The 5 Costs You’re Most Likely to Underestimate in Your Business Plan
One of the most important purposes of a business plan is to give you a clear understanding of your financial trajectory. However, without an accurate analysis, those projections can easily be misleading. Entrepreneurs often underestimate the true cost of certain expenses, which can eventually prove to be problematic when it comes to execution. Common expenses...
Take a Closer Look: Is Your Startup’s Web Content Designed For Success?
When we talk about design, it’s typically through a visual lens: we design the aesthetic experience of a website or a company’s logo. In the age of big data, however, it’s also possible to use analytic feedback to design your web content. By drawing on knowledge of prior content and customer response to your site,...
4 Strategic Accounting Tips for Scaling Your Startup
When you’re getting a startup off the ground, it’s easy to get so caught up in the fun and creative aspects, like marketing, branding and product development, that you neglect the less-sexy (yet integral) components, like accounting. But what a mistake this can be! The significance of strong accounting For many of us, accounting is...
5 Hacks for Startup Marketing on a Budget
If you’re operating a startup, nothing’s more critical than getting your name out there and grabbing attention. The expense of marketing means many startups are effectively dead in the water before they get a chance to sail. Do you know how to pursue marketing efficiently and effectively while you’re on a tight budget? The challenge...
5 Components of a Winning Employee Retention Strategy
When your business is in the startup stage, you’re in an ideal position to attract genius talent, and genius talent often comes with an entrepreneurial mindset and little to no fear of failure. Like most entrepreneurs, failure is embraced as an impersonal opportunity to learn. These are the people you want on your team. Talented...
How Cash Flow Can Destroy Your Business (and How to Prevent It)
What’s the most important factor in keeping your business alive? You might think the answer is profitability; after all, as long as you’re making more money than you’re spending, you should have ample resources to keep your enterprise going. However, it’s possible to be profitable on paper and still come up with cash shortfalls, preventing...
The 5 Criteria You Need to Choose a Business Loan
Starting a business requires at least some upfront funding. You can attempt to be frugal and startup on a tight budget, but most businesses will require at least a few thousand dollars to afford initial product stock, office supplies, technology and employee wages necessary to build the infrastructure of the business. A lack of capital If...
2 Essential Business Decisions Many Entrepreneurs Misunderstand
Starting a business for the first time can be scary, and not knowing what to expect can make the unpredictable nature of risk seem as big as the Grand Canyon. If you’re lucky, you’ll have friends and colleagues who can guide you along the way. Or, you can hire a business coach who has achieved...
Reputation Management: 3 Tips for Establishing Credibility as a Startup
As a startup, you’re probably still gaining momentum in your industry and may not have the visibility your larger competitors have. They’ve been around longer, so it makes sense that they have a larger social media following and a bigger subscriber base. However, that doesn't automatically mean that they have a superior product. It just...
5 Startups Headed for Success (and How You Can Learn from Them)
Smart entrepreneurs know it’s not the business model itself that creates success, it’s the mind and strategy behind it. It’s the long vision, the sleepless nights, the endless pots of coffee and that insatiable drive to keep going, no matter what. The best startups are created by entrepreneurs who have enough drive and passion to see...
5 Tasks Every Entrepreneur Should Complete Once a Year (or More)
Most entrepreneurs think of their lives in terms of daily commitments, and for good reason—you have a massive (and growing) to-do list, and likely function on the traditional model of the five-day workweek. Accordingly, entrepreneurs try to set schedules, make lists and focus on tasks one day at a time. There’s a problem with this approach,...
The Essential Podcasts for Successful Entrepreneurs
As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to get inspired by others who have already found success. While inspiration can be found everywhere, there are many successful entrepreneurs who devote much of their time to providing not just intellectual inspiration, but practical tips for those who want to achieve more. Since digital media consumption has increased exponentially thanks...