Tag: Business Plans

Feeling Stuck in Your Career? These 8 Tips Will Help You Move Forward.
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I know what it feels like to be stuck in a career and not have any room for growth or a fair evaluation of your efforts within the company. Although I had what many people would perceive as a successful career in public relations, I felt a prolonged progression in my promotions, a lack of opportunities to grow in other areas of the field and not a great work/life balance. I started to lose a sense of determination in my work. My personal story began when Covid-19 first hit; like many people, I lost my job, which left me in a whirlwind of confusion and heartbreak.

Related: A Successful Career Path Doesn’t Have to Be Linear

How I got unstuck

I had a moment to sink in the fear of job security but then realized I was luckier than most. I was already working on my side hustle with freelancing which was making more than I was making at my full-time position, and I was able to keep that up while I tried to figure out what my next move would be. Would I continue to just freelance and maintain, or would I push myself to do more?

My next move came sooner than I realized. After all, at the time of the pandemic, I possessed a skill many companies needed most — public relations. I realized that this skill allowed me to work from anywhere. In the past, my personal success was hindered in this area, thanks to a full-time job that ate up a lot of my time with commutes and late nights. I realized I had enough clients to get going, with eight customers that quickly grew to 15 in just a few weeks, ranging across a plethora of industries. Things went so well that in the time of a global pandemic, a young 29-year-old female was able to create a growing business.

This is something I never contemplated and didn’t think was possible just three years ago, but now it is a reality with over 25 people on my team and counting. When opportunities come your way, and you realize people want what you offer, you simply don’t turn that down. You acknowledge this as a sign it’s time to grow, your time to live into your potential and to take that leap in creating a business. These opportunities are coming your way because people are gravitating to what you offer. You need to invest in your vision and potential to realize you found something unique and something that companies want. This all starts with believing in yourself.

Related: 4 Tips To Overcome Career Transition Anxiety

How you can do it, too

Some of the most frequent questions I receive are: “how did you change your work situation?” “how did you start your side hustle?” or “how do I market my skills?” As someone whose primary mission is to make an impact on others, I am here to help. Now I realize that many people are feeling stuck in their careers, and in the time of the “Great Resignation,” I want to guide you to feel less trapped and put you on a path where you can recreate your career. Here are my eight tips for getting started:
1. Remember we have more opportunities than ever: There are more avenues now than ever to pick up a side gig and work on it from the comfort of your home. This makes recreating your career and focusing on the work that makes you happy easier than it’s ever been.
2. Take the time to create a list of what skills you possess, are great at and love doing: Often jobs have us doing numerous tasks. Some we are great at, and other ones we wish were better at or just don’t like doing at all. You may simply not have had the opportunity to hone in on certain talents. Now you have the luxury of getting to focus on what you are great at and monetizing that skill. If you don’t have a skill that you’d like to hone in on yet, no worries! Many sites offer courses that are free or at minimal cost so that you can gain critical knowledge to create your new side hustle!
3. Register for freelance sites: Join freelance sites like UpWork, Fiverr, ThumbTack, Freelancer, etc. Take a scroll through the types of jobs on their sites, then finalize which area you would like to focus on.
4. Create a pitch about yourself: Many of these freelance sites will ask you to write about your accomplishments, skills and share your job qualifications on your profile page. It can be awkward for some people to boast about themselves, but if you don’t share all the fantastic things you did, no one will know. Learn to be your own publicist. Be sure to include what you can do for prospective clients on your profile page and show previous success stories.
5. Draft a template cover letter: You can quickly modify a cover letter for different proposals you want to apply for and make simple edits per job posting. This will save you a lot of time.
6. Ask for reviews or referrals: On these sites, you can boost your chances of getting opportunities by asking peers, previous companies you’ve worked for or other side gigs you’ve had in relevant spaces to get their review of you on the platform. This builds your credibility and also builds potential clients’ confidence when deciding whether to talk and eventually hire you.
7. Research price points: When putting yourself out there, there is always the question of how much you should charge for your skillset per hour or per project. On many of these sites, you can do some analysis of what others are charging for similar fields. Starting a little lower at first can help you break through to start building your freelance roster, and once you have a couple of reviews of current clients under your belt, that’s when you can move the needle up.
8. Start applying and putting yourself out there: Once you find a side gig or two, you can really craft yourself, put your passions outside of your current career and start honing a path for yourself that will make you happy.
Related: Do You Feel Unfulfilled in Your Work Life? Here’s How to Change That

Whether you want to try this until you find your next job, need extra income or are considering freelancing as your new full-time job for more flexibility, these eight tips above will help you succeed. As Christopher Robbins says, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”
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Mary Elkordy

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November 22, 2022
7 Misconceptions About Starting Your Own Business

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Starting a business can be one of the most exciting and rewarding things you’ll ever do. The process has its challenges, but it’s important not to let misconceptions about them stop you from trying. In this article, we’ll go over seven common misconceptions about starting a business.

Misconception 1: You don’t need a business plan.

There are a lot of misconceptions about starting a business. One of the most common is that you don’t need to write a formal business plan. It’s easy to understand why this would be so — after all, who has time for more paperwork when you’re trying to keep things going as efficiently as possible? The problem with skipping the planning stage is that it can lead to wasted time, money and a poorer product or service than what you could have created.

An example of this is advertising: many start-ups spend thousands on ads without thinking through their audience, budgeting, or messaging strategy. Writing out a marketing plan before investing in any ad buys would help prevent these issues from arising and save you some cash along the way.

The reality is that there are several different kinds of plans — business plans (which detail your company’s overarching goals) and financial plans (which provide projections for revenues and costs) are examples — but they all have one thing in common: they help you visualize where your company is headed over time.

Related: 7 Common Misconceptions Young People Have About Entrepreneurship

Misconception 2: You can entirely rely on your financing.

Learning the basics of running a business before seeking financing is essential. While it might sound great to have all that money at your disposal, you could end up in debt before you even start.

There are two common financial mistakes made by people who don’t have a lot of experience running a company. The first is relying too much on financing and not having enough personal money invested in the business. This leads to an over-reliance on loans, which can be difficult if the company goes under or runs into trouble. The second mistake is spending too much money on things that aren’t helping your business succeed — like a fancy office space or expensive furniture.

Misconception 3: You’ll have to choose between work and having a personal life.

You will not have time to handle every single detail. After all, you are now the head of your own company. That means you’ll have to balance running your business with everything else. You will not be able to handle everything by yourself. It’s okay if you need help from someone else. It’s expected.

You can delegate tasks that don’t require special knowledge or training, such as answering phone calls or taking out the trash at the reception. Still, there are some things only you can do because they involve special skills and experience that only come from doing them before.

For example, setting up marketing campaigns requires understanding how different channels work together for maximum effectiveness; updating website content requires knowing what keywords people search for when looking for information on a particular topic; creating invoices requires basic knowledge about accounting software programs like QuickBooks Pro.

Related: Having A Work-Life Balance is Nonsense. To Reach Your Goals, Follow Another Approach

Misconception 4: Everyone on your team will work as you do.

When you are starting a business, there will be times when things get complicated. The longer you have been in business, the more complex the challenges can become. This is just part of the journey; everyone has their own way of dealing with these feelings.

In my experience, though, I have found that rarely anyone will tell me when it’s time to stop and go home. And chances are you’ll keep working if you haven’t set boundaries. No one else should be expected to work as you do. After all, this is your company. You should temper your expectations of yourself with what you expect from an employee — and then act accordingly. If you fail to do this, your expectations will be unrealistic, and ultimately, nobody will want to work with you.

Related: Good Leaders Treat Their Employees Like CEOs. Here’s 4 Ways They Do It.

Misconception 5: You must compare yourself to other companies.

You’re new in your space. It’s important to capitalize on what makes you unique and slowly carve a market share for your product or service. At this stage, comparisons are unproductive and could lead to jealousy or negativity. Instead of comparing yourself to other companies, focus on your goals and how you can achieve them in the most effective way possible. You can learn from others, but don’t try copying their success — it’s not likely that someone else’s approach will work exactly as well for you as it did for them in their industry.

Misconception 6: There’s no room for error.

As a founder, it’s easy to mount a full load of responsibility on your shoulders. So much more becomes personal when you’re an entrepreneur. But remember, everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. If you’re not making any mistakes, you’re either not trying hard enough or have lost your ability to think creatively and independently — and that’s a problem.

Mistakes are part of the process. They tell you what works and what doesn’t. They teach valuable lessons about yourself, your product, service, customers and competition — all invaluable information for any entrepreneur building their business.

Misconception 7: Taking a risk is too risky when first starting.

Not making decisions based on risk can mean missing out on significant opportunities. Fear is why many people don’t try to start their own business in the first place — or even leave their current job for a new chance. When you can overcome your fears and take calculated risks that match up with your values and goals as an individual or company, you can do more than survive; you might thrive.

When fear enters your mind, remind yourself that it is often a sign that there’s something more prominent on the horizon if you choose to overcome it — and if there isn’t something bigger on the horizon for you right now, then find it. There are many opportunities out there waiting for those ready to take them on.

Related: Here’s What Science Says You Should Do to Achieve Greater Success

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Christopher Massimine

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November 18, 2022
7 Signs You’re Ready to Transition from Employee to Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I recently had a call with one of my best friends who moved to London to work for a big, multinational public company. She’s talented, successful and hardworking.

Yet, she called me full of tears, anxiety and anger. “They are restructuring the company; they are cutting positions. My role is about to die.”

I suggested that she apply for the same role in other ventures, companies that could offer multiple benefits, from remote working to stock options. I explained that with her talent, potential and ideas, she could even be self-employed through freelancing for various clients with contracts. She could chase her version of success and happiness. And she could probably end up with more money and even more freedom.

“You don’t get it.” She said. “I don’t want to be nobody. I want to work for the top companies in the world.”

Perhaps I don’t get it. But I also don’t get why talented, hardworking individuals like her want to throw their full potential into hierarchy and politics for prestige. Why do they let their companies fill them with stress, ruin their day, restrict their career options and define their value?

Related: 7 Signs It’s Time to Transition From Employee to Entrepreneur

Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of great people acknowledging their worth and consciously choosing to advocate the employee’s mentality. They are okay with that.

But if you’re fed up with the corporate world, feeling like it’s limiting your options in life, and wondering when is the right time to leverage your skillset and make a transition, it’s probably now.

Here are seven signs you no longer have an employee mentality.

1. You’re in love with the idea of working wherever and whenever you want

Flexible work hours and location independence started becoming the norm after the pandemic in 2020. You proved to your employer that location doesn’t affect productivity and that a strict 9 to 5 workday could burn you out instead.

And while many companies allow work-from-home days and a flexible working schedule, you still have to report your location and total work hours.

However, with an entrepreneurial mindset, complete location and time flexibility is your dream; you know the only way to achieve that is to fully own your freedom by creating your income stream instead of expecting a salary.

Related: Remote Work Is Here to Stay: Are You Ready for the New Way of Life?

2. When in meetings, you’re daydreaming instead of participating.

The average employer spends at least 3 hours weekly in meetings, with 30% reporting that they spend over 5 hours weekly.

And instead of actively participating in that meeting, you’re contemplating how to avoid the next one so you can work on something instead. You know you could be spending your time in a more fruitful way than attending company meetings, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Someone more senior requested your presence; you have to be there. So there you are, visualizing how you can escape this misspend of your hours, wasting time while time is money .

Related: Your Time Is Money, So Stop Wasting It

3. You absolutely despise titles and hierarchy.

When having an employee mentality, you get so caught up in titles. You fool yourself with pride, showing off on Linkedin, gossiping about others’ abilities, and jealously spreading your best wishes to the colleagues who claimed the C-titles first.

When you are a business owner, you laugh at job titles. You want people to work with you, not for you. You also know that a title cannot determine your worth. Anybody can go on Linkedin and claim that they are the CEO or an executive member of a 5-people company.

What does that even mean?

Fancy titles in corporate jobs almost always equal less freedom, less time to work on your relationships with others and less time to spend with your kids before they become adults.

C-titles while climbing the corporate ladder also mean less time to invest in your self-care planning, wellness, and personal skills and less time to enjoy life.

4. You’re testing multiple side hustles after or before work.

With an employee mindset, you look at the clock at quarter to six and know it’s time to shut down your laptop and get on with your day.

And while maintaining a work-life balance is crucial, as a business owner, you are continuously testing concepts and trying side hustles to build multiple income streams whenever you can. You don’t depend on one client, idea or salary, but you’re willing to test, take risks, fail and start over.

Related: 4 Creative Side Hustles That Fight Inflation and Earn Extra Cash

5) You’re not afraid of building relationships from outreach.

As an employee, you are terrified of cold pitches. You are not fond of being rejected or ignored because that usually happens. You don’t attempt to reach out to others unless you’re selling something; in that case, you face outreach as a transaction, not a relationship.

However, as an entrepreneur, you know that expanding your systems by connecting, advising, or simply interacting with others is one of the most vital steps in building a personal or professional brand.

You don’t underestimate the power of community and networking; you aim to create daily connections with one or two new people in your industry. In one year, you are astonished by your reach and the ways your network proved helpful.

6. You know that building passive income and making money online is 100% possible.

When having an employee mentality, you don’t care about investing or building a passive income online. Even if you care, it strikes you as too-good-to-be-true, and you don’t bother putting effort into creating a diversified portfolio.

On the contrary, when you have entrepreneurial tendencies, you get excited about passive income ideas and turn your world upside down to build an online income.

Creator’s economy is not a too-good-to-be-true scenario nor a get-rick-quickly scheme. It’s an available reality with no barriers to entry, and as a business owner, you like that challenge. You know that spending an x amount of time creating the tiniest passive income stream can yield 10x results in the near future.

They know they must find what they enjoy creating and work on it daily.

7) You’re constantly enriching your knowledge and skillset to increase value.

You are exchanging your skills and experience with payable work hours as an employee. However, as an entrepreneur, you offer your skillset, idea or business as a service that solves problems and delivers value.

You don’t charge by the word, hour, or month. You charge according to the advantages and utility of your solutions. You answer questions and deliver results. And because your expertise is directly related to the value and results you deliver, you’re working daily towards improving and enriching it.

Final thoughts

Perhaps you’re not 100% ready to escape the rat race. However, if any of the above signs hit true, you know it’s time to start owning your career and follow a path you can fully control.

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Maria Dimitropoulou

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November 17, 2022
4 Money Beliefs That Are Holding Your Business

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

As business owners, many of us like to create a clear boundary between our personal and professional affairs. And with good reason! It’s not healthy to intertwine the two in a lot of ways. However, it’s also unhealthy to consider them to be oil and water.

Whether you like it or not, your business is an extension of you. Your personal beliefs about money could hold your business back without you even knowing it.

“Waste not, want not”

“Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”

We’re drip-fed these lines over our formative years, usually with good intent. It’s hard to see at the moment how these words of ‘wisdom’ could do any harm…but their cumulative effect can have a tremendous stunting effect on your growth as an entrepreneur.

Remember that these beliefs take root in your subconscious long before you set foot on the professional stage. When you start with nothing to lose and everything to gain, these messages of prudence and conservation don’t have much of a foothold.

After all: what is there to conserve?

But as you grow and succeed, you’ll find yourself placing more and more restrictions on what you do with your capital — setting the thresholds for investing ever further ahead, convinced that you’ll finally be ready to take that leap by the next one.

But you never do.

So here are four beliefs about money that you might hold and could be holding your business back.

Related: 3 Money Mindset Blocks That Are Holding You Back From Expanding Your Business

1. It could all end tomorrow

It’s very easy to be convinced of the need to conserve your capital reserves because it could all be gone tomorrow, and you’ll need the liquidity.

That’s fair and by no means unreasonable, especially given the current geopolitical situation. As a responsible business owner, you want to ensure you’ve covered your bases should the worst come to the worst. You have employees with mouths to feed, after all.

However, you can convince yourself of this being the case at any time, and it’s a false economy. Think about it for a moment. You’re a smart person; you know how money works. If you leave your cash in an account, it will be eroded by inflation and taxes. It needs to be put to work to grow.

The responsible thing to do is to find diverse avenues of investment to grow that money.

All it takes is a shift in your mindset.

Related: Want to Make More Money? Start Rewriting Your Story.

2. I can’t increase my prices, or I’ll lose my clients

This is one that an awful lot of business advisors speak on, but yet somehow, it just doesn’t get through. All of the logic and intellectualizing in the world can’t convince us that it’s the right course of action. But it is!

I’m not saying to hike your prices every week. But you change your mindset about regular price rises, even just to keep pace with inflation!

You also need to do it to optimize your client base. You’ve doubtlessly heard of the Pareto or “80/20” principle. This applies to your clients in a big way. I guarantee you that, within a small margin of error, 80% of your turnover comes from 20% of your clients, which means that you are spending 80% of your resources on 20% of them!

Here’s the thing, though: it’s not a clear dividing line.

When you put your prices up, it’s not like you’ll lose 80% of your client base, just like that! Many of them will be brought into the top 20%. Those that will, will be more than you think and certainly will negate any revenue lost, or resources expended on, those that represent the bottom half. Double the number of clients in that 20% bracket; you’ll have 160% of the revenue for less than half the work!

Related: How to Let Customers Know About Increased Prices Without Making Them Mad

3. Risk mitigation

Risk is a four-letter word. The thing is… without risk; you will not achieve your business goals. You have to embrace it as a factor in what you’re doing. But risk in and of itself isn’t necessarily a good thing.

We’re not talking about throwing yourself to the wolves needlessly. But you need to find that mindset where you’re comfortable “taking a punt” (as we Brits say).

Calculated risk is good, but don’t get too wound up in the minutia. With any new venture or endeavor; there comes a jumping-off point. It’s a time to let go of the theorizing, stop trying to convince yourself of the certainty of the outcome and take the leap of faith.

If you’re getting yourself bound up with risk assessments and market fluctuations, just remember that not taking action is a risk in itself.

4. Debt is the last resort

This is probably the best example of a personal belief that, when carried from your personal life to your professional one, can really impede growth.

Consumer debt (i.e., buying consumables using debt) is to be avoided because this is servicing debt on an asset that is losing value — a car, for example, or a washing machine.

But, when leveraged strategically, debt is one of the greatest tools in your arsenal and can increase your value. That’s how rich people get richer! What…did you think that they invested their own money?

Of course not!

They use their wealth and capital to leverage debt and invest that. As long as the return is greater than the interest on the debt: you’re winning and experiencing abundance!

Don’t be afraid of debt in your business. Don’t let it suffocate the happiness and pride in your business. It is most definitely your friend. Awareness is the first step in any problem-solving.

I hope that by bringing these four beliefs about money that could hold your business back to your awareness, you can start to see your role in all this. That alone could be all the change you need to start opening doors to new opportunities for growth.

I hope so!

Related: How Debt and Taxes Can Make Smart Entrepreneurs Rich

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Daniel Mangena

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November 15, 2022
Why Having a Great Plan Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Business

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you’re familiar with the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry saying: “A goal without a plan is just a wish,” you’ve probably only heard the TL;DR version. Here is the full version:

A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.

This is why your plan isn’t going to be enough. A plan in itself is just a piece of paper or a bunch of 0s and 1s that make up words. Luckily, I have had experience with failing and succeeding in business (more of the latter), and these are the five things I focus on to turn my plans into realities.

Related: Planning To Grow Your Business? Five Tips That Can Help You

1. Focus

Focusing on one primary goal per quarter is crucial. As much as we like to brag that we can multitask, we can’t. When was the last time you saw a population that throws 10 balls in the air and catch them before they hit the ground? Exactly. A much better skill is learning how to take all the tasks at hand and realizing which one will have the most impact.

2. Transparency

More specifically, internal company transparency. Does your team understand the finances of the company? Do they understand what a burn rate is and that revenue doesn’t mean you are profitable? Internal company transparency means educating your team on how a business works and bringing them into the inner circle that used to be reserved for leadership only. If you add stock options on top of that, you can trigger an ownership mindset that makes your team your partner.

3. Accountability

Now that your team has become your partner in success (and failure), they need to be held to a different standard, and being accountable is key. There may be 3-10 people responsible for a priority (remember, only one per quarter) but there is one person at the helm, or what I call the champions, that makes sure everyone does what they need to do. This person needs to understand something, though. They aren’t “the boss.” A lot of times when someone is given this type of responsibility, they believe that they can just shout orders and they only take credit when they succeed and blame others for “not listening” when they fail. That isn’t the case. Accountability goes both ways.

Related: 5 Keys to Promoting Accountability in Your Business

4. Hiring

This is probably the hardest part of the process. Your company is only as good as your weakest employee. When you are small (under 50 employees), you don’t have the luxury of hand-holding — you either find a team that learns quickly or one that is already experienced. Once again, I suggest the latter. You will thank me later. Understand that salary will be your biggest investment and you should treat it just like that — an investment.

Hire fast and fire quick, especially if you are smaller. Yes, I know this is not the usual battle cry (“Hire slow…”), but you have to realize a day in the life of a small, growing business is like a month for an established one. You need to trust your gut or trust someone else’s when hiring. I also strongly suggest you set expectations with new hires to understand they are in a trial period and that they need to step up. This may seem harsh, but as you grow, you can be a little more lenient and mentor with a softer touch.

5. Stay healthy

It’s important to stay healthy financially, physically and mentally. Create an environment that endorses the importance of all three. Physical and financial are usually easier concepts to grasp and fix (I said easier, not easy), but mental is a tough nut to crack. Just saying there is an open-door policy is great and must be said, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Keep in mind that the time you spend doing one thing — for example, focusing on revenue — usually prevents you from focusing on your employees’ well-being. Finding the balance is sometimes not worth the effort when you are smaller but should definitely be on the table as you grow and can afford to implement a mental health check system.

Related: Keys to Planning for Smart Business Growth

Did you notice a trend here about plans? There was only one point that spoke directly to taking action, and the rest was to help others be effective at their duties — which has always made me think about Antoine’s quote. I always wanted to add the following to it …

But remember, a dream is nothing without someone to appreciate it with you

Without your team running smoothly, a plan can’t take action. And if you really want to make it big, you aren’t going to do it yourself. Don’t you agree?

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Doug Walner

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November 11, 2022
5 Lessons I Learned From Starting a Company at 19 Years Old

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I had no intention of creating my own software company. I was kind of forced into it. You see, a few years ago, I was a full-time YouTuber. All was well until my channel got demonetized. This means that I was making $0 from the ads being placed on my videos.

There was a point where I was getting 2-3 million views a month on my channel and didn’t receive a penny. As a way to bounce back from this low, I decided to put my life savings ($5,000) into starting a creator economy software startup at 19 years old. I dropped out of college to work on my SaaS startup full-time, and I have learned valuable lessons along the way. Here are five of the most important lessons I have learned so far:

Related: How to Start and Grow a Business: A Digital Guide for Young Entrepreneurs

1. Done is better than perfect

I had no experience in coding — let alone creating and growing a startup. Despite these challenges, I 100% believed in my idea. Backed with a proof of concept, I was willing to do everything within my limited budget to turn my SaaS idea into a reality.

With a well-written vision and lots of persistence, I was able to find a good developer overseas that not only fit my budget but believed in my vision for Trend Watchers.

We still work together to this day. The first versions of Trend Watchers were hideous, but over time, the UI/UX slowly improved. When I look back at my journey from a software development point of view, I should not have made it this far. I went through so many setbacks and hurdles. I should have quit back at the start line, but by having a great vision and team mixed with the desire to succeed, we were able to pull through.

No matter how challenging a task may seem, done is always better than perfect. Oftentimes, perfection comes through the countless mistakes you make along the way.

2. The importance of data collection

One thing I implemented early on is good data collection. What do I mean by data collection? Data collection has a bad rep, thanks to large companies and scammers abusing it to make a quick buck. But there is a good side to data collection. Data collection can be used to make better marketing decisions. It can also be used to discover what users like and don’t like.

I collect data in a few ways, but two of the most useful data collection tactics I used are asking good questions on our signup sequence and having a session recording software that tracks how long users are on each page and what they click on. These two data-collecting methods have helped with making the right decisions and software updates to improve the user experience.

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

3. Get a proof of concept before you build

For the people in the back, I’m going to repeat myself: Get a proof of concept before you build. In early 2022, I thought it would be a good idea to build a marketplace within Trend Watchers. Marketplaces are great, and when used right they can be a great growth engine for startups — but no one wanted that. They just wanted trends they can use to go viral online.

Instead of listening to this market feedback, I went ahead and built it anyway, and it was a major flop. It also caused a whole lot of other issues, but I wasted a lot of time and money on something my users didn’t want at the time. Because of that experience, I always conduct surveys and get a proof of concept before I add a new feature.

4. Tell your story

Starting a software company at 19 years old with my own money was already challenging enough financially. The next question was, how am I going to market this thing with a $0 marketing budget?

Growing up, I’ve always been an amazing storyteller. In my free time after school, I would always write my own books. I would go into our home office, grab a few sheets of paper from the printer, fold them in half, staple them together, and boom — I had a book.

I decided to leverage this skill I developed at a young age to slowly build a movement of loyal followers that would help me get traction for Trend Watchers. The two platforms I decided to focus on to document my progress were Instagram and leveraging press. This wasn’t an overnight success. It took tons of writing, documentation and pitching to slowly start getting my brand’s story heard, and now it is starting to pay off.

One interesting insight I recently discovered about my paying customers is that they tend to stay longer knowing that their money is being put to work. A lot of my paying customers follow my story through my email list or Instagram page for weekly updates.

If you are working on growing your startup, document your journey. Not only do you end up with a well-written journal in the end, but you can also find loyal customers along the way.

5. Take every opportunity that presents itself

Some of the best decisions I’ve ever made were time-sensitive opportunities that came my way. Some of these opportunities included opportunities to buy into programs, go to different places and break my schedule to attend certain events. About 90% of these opportunities came out of nowhere, and every time I took one, it significantly helped me in the process of growing my business.

Related: 6 Tips for Building a Successful, Scalable Software Company

As most people know, starting and growing a business is not easy, especially for a young adult with no prior experience. Reading books and watching YouTube videos can be very helpful and informative, but experience is truly the best teacher. The skills and lessons I’ve acquired through my experience have helped me grow exponentially, and hopefully, these five lessons above can help other entrepreneurs — young or old — grow their businesses as well.

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Dejon Brooks

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November 11, 2022
Recently Sold Your Business? Consider Creating an Investment Fund Instead of Another Startup

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, right? It’s in the DNA of a founder to re-create their original success over and over by starting new businesses. After all, it’s why the term “serial entrepreneur” is so popular. Richard Branson, Elon Musk and many more continually reinvest their profits in new ventures. While that is certainly one tactic, using a portion of your profits to create an investment fund can be infinitely more valuable.

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There are many forms of investment companies that manage pooled assets of multiple private investors, such as venture capital, private equity and hedge funds. While most startup founders don’t think of themselves as finance experts or professional investors, their experience building and exiting successful companies may very well equip them to succeed in making investments on behalf of others.

The seeds of my journey to creating a hedge fund started when I was an engineer focused on research and education computing (far from a finance background!). Eventually, that led to my role as a CTO at a startup, and I co-founded a firm that grew to $30 million in revenue in just under two years. Several liquidity events from that business became the foundation for building my family office, a private wealth management firm that runs like a hedge fund.

Today, that is the foundation from which I build my wealth rather than embarking on new business ventures. But why should other entrepreneurs consider following this path? Here are three reasons:

Related: This Entrepreneur Who Sold Her Company for $1 Billion Wants You to Throw Out the Unwritten Rules That Hold You Back

Previous success doesn’t mean future success

If you’ve started one successful company, it’s easy to think that you can do that repeatedly. But doing so can be more challenging than expected. The conditions that created outsized achievements the first time are hard to replicate as the world around us constantly changes. The best use of your proven business acumen may be to invest on behalf of others rather than diving headlong into developing another company.

That said, starting an investment fund isn’t unlike establishing another company. Your first step — even before you line up initial investors — should be to hire a good lawyer and contact your state’s Secretary of State for guidance about investment fund business structures. In the case of hedge funds, most are formed as limited partnerships, in which the founder acts as the general partner and an incorporated group of investors act as the limited partners. This means you would likely need to set up two entities: one for the fund itself and one to incorporate its various investors.

Bigger potential upside

A fund structure is attractive because it allows a successful entrepreneur to use their expertise to help others navigate investments. In addition, the financial rewards can be substantial. Successful fund managers, whether in venture capital, private equity, hedge funds or real estate, are highly compensated and only limited by their performance and how many investors they can attract.

For successful entrepreneurs such as myself, launching or participating in funds can amplify their expertise with capital and create a new kind of business that also brings about material financial contributions. In the course of founding your startup, you likely got to know some wealthy individuals who contributed to your success. Founding a fund can enable you to deliver value to these individuals in a new way. Because time is our most scarce resource, it doesn’t make sense for individuals with $20MM to invest their time into a $1-2MM opportunity, when instead they could invest that capital into your fund, go to the beach and call it a day.

Related: She Was Homeless. Now She Runs a $25 Million Investment Fund for Women of Color.

Leave the startup grind behind

Once entrepreneurs have participated in major liquidity events, they realize a great deal can be gained by exploring new investment opportunities, managing taxation, and utilizing estate planning. After all, the point of founding a startup for many entrepreneurs is to compress the working years of one’s life, sell the company and have more years of freedom. Founding an investment fund can allow you to do that.

For me, the idea of a fund seemed an appropriate encore to a successful business career. Fast forward to today — the strategies I spun off from my family office have become the heart of the TrueCode Capital Crypto Momentum Fund I founded. It allows me to spend my time sharing the lessons that made me a successful investor in digital assets and helping individual investors and family offices achieve growth, all while sleeping through the night.

Of course, founding an investment fund — like any venture — isn’t for everyone. But for those with confidence in their ability to read the market, with contacts among high net-worth individuals, and with a proven track record of business success, starting your own hedge fund may be the next career step you’ve been looking for.

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Joshua Peck

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November 7, 2022
How Data Analytics Can Help Your Startup Achieve Success
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Data analytics is one of the most important tools that startups can use to help them succeed. In this article, we will provide a practical guide to using data analytics to help your startup achieve its goals. We’ll cover topics like identifying key data points, analyzing data and making informed decisions. By the end of this article, you will have everything you need to start using data analytics to help your startup achieve success. So, let’s get started!

What are the benefits of using data analytics for startups?

There are many benefits to using data analytics for startups, and here are just a few:
- Data analytics can help you identify patterns and trends in your data that you wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. This can help you improve your product or service in ways that you never thought possible.
- Data analytics can also help you identify which areas of your business are most profitable and which ones need more attention. This can help you prioritize your resources accordingly, making sure that you’re investing in the areas that are most likely to succeed.
- Data analytics can also help you track user behavior and determine what kind of feedback they give you. This helps you create better products and services that meet their needs and expectations.
- Finally, data analytics can help you measure the success of your company both short-term (in terms of revenue) and long-term (in terms of customer retention).
Related: Data Analytics Are Invaluable to Your Business. Here’s Why.

How to get started with data analytics

If you’re looking to increase your startup’s success, then data analytics is a key tool you need to have in your arsenal. As stated above, data analytics can help you understand and optimize your business processes, identify and correct any issues early on and improve customer retention rates. It can also help you create better marketing campaigns and track the progress of your products and services.

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when using data analytics for startups:
- Start by identifying your data projects and their respective business goals. What are you trying to achieve? What kind of data will help you achieve those goals?
- Make sure all the data you use is accurate and up-to-date. If it’s not, then it’ll be useless in helping you reach your objectives.
- Work with a data analyst who understands startup processes and can guide you through the analytical process step by step.
How to identify key data points

In order to increase startup success using data analytics, you need to identify key data points that will help you improve your business. There are a number of ways to do this:
- Use surveys or interviews to gather feedback from users and customers about their experience with your product or service. This will help you measure how well it meets their needs and what areas you need to focus on in order to improve it.
- Monitor social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to see what people are saying about your product or service. This will give you an idea of whether people are happy with it or not and which areas might need improvement.
- Analyze the financial data of your company in order to understand how well it’s performing financially. This will give you an idea of whether there’s potential for growth or if there’s a more pressing issue that needs addressing first.
- Collect sales data from retail outlets where your product is sold in order to get an idea of how much demand there is for it. This will help you decide whether marketing efforts are effective or if there are other strategies that would be more successful in reaching more people.
Related: Why Data Analytics Can Help Drive Sales For Your Business

How to use data analytics effectively

There are a number of different ways to use data analytics to improve your startup’s performance. Some common techniques include:
- Data mining: This involves extracting valuable information from large data sets by using special algorithms. This can help you find patterns and insights that you wouldn’t be able to see otherwise.
- Forecasting: This is the process of predicting future events based on past data. It can help you make informed decisions about marketing campaigns, pricing strategies or other strategic decisions.
- Performance monitoring: This allows you to track key performance indicators (KPIs) over time to identify areas in which your company is performing well or not well. This can help you make necessary changes to your strategy in order to improve results.
- Insights reports: These provide a detailed analysis of specific aspects of your data that can help you make better decisions.
5 tips for making data analytics work for your startup
1. Make a data-driven culture part of your startup from the beginning.
2. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different data analysis tools and techniques.
3. Be sure to collect and track the right data for your startup’s needs.
4. Keep your data analyst team small and nimble for maximum agility.
5. Use data analytics to inform every decision made in your startup, from product development to marketing to sales.
Related: Data Analytics Should Become Part Of A Company’s Culture

To sum up, data analytics is a powerful tool that can help your startup understand its market better and get you to the top. However, it is important to invest in the right tools that can take your analysis process further. In case you are running low on funds or time, we have curated a list of data analytics tools to equip your startup with everything it needs.

If you’re ready to take the next step, all you need is a few months of hard work and dedication. You can then start tracking your every move with data analytics in order to find trends that will help you achieve stellar results!
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Piyanka Jain

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November 2, 2022
3 Simple Reasons to Add Technology to Your Non-Tech Business

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You are a business owner but aren’t in the tech industry, so why would you need to focus heavily on adapting technology in your daily workflow? Some people may say you don’t need to. However, I’m here to put a bug in your head and prove how technology is critical to any business across any vertical. And that includes you!

We know technology can be intimidating. It also can be complex, and there are seemingly endless options. So, is it worth the cost, integration headaches and question if you are picking the right ones? Yes! Here are my top three reasons to focus on technology, and I’ll explain how to integrate it into your business:

1. Not applying technology means you could face a technology deficit

Let’s face it, not having a line item in your books for technology and software subscriptions means your company will hit a point where you can’t grow any further. Whether your marketing team will be missing major data points for essential customer acquisition or your efficiencies will eventually put you behind, your competition could pass you by (we’ll get to this one more in the next point). No matter the roadblock you will hit, the point is your growth will have to slow down or halt. You don’t want to wait until that point to use technology once the train has left the station without you!

Related: 5 Types of Technology All Entrepreneurs Need Access to in the Digital Age

2. Results are everything

No matter your business or vertical, your most valuable resource is your team. How can you empower your team to work smarter, not harder, and ultimately produce the best results? The answer is with the right technology! Even if your staff has been set in their ways and doesn’t want to learn a new program, you must pick the right operational systems and offer proper training. A minor setback in the learning curve will mean a huge uptick in productivity.

I once ran into a mid-sized company that was technologically behind due to not prioritizing this aspect of its business. This inadequacy caused marketing and sales to lag compared to its competitors. I likened their technological powers and abilities to taking a knife to a gunfight.

If a company can increase its operational automation in the marketing space, that would allow it to understand its target customer and truly understand how to sell to its market in an efficient and results-driven way.

A data warehouse and congruent CRM would allow this business to properly segment and hit goals for its best marketing demographic more accurately. Identifying, understanding and addressing low-hanging fruit, such as abandoned shopping cart funnels, is crucial.

When you are focused on results, technology almost always needs to be integrated to increase efficiencies and drive sales in the long run. And it’s always easier and cheaper to integrate the right technology early to ensure your team is trained and using it along the way!

Related: How Technology Is Shortening the Road to Fame

3. You’re increasing your footprint of liabilities without the right technology

I’ve seen every range of technology integration, from the tech-savvy millennial CEO who relies on data and analytics for every business decision to the companies that don’t integrate it at all and still use a pen and paper within every significant department. However, if you are closer to the latter, you are potentially putting your team at a huge safety risk. If you have only minimal or wrong technology, you could be putting your customers, reputation and finances at risk too!

I’ve even seen clients using only a single source for major bookkeeping and documentation, like Excel. One wrong move or fat-fingered mistake can change your calculations completely. Or worse, delete everything! If that isn’t risky, I don’t know what is.

Technology can feel overwhelming, which is often why we hear people stay away from adding it to their daily workflow. However, there are simple ways to make that change. Start with finding a company to give you a technical audit — which is often cheaper than you might expect. Take their advice and then apply it in chunks.

You may not need to go from 0 to 100 in the first week. You can slowly add, integrate and manage critical technology into various departments as you feel comfortable. And as I mentioned earlier, a key to tech success is training! Empower your team to take the tech leap with you and work on this together. Everyone can learn a new trick, and it could even be fun! Finally, ensure that you have a base infrastructure to make the ideal environment for success. This includes having the basic technology hardware and compatible systems in place.

Take this article as your sign to take the first step and better your business with tech!

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Craig Ceccanti

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November 2, 2022
What is Disruptive Marketing and Why is it Crucial for Success?
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As marketers, we are always trying to stand out from the crowd. Enter: disruptive marketing.

Think back to 20 years ago when Steve Jobs said that iPhones would replace computers. People didn’t believe him at the time, but I bet you are either reading this article on your phone or your phone is at least next to you. Steve Jobs’ claim is a perfect example of disruptive marketing.

I’m not a fan of buzzwords, but I am a fan of disruptive marketing. So much so that I recently came on board a disruptive marketing agency, Overit, as the Senior Marketing Director. Part of my role involves being a disruptor in the marketing industry, and with this article, I aim to help you become a disruptor. As disruptors, we need to be cutting-edge and unafraid so let’s explore how to do just that.

What exactly is disruptive marketing?

While innovative, disruptive marketing is also strategic. It goes against the status quo of traditional marketing tactics and reaches your target audience in new and creative ways. Disruptive marketing resonates with your current customers and unlocks new audiences.

FYI, this marketing strategy is only for risk-takers. However, it’s an excellent opportunity to grow your brand rather quickly. It is not just about being unique to get attention; disruptive marketing should be paired with data and strategy — just like any other marketing technique.

To put it simply, disruptive marketing is the process of using new and original marketing strategies to reach your target consumers in a way that your competitors are not.

This type of marketing allows for a lot of creativity and, like all marketing strategies, can continually be refined by the data you collect from your efforts. This data is important because disruptive marketing involves experimenting, and some tactics will work while others won’t.

Disruptive marketing pushes boundaries and creates new norms. Strategies we have in our marketing toolboxes were once disruptive. Take influencer marketing for example, it once was a foreign way to get authentic brand recommendations, and now it’s a strategy that many brands implement.

If you want to be a disruptor, you can’t be afraid to fail. However, this type of marketing has the chance of going viral. Are you a risk-taker like me?

Why should my marketing be disruptive?

The modern-day consumer is quite intelligent. They know when they’re being “marketed” and are sick of the traditional advertising norms. Disruptive marketing involves you doing something unique to allow you to stand out in an over-saturated industry.

Consumers value innovation. In fact, they expect it. There is a sea of repetitive marketing trends out there, and your target audience craves something different. This type of marketing makes your products or services stay top-of-mind by being unique and memorable.

The top 10 disruptive marketing tips

Have I convinced you to be a disruptor yet? If so, I’ve streamlined the top 10 tips I use in my disruptive marketing efforts. Write them out on a sticky note and post them on your monitor so you can always remind yourself how to be disruptive.
- Stay up to date with social media trends and success stories
- A/B test different strategies
- Capture data and implement the insights you glean from it
- Consult your buyer personas to ensure you’re reaching your target audience
- Challenge current marketing assumptions and do the opposite
- Speak to consumer pain points
- Embrace technology
- Follow disruptive thought leaders for inspiration
- Be unusual but not bizarre
- Implement storytelling best practices
Examples of disruptive marketing

Uber appalled people when they announced that they came out with an app in which people essentially get into a stranger’s car. Today, there are competing apps, and “ubering” is part of our English language.

Bitcoin is the world’s largest bank but has no actual cash. That didn’t stop them. They kept promoting their values and honed in on target consumers who don’t trust traditional banks, and now look at how far they’ve come.

Dollar Shave Club came out with its first commercial in 2011 and flipped the entire razor industry on its head. They studied what consumers were looking for, addressed those pain points in a brand new way, and the rest is history.

REI took a risk and set itself apart from other brands vying for consumers to spend money on Black Friday. In 2015, they started #OptOutside and discouraged consumers from shopping at their store on the biggest consumer spending day of the year. Many consumers actually respected this stance, which clearly didn’t hurt business because REI still encourages consumers to opt outside on Black Friday.

In 2015, HBO released their HBO Go app. Instead of pushing typical pain points like watching HBO from anywhere, they released a commercial of a family watching awkward HBO shows together. They then showed how the family went to different rooms in the house to avoid awkward viewing. They thought outside the box, and it worked.

Air Wick implemented disruptive marketing with their Scent Decorator quiz. They invite consumers to take quizzes to find the perfect home scents. Typically, people want actually to smell something before purchasing, but Air Wick found a way around that, and they did it successfully.

A balance between traditional and disruptive

Disruptive marketing creates quick impact and brand awareness. However, this strategy doesn’t mean you throw traditional marketing out the door.

There is a balance between holding onto traditional marketing that works and using your tried and true strategies to power your disruptive efforts.

Like traditional marketing, when implementing disruptive marketing, look at things like the consumer’s journey, pain points, value propositions, etc., when allocating your time and budget for 2023.

Final thoughts: How to be disruptive with your content

So much of modern-day marketing is content-driven. Naturally, some of your disruptive marketing efforts will be rooted in content. After all, 91% of brands use content marketing, bringing in 6 times as many leads as traditional marketing at 62% of the cost.

A great place to start with disruptive marketing is through your content.

User Generated Content is popular and effective. Consider challenging your audience to post content about your brand with a theme that gets people’s attention. You can then promote your UGC using marketing strategies that you already use.

The beauty of content creation is that it allows you to experiment with disruptive marketing. Look at your competitors’ typical blog posts and publish the opposite. Be bold. Be experimental.

Same with the content you put on social media. Do something risky and measure the results against your other social posts.

You don’t have to re-work your entire marketing strategy, you just need to not be afraid to be different and think outside the box.
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Kristen Matthews

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November 2, 2022