to make quick decisions and improve. It’s a collaborative approach – as if the customer is designing the product alongside the company. The drawback is that this approach to design can ignore other factors related to development; Lean UX can lead to somewhat of a product design bubble.

Good design is good business.” – retired IBM CEO Thomas Watson, Junior

Design Sprint Approach

The design sprint is a subset of the design thinking approach. There are five phases to the design sprint process that takes place on five separate days: Map, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Test.

Design sprints focus on a small part of the problem, or one aspect of the design, rather than building a completely new product. The process allows designers to work with their customers in the prototyping and testing phases and to learn quickly – within five days – to continue to design a winning product. Design sprints integrate elements from the other approaches but with a more focused, disciplined aspect to product design.

Conclusion

The most important thing to remember when designing products is that design is for people. You must deliver the right features with the right user experience for the right people to achieve great product designs. Thus, define your target audience, then research their problems, and, finally, focus on building a product that solves those problems!

How to Make a Startup Funding Request?

A funding request is a critical element that increases your chance of getting approved for funding.

Are you thinking about starting your own business? If so, you’ll need the funds to turn your vision of a profitable venture into a reality. While some entrepreneurs have personal cash and assets to fund their businesses, most require assistance from outside sources. You need to make a funding request to raise funding for a startup. Here’s how to write your funding request and get the cash to run your business.

What is Startup Funding?

Why Do Startups Require Funding?

1. Prototype Creation

2. Product Development

3. Team Hiring

4. Working Capital

5. Legal and Consulting Services

6. Raw Materials and Equipment

7. Licenses and Certifications

8. Marketing and Sales

9. Office Space

10. Admin Expenses

What is a Funding Request?

A funding request is exactly what it sounds like: a written request to obtain funding from a lender or investor for your business. It’s typically included as part of the overall business plan, specifically focusing on the business’s funding needs. You should create a funding request whether you’re seeking capital from a traditional bank, private investor, angel investor, or any external source. It’s a critical element that increases your chance of getting approved for funding.

How to Make a Funding Request?

Below are the key points that you should include in your funding request.

1. Business Summary

A business summary is only required in cases when you create a funding request as a standalone document. The name and nature of the company, location, brief description of the owners, product or service offered, target audiences, etc., must be included in the summary. In cases of established companies, you can also highlight past achievements.

However, the business summary may be skipped if the reader (potential lender) happens to have the entire document to hand.

2. Spell Out What You Need

When it comes to the funding section of your business plan, there’s no point beating around the bush because the reader will know what you’re there for and may not have the time to play games trying to figure out your ask. So, in this section, you need to give a ballpark figure of the total funding required at the moment and whether the company plans to raise capital again sometime soon. You must also specify if the company is looking for a short-term loan or an investment in exchange for an equity stake or board membership.

3. An Outline of How You Will Use The Funds

If you know how much money you need, it’s safe to say that you’ll have an idea about how you will use the funds.

However, only provide an outline of your plans. If you’re going to be using it for several different reasons, perhaps dividing it into several areas of your business, take the time to outline each use and explain how much will go towards it.

Give lenders or investors details on how you will use the funds to grow your business and repay the loan or make good on the investment.

4. Financial Information

The financial information section is only required in cases when you create a funding request as a standalone document. In case a business plan is being prepared, all information will be covered under the financial information section of the plan.

This section includes data such as income statements, debt repayment history, and forecasts about future needs. Any activities that may negatively or positively impact the company’s ability to repay loans or deliver results promised, such as relocation, expansion, or mergers and acquisitions, need to be included here.

5. Terms and Conditions

The terms section covers how the company expects to repay a loan or produce deliverables for investors. You must provide lenders with a potential exit plan from the company, which may include cash outs or Initial Public Offering (IPO) plans. The process is of utmost importance from the investor’s perspective, as it provides them with a chance to minimize risk and maximize their profit.

Pro Tip: Be Professional

Being professional should go without saying, but it’s of the utmost importance when communicating with lenders or investors. Being professional is not just about appearance or word choice. It can also include small details, like tone or grammar.

If you plan to mail your funding request, make sure you complete everything digitally instead of by hand. Typed forms are more professional and generally more legible for others to review. Do you have any letterhead for your business? If so, use it for any cover letters you submit with the request.

Review the funding request for any errors before submitting it. Consider using word or grammar correction software to help catch any potential mistakes.

Conclusion

Getting money to fund your business may very well be the point of creating your entire business plan and funding request, so take the time to carefully prepare your funding request. Make sure you include all the information a decision-maker will need.

How to Make a Fundraising Presentation?

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors.

Know your audience

Ask yourself:

Who exactly is my potential investor – and what do they want?

What do I want to achieve – how will I sell our investment opportunity?

How can I hook people – by grabbing their attention early on?

What is my takeaway message – the one that I want them to remember afterward?

Define and refine your investment story

Structure your presentation like a story

Make sure you are ready

The best way to communicate your business to investors is to know your business!

Fundraising Donations Charity Foundation Support Concept

Make a good impression

Impressions are everything – investors’ perception of your team when you are with them is what matters.

Apart from preparing the presentation, you should also prepare yourself and the team. Remember that nonverbal communication can be just as important as what is said.

So, do extensive rehearsals on camera with the team so they are investor-ready. During the presentation, pay attention to what you do when your colleagues speak.

Look engaged and interested – show that you are as interested in your investors as you want them to be in you.

What Do Investors Look For In Startups?

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment. Here are some qualities investors look for in a startup that acts as deciding factors for funding.

Objective and Problem Solving: The offering of any startup should be differentiated to solve a unique customer problem or meet specific customer needs. Ideas or products that are patented show high growth potential for investors.
Management & Team: The passion, experience, and skills of the founders and the management team to drive the company forward are equally crucial deciding factors for investors.
Market Landscape: Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers for the market you plan to target in the funding proposal.
Scalability & Sustainability: Startups should showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. They should also consider barriers to entry, imitation costs, growth rate, and expansion plans.
Customers & Suppliers: In the funding proposal, state a clear identification of your buyers and suppliers. Consider customer relationships, stickiness to your product, vendor terms, and existing vendors.
Competitive Analysis: Highlight the true picture of competition and other players in the market working on similar things in the proposal. There can never be an apple-to-apple comparison but highlighting the service or product offerings of similar players in the industry is important.
Sales & Marketing: No matter how good your product or service may be, if it does not find any end-use, it is no good. Consider things like a sales forecast, targeted audiences, product mix, conversion and retention ratio, etc.
Financial Assessment: A detailed financial business model that showcases cash inflows over the years, investments required key milestones, break-even points, and growth rates. Assumptions used at this stage should be reasonable and mentioned in the proposal.
Exit Avenues: A startup showcasing potential future acquirers or alliance partners becomes a valuable decision parameter for the investor. Initial public offerings, acquisitions, and subsequent rounds of funding are all examples of exit options.

Five Steps to a Successful Product Launch

A well-planned product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation.

So you have aced the task of identifying and developing a product you believe in. So, what’s next? Do you want to launch it to market? Well, launching a new product is no easy feat!

Countless new product and service ideas are conceived every year. But most ideas fail to succeed because they’re not brought to the market properly.

If you think having a recognizable brand name guarantees the success of a product, you’re most certainly mistaken. Many highly recognized companies failed the product launch step, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and Amazon Fire Phone.

On the contrary, other well-known brands have been a raving success with product launches, including Apple, Google, and Under Armour. Then there are brands we had never heard of before but suddenly became household names due to successful product launches. These include Magnum Icecream and FiberOne.

*Planned Product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation*

Product Development Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

The six stages outlined above will get your team through all steps of the process, from initial idea screening to the development phase.

Bringing your vision for an original new product to life is frequently one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs.

However, it has become crucial for businesses to keep updating their products to conform to current trends. The business environment is dynamic and competitive, and new product development is one of the best ways to withstand competition.

What Is the Product Development Process?

Product development encompasses all steps to take a product from concept to market availability. It is the overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and marketing plan creation and evaluation, and commercialization of a new product.

Product development requires the work and input of many teams across a business, including Development, Design, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Testing. Product managers act as the strategic directors of the development process and oversee the progress.