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Tag: bootstrapping business

  • 8 Signs You Are Not Ready To Start Your Own Business

    Starting a business undertaking is an astonishing experience but would you say you are intellectually ready for it? Being a boss seems like a blessing from heaven as it gives an extra conviction that all is good and accomplishment to the entrepreneur.

    As per the statistics, over 60% of the people are keen on their own business however less than one-fourth of them can get through this competitive industry.
    It is absurd to begin an organization without genuine ability. So think and then choose whether you have the business mindset, do you have the fundamental capital, can you organize monetary help from the market and are you fit for turning your vision to the real world.

    1. Thinking Just About Attaining Personal Freedom
    2. Limited Ideas and Goals
    3. You Don’t Have a Business Plan
    4. Not Willing to Market Your Vision and Thoughts
    5. You Need a Quick Profit
    6. Afraid of Failure
    7. Unwilling to Work Hard and Get Yourself Dirty
    8. Cling to What in Particular Isn’t Working

    1. Thinking Just About Attaining Personal Freedom

    One of the mainstream beliefs of business is that causes individuals to believe that with a business venture, you become your own head. This myth has endangered the pioneering excursion of a ton of business people.

    As a business head, you are working for financial investors, you are working for your partners, you are working for your representatives – not for yourself. This accompanies greater obligation and responsibility. You are responsible for everything; you pay yourself last, you go on vacation last, and so forth. It’s a huge advantage, however, it likewise comes with enormous responsibilities.

    2. Limited Ideas and Goals

    An idea alone doesn’t really mean you’re prepared. Ensure you have a detailed field-tested strategy with the goal that your business doesn’t come slamming down before it’s even gotten up. Think big.

    A decent entrepreneur will likewise realize that you need something other than one plan to keep a business running over the long run. You should be prepared to adjust constantly to evolving circumstances, to expand on your ideas and thinking, and maybe even have a reinforcement plan B for if things don’t go the manner in which you anticipated.

    3. You Don’t Have a Business Plan

    Planning and executing are two significant features of a business. You should have a dream and the outlook to make a splendid strategy. Everything relies upon this plan since every one of the future steps is completely subject to it.

    A few people find planning and researching a center. They are keener on starting and executing stage but they neglect to get a handle on the significant reality that how might you make a startup without any planning and analysis.

    Are you even mindful of your way and the different exciting bends in the road you will look on this street? Nothing in this way will be as simple as it appears to you. Just put when you don’t have the opportunity or the tendency to explore the business sectors and make a reasonable plan then you are not prepared to start your business.

    4. Not Willing to Market Your Vision and Thoughts

    A business begins with a dream and afterwards, it prompts different stages like planning, test driving, working on it and then comes profit. One significant element in-between is the ability to go full scale and market your thoughts convincingly.

    You can’t say that you are bashful or you need more data to finish the deed. A businessman is liable for each part of his vision thus he is the best individual appropriate for showcasing his products and thoughts.

    If you find that you are not interested in such work then it’s an obvious sign that you are not prepared to start your business. Remember marketing is a basic piece of your business methodology and you need to go all guns blasting if you need to succeed so assuming you are not prepared to attempt these things, then decide whether you are made for undertaking such venture.

    5. You Need a Quick Profit

    No good thing comes easily, you need to work and even trust that the tree will yield forward its organic product. As per a report by Small Business Trends, about 40% of new companies make money and 82% of independent company failures are attached to income issues.

    This implies that there is no quick solution for profit. Now and then, it even requires a long time for your business to get sufficiently profitable to pay yourself a pay. You’re not prepared for business if you just want quick profits in your business.

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    6. Afraid of Failure

    At the point when you start as a business person, curiosity is your dearest companion. When you are curious, everything is intriguing. There is nothing of the sort as a failure since everything you do on the excursion of a business venture is learned.

    Your objective is just to realize what you can offer clients, what values you can provide, and how best you can do that. Whatever you learn in the process is considered an achievement.

    When individuals rein themselves over because they fear what would happen, they quit posing inquiries and facing challenges. This is the only way you could fail; when you quit learning in your business journey.

    7. Unwilling to Work Hard and Get Yourself Dirty

    A businessman realizes that starting a business implies wearing a wide range of caps before everything else. Also, the greater part of them will involve unexciting, monotonous, and manual work.

    Regardless of whether it is physically investigating drives, answering to client assistance messages, composing blog entries, or setting up legitimate agreements and strategies — you realize you will be liable for every last bit of it and you are not reluctant to get yourself dirty with the day by day tasks of the business.

    The little significant works are important to fabricate something extraordinary. You must get familiar with the ‘intricate details of your business. Indeed, you must be prepared to hustle — and take the necessary steps to assemble your goals.

    8. Cling to What in Particular Isn’t Working

    We realize that it is your idea that will start a business but are you open to ideas or have you shut your mind and think that whatever you choose will be perfect.
    Sometimes our vision is limited and we prevent taking a look at things according to the viewpoint of the client. Assuming you are confronting any troubles, don’t stick to similar set ideas, instead, make a feasible improvement.

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    Conclusion

    Starting a business can be exciting. It’s perhaps the most remunerating thing you can do. First of all, you will consider yourself a “job creator” with a straight expression. Working for yourself and being a boss is extraordinary, however, it incorporates difficulties a few people can’t deal with. So be careful with these above-mentioned signs to know if you’re not ready to begin a business.

    FAQ

    How do you know when you are ready to start your own business?

    If you have your business plan ready, you’re excited about your idea, you have sufficient funds and you can take financial risks.

    What stops you from starting your own business?

    The fear of failure before starting a business is what stops many people from starting their own business.

    What is the biggest obstacle in starting a business?

    Lack of funds is one of the biggest obstacles many people face when starting a business.

  • 4 Processes You Can Automate in Your Business in 2021

    “Automation is cost-cutting by tightening the corners and not cutting them” – Haresh Sippy.

    For most businesses, automation seems like a want – tucked away in their long-term plan. For becoming a strategic enabler of market control, moving automation up the ladder by a few years and reprioritizing it as a need could be the difference between success and failure.

    There’s a strong reason why 40% of large companies automate at least one of their processes. When we speak of automation, we refer to a system capable of performing repetitive tasks with no errors. As companies worldwide strive hard to adjust to the pandemic-related changes, automation usage is growing at an accelerating rate.

    From customer service, project planning to usability testing, and marketing, you can automate your business processes. Apart from mitigating human errors, automation helps satisfy client needs, minimize operational costs, and optimize business workflow. As you seek out processes to automate, you will understand that everything cannot be automated, and you shouldn’t automate everything – things like personal touch are irreplaceable even by automation. With $9.6 billion being the likely spending on automation in 2020 alone, NOW is the right time to embrace process automation for a flourishing business.

    4 Processes You Can Automate in Your Business in 2021

    1. Compliance process
    2. User testing process
    3. Project planning process
    4. Customer service process

    Conclusion
    FAQ’s

    4 Processes You Can Automate in Your Business in 2021

    Companies with highly automated processes are six times more likely to witness 15% and above revenue growth. Make hay while the sun shines and focus on ensuring you automate these four processes in your business in 2021.

    1. Compliance process

    With data compliance laws like CCPA being stringent and stakes incredibly high, it becomes a daunting task for companies to eliminate everything which comes in their way of conformity.

    Though companies use a complete CCPA guide to maintain compliance and avoid lawsuits, their efforts are often jeopardized by inaccurate reporting and failure to comply with the updated regulation – resulting in financial losses and tarnishing of brand image.

    That’s where you need compliance automation.

    Through compliance automation, you eliminate as much human intervention as possible from a workflow. Such an enhancement delivers accurate results, increases performance efficiency, reduces cost, and eliminates severe data breaching penalties.

    Advantages of automating the compliance process:

    • Enhances risk management decisions as you get real-time data.
    • Consolidates all data in a single control center.
    • Automates the auditing and reporting process.
    • Efficient management of your company’s potential risk.
    • Verifies compliance requirements and manages all third-party risks.

    Statistics: 90% of companies plan to increase their compliance automation funding in the coming years.

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    2. User testing process

    Irrespective of the industry, you require the desired level of user experience for ensuring commercial success. It’s the user experience that ensures your design or product performs in the market as expected.

    Without user testing, your user experience (UX) design is incomplete. With technological advancement, UX testing has become more critical than ever, and it exists at every level of design and software development. But, there’s no point performing the same UX testing procedure repeatedly as it’s a mundane and time-consuming process.

    That’s where user testing automation comes into the picture.

    User testing proces
    User testing process

    User testing software, along with meaningful user testing questions, empowers you to automate research processes, especially when working with remote participants. It helps you connect with participants, automatically collect data, understand design areas where customers struggle and areas where they hit their goals. This helps in building a better product and enhances the overall customer experience.

    Advantages of automating the user testing process:

    • Manual testing requires more software testers and time; automation reduces both the resources. Unlike manual tests, you can leave automated tests unattended.
    • Though the initial investment is on a higher side, it drastically cuts down long-term business operating costs.
    • Reduces the number of errors that need fixing after product release.
    • Ensures a higher rate of investment in design.
    • Stimulates hundreds of virtual participants, thereby ensuring performance and stress testing.

    Statistics: 70% of enterprise CEO’s see UX as a competitive differentiator. User testing automation will only elevate these figures.

    3. Project planning process

    In the project planning phase, nothing can be more irritating than spending hours on time-consuming manual tasks.

    Let’s understand it using a project plan example. You have assigned tasks to your employees at the starting of the week. But, mid-week, you come up with an unavoidable work, which you should assign to the work overloaded staff. One way is to check each employee’s progress manually; the other is through project planning automation. Such automation software helps you monitor resource load and send out a signal every time an employee is overloaded with work.

    project planning process
    project planning process

    Automating a project planning process reduces manual intervention when managing resources, reporting, tracking, and quality control.

    Advantages of automating project planning process:

    • Reduces the repetitive routine tasks.
    • Helps in providing technical scalability.
    • Lets the project manager focus on priority tasks.
    • Fosters a culture of effective communication as it centralizes the work status report of each team member.
    • Identifies and creates an opportunity for efficiency gains.
    • Alerts project managers when a workflow is going off-budget or off the timeline
    • Enhances risk assessment and reduces the scope for errors.

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    4. Customer service process

    In the technological world, your customers hate waiting to speak to a customer service representative. When wait time is too long, customers usually disconnect the call and probably switch to other brands or leave a negative review wherever possible.

    Automating the customer service process helps mitigate the chances of losing a customer due to higher wait times.

    customer service automation
    customer service automation

    You can take customer service to the next level by using a chatbot that allows a customer to self-manage and submit tickets without speaking to a human representative. You can even use a live chat with artificial intelligence (AI) to answer customer’s questions.

    Both chatbots and live chats pass on the complex calls to human workers, thereby keeping the wait time as little as possible.

    Advantages of automating customer service process:

    • Reduces human errors
    • Minimizes the wait time for customers
    • Ensures a consistent workflow
    • Increases customer retention
    • Reduces cost as employees save 600 hours each week when using an automated system.

    Statistics: More than 60% of US customers prefer automated self-service for simple customer service tasks.

    Automation tool: Zendesk.

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    Conclusion

    Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, you cannot automate your business processes in a single day. When running a business, it’s easy to get carried away by the daily tasks making automation seem like an uphill challenge.

    Never wait for the processes to cost more than the revenue they generate to automate. The sooner you embrace automation for some or all your process, the faster you will reap substantial benefits.

    Having an explicit knowledge of what you want to achieve through business process automation lets you remain on-goal. It’s a powerful technology that enables efficiency, increases productivity, reduces cost, and above all, results in efficiency gains – a must-have for maintaining competitive advantage.

    Automation empowers you to extract the maximum from your operational processes.

    Start automating your business’s processes today!

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    FAQ’s

    1. How do you implement business process automation?

    Ans- Business process automation can be implemented in these five steps:

    1. Identify Tasks to Be Automated.
    2. Outline Business Goals.
    3. Select the Right Tool.
    4. Change Management.
    5. Monitor and Measure.

    2. How do I automate a process?

    Ans- Let’s take a quick look at the 5 major steps which every business will consider before they move completely to automation.

    • Identify Repetitive Tasks.
    • Define Business Goals.
    • Select the Right Workflow Automation Solution.
    • Train the Users.
    • Measure Key Performance Indicators and Improve Your Workflow.

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    3. What are the key business processes?

    Ans- Business processes are the collection of tasks that an organization performs for operations and management, including order processing, customer acquisition, budgeting, expense management, customer support, and marketing campaigns.

    4. Why we need to automate the process?

    Ans- Automation leads to faster processing of voluminous tasks and reduced turnaround timelines. A reduction in enterprise costs and the time involved in executing operational activities leads to improved workflow efficiencies.

    5. Is Automation good for the economy?

    Ans- Automation leads to significant economies of scale – important in industries which require high capital investment. Automation enables firms to reduce number of workers, and this limits the power of trades unions and potentially disruptive strikes. Automation also enables a greater economy of scope.

  • How to grow a Bootstrapped Startup? | Everything about Bootstrapping Startup in 2020

    Bootstrapping means to start and grow a startup from scratch without anyone’s financial help. Bootstrapping Startups promotes innovations. Bootstrapping has become necessity for some startups.  A bootstrapped startup is responsible for its own survival. The growth of bootstrapped startup depends on the revenue obtained. When you bootstrap business, the focus is on ideas, innovation, and teamwork.

    Bootstrapping Startups is a process in the business world by which a new business starts its operation without or little amount of external funding. Any bootstrapping entrepreneur must think of alternative ways to earn money to grow the business. It promotes proper utilization of time. Looking for investors might take a lot of time chasing them and its not a guarantee you will get funded by them. Money has to be spent wisely as the bootstrapping entrepreneur is the only one to control the business and resources are limited.

    List of most successful bootstrapped companies
    Advantages of Bootstrapping Startups
    Disadvantages of Bootstrapping Startups
    Advice for Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs
    Tips for cost cutting and save funds for Bootstrapping Startup
    Conclusion

    List of some of the most successful bootstrapped companies

    • MailChimp
    • Github
    • Shopify
    • ShutterStock
    • Zoho
    • Wingify

    Advantages of Bootstrapping Startups

    Some of the advantages of bootstrapping your startup are:

    Full control

    The future of a bootstrapped business is determined by itself as it takes its full control. Owners are not answerable to any outsiders (investors) but themselves. Bootstrapped Business owners should have a clear direction of their own business. Their beliefs should guide them in the direction to take with their business. Sober decisions have to be made as this will determine if it will affect a business negatively or positively. Investors or any other money lenders come with their own vested interests and might give you different ideas from what you believe in. Bootstrapping startups works very well in such a scenario. There is freedom and you can run a business the way you wish. Bootstrapping removes unnecessary interruptions from outsiders and lets you focus on your goals.

    Customer oriented and focused business

    Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs need to treat their customers well because customers act as their bosses or investors. It is very easy for a bootstrapped business to die if the customers are not convinced to buy from that company anymore. If you are bootstrapped entrepreneur, think of your customer whenever you are making any move or decision with an aim to attract and convince them more and more.

    Sustainable

    Bootstrapping is considered a business model that is profitable. As business continues to grow, you gain more experience and sustainability. External funding cannot guarantee this. Startups that are externally funded might end up relinquishing in debts to a point of giving up. The business might end up not profitable to them.

    Bootstrapping promotes efficient management of resources

    Realistically, when you don’t have enough funds, you will be careful in spending any of them. This brings efficiency in terms of managing and spending the little cash you have into a meaningful sense.

    Bootstrapping promotes creativity

    Ideally, when you don’t have enough cash, you look for alternatives on how to sort out your problems. To make the ends meet, you will be required to identify the resources around you and make use of them. Bootstrapping makes you think of ways to get things done in a cheaper and affordable way, hence improve your creativity.

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    Disadvantages of Bootstrapping Startups

    Everything has two different sides. So, here are some of the disadvantages of bootstrapping a startup:

    No Shared Risk

    Investing in any business alone may attract a lot of personal risks especially when the business closes. If the business doesn’t make any profit everything will be lost. And the only person who will bear that all will be the founders.

    Minimal Networking

    Any business needs a lot of partnership so you may network. Capitalists and other investors have huge list of networks. Linkage creates opportunities for new market and makes you visible. Investors usually offer advice and full support required for any business. You may miss their expertise to run the business.

    Slow Business Growth

    bootstrapped startup

    Basically, when you don’t have enough money for start everything up from scratch, business growth will always be slow because you are operating with very minimal and limited resources. While bootstrapping your startup, you can only pace up with the growth when your business start making good money.

    Advice for Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs

    The idea of starting a new startup is fascinating, but in reality, it’s a tough nut to crack. There are numerous elements that should be considered before launching a startup and it’s a fact that 50%  of startups doesn’t survive a month. Launching startup needs a deep study of the product you are offering and deep market research is required.

    Every startup needs a different kind of approach, but the general advice that a bootstrapping entrepreneur needs to enter the market are:

    First sale, then production

    The first and the important step to start a new bootstrapped business is to identify the market where you want to sell your product or service. It’s advised for Bootstrapped startup founders that first the market should be created before launching the startup. The demand for the product or service which you wish to sell should be examined and the product and strategy should be designed according to it. The 90% of the startups fail because they never assessed their market. The product that you are offering should be according to the preference of customers, not of your own choice. The customer is a king, so you need to sell what he wants to buy and not what you want to sell. This is a mantra for every startups.

    Think hundred times before spending

    It’s the harsh reality that startups have tight budgets. Bootstrapped startup founder should critically examine before making any purchase and try to avoid any unwanted expenses. The future of the startup is uncertain, so it’s best to save as much as you can for the future.

    Go Virtual

    The Internet is the biggest tool for the startups. Build your virtual office and save yourself from unwanted expenses on office rent. The different portals are available where startup owners can promote themselves and sell their products directly to the right audiences. The Bootstrapped startup founder can hire employees virtually to save the cost and pay according to the work. It’s a win-win situation for the bootstrapped companies and freelancers.

    Select the right medium of advertisement

    There are various mediums available where one can promote their product or service. But most of them are waste of time and money, as only one right medium of advertisement should be used according to the targeted customers. For example, if you offer services to the new business ventures then there is no need to advertise it on TV or radio. You need to visit business seminars and meetings to get the business venture opportunities. So it’s very important to select the right method to sell your services and product via the right advertisement medium.

    Make books and follow regulations

    The new startup owners should make themselves familiar with prevailing rules and regulations of the industry. The books of the accounts should be kept according to the law and it should be regularly evaluated by experts. This way, the entrepreneur can save money by not hiring consultants for everything.

    Hire a business coach

    bootstrapping business

    Experience matters and to bootstrap your startup, seek the help of an experienced business coach, who can guide you at the time of crisis and provides all the technical knowledge. So ripe the experience of expert and learn something productive from them.

    Tips for cost cutting and save funds for Bootstrapping Startup

    Offering Discounts

    Discounts should be small. You should focus more on starting and surviving rather than just acquiring customers. Offer the discounts only for a limited period and to selected people via competition or lottery. The people will be glad to get chosen for the discount opportunity and may promote your product among other people to show their own achievement. In this way, the money gets rotated and it can be saved for the further purpose.

    Investing

    For a bootstrapped company, the initial investment for the business should be savings. It should be the primary source of bootstrapped funding rather than taking money from family and friends. Entrepreneurs should estimate investment for the future. Higher Investments for the product or sales without assuming the demand may damage the economy. Depending on the supply of the product you should not estimate the funds required. The demand of the product should be considered more to decide the amount of investment.

    Exact Planning

    Avoid business planning for a vast reach of your company at the starting stage in order to save the money for the future development. The start should be local so that it costs less and make more profits. Once, you have your reach in your own area or city, then save enough funds and again bootstrap to start your service in other cities.

    Estimations of buying products

    You should estimate the assets you will need to start the business. If you overestimate, you will end up with useless resources and lose your money. If you estimate less resources, then you will have to waste your time to go and buy more assets. Estimations should be appropriate.

    Spending money

    bootstrapping a startup

    While spending the money, the flow should be slow and steady. It should be maintained in the correct order that it should not affect the future economy of your bootstrapped company. The purchase of the goods or production should be kept limited in order to control finances.

    Partnership

    You can partner with another person so that he/she can help you with their expertise and share their savings with you. This way, you will share the risk with someone and both the parties will have lesser risk. However, getting a partner in a bootstrapped startup need trust. When you bootstrap, you put your everything in that company. And the partner have equal access to everything and can cheat you anytime. So, instead of asking random people online to become your business partner, find a trusted person from your friends and family.

    Hiring

    Hiring the staff in a bootstrapped startup is a very crucial activity. You don’t have enough funds to pay the employees, neither the surety of success. So, hire only the enough amount of employees. Moreover, you should also avoid renting the unnecessary office space.

    Suggestions

    Don’t avoid others’ suggestion of other people. They can help you take better decision. You can attend business events and talk about your bootstrapped startup to know their views about it.

    Marketing

    Marketing is the best investment for any business. Instead of going for expensive paid marketing campaigns, you can create content related to your company which can go viral. For an instance, Dollar Shave Club became famous after their viral video ad titled “Our blades are ******* great”. Social media is a great place to get heard.

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    Conclusion

    Many Bootstrapping Startups become very successful. Their founders are careful and wise in spending funds and accountable for their decisions. They get business experience at every stage of their business growth. They also develop their own strategies on how to execute the business. They establish a customer base hence increase the sales. To start, bootstrapped startup founder requires an optimum level of dedication and hard work. So it’s advised to you all young ambitious entrepreneurs to make a leap and start your journey with a positive attitude.