miércoles, 13 de julio de 2016

4 Crucial Startup Questions Answered

 Do you dream of launching your startup, but don’t know how? If you’ve always had the mindset of an entrepreneur but have unanswered questions dancing around your mind, you could be in business limbo for longer than you care to admit. Fortunately, there are answers to all of your questions!

That’s right, people have gone through your struggle before and have come out alive. How? By keeping their heads up and pushing forward through the issues. Just be sure to get a feel for these questions because you are going to be seeing a lot of them.


How Do I Raise Funds for My Startup?


There are many ways to raise funds for your startup – it all depends on your scope of business, and your target audience. For example, if you plan to launch a tech startup that requires substantial capital, you should consider applying for grants and startup loans.

According to Dave Kapen, an increasing number of cities, regions and states have grant programs or loans for high growth businesses at low-interest rates. The beauty of these sources is that a startup may qualify for large sums of money, which are milestone driven — which is the way you ought to be thinking and operating anyway.

If you can’t land one of those, you can always turn to angel groups, venture capital firms, incubators and accelerators to get in the door before launching.

What Do I Need to Start My Business?


Generally for any business, you should start with company formation or registration. It’ll answer a lot of questions, especially with your company name, Certificate of Incorporation, Memorandum and Articles of Association. With this, you’ll be able to protect your brand, and add more authenticity to the products and services which you offer.

In addition to this, you need to have a business plan, establish a budget, identify your market, and secure the required permits and licenses. You should also consider getting an office space or joining a coworking space. But if you can’t afford to do that, why not start right from your home? Remember that famous brands such as Hewlett Packard, Apple, Disney, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all started from their garage.

How Can I Market My Startup?


Marketing your startup without a budget has gotten easy, thanks to recent advancement in technology. Gone are the days where you need to spend a lot of money doing PR in order to get your business in front of people.

With certain marketing strategies, you’ll build new frontiers for your startup and set it on the path of greatness. For example, you need to be discoverable by having a great website, building a mailing list and leveraging social media. Be sure to create valuable content such as blog posts, case studies, white papers, infographics, viral images/videos and podcasts or webinars. Don’t forget to solicit traditional media by circulating press releases for your latest product launches, events and discounts.

How Can I Beat the Competition?


First, you need not fear failure. Rather, you should learn from your failure when it happens. In the words of Paulo Coelho, fear of failure is the only thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve. Don’t allow this fear to thwart your dream. Second, you must realize that businesses thrive when there’s competition. The earlier you started living by this reality, the better. But do you need to worry over your competitors? No!

Beating your competition depends on your willpower and the amount of energy you’re willing to put into your business. It requires you to work smart by knowing what works and what doesn’t work in your industry. Lastly, if you must stay ahead of others, you must carve out a niche for yourself by doing things differently. Uniqueness breeds success and success is all you’re really looking for, right?

NOTE CREDIT: http://tech.co/4-crucial-startup-questions-answered-2016-07#.V4ZZt4EJ8EE.twitter