Browsing Tag
business competition
39 posts
6 Strategies for Local Startups to Scale Up Nationally
If you’re thinking about launching a business or have started one recently, there’s no need to restrict your goals to the local area. Here are six ways to compete on a national level. 1. Create products that address common pain points. One way to increase your chances of becoming nationally relevant is to ensure your...
How to Validate Your Business Idea in 30 Days (or Less)
Starting a business requires serious research, but it also requires you to seize opportunity. Jump in without consulting the data, and you risk boarding a sinking ship. Spend a year learning every detail of the space, and your opportunity may already be gone. As with most things in life, a balanced approach is best when it...
6 Ways E-Commerce Startups Can Compete on Cyber Monday
It's no secret that Cyber Monday is a big deal for businesses large and small. According to Adobe Analytics, Cyber Monday 2019 was record-breaking, with $9.2 billion spent online, a 16.9 percent increase over the previous year. That's a lot of consumer spending in a 24-hour period. Deloitte has predicted in its 2020 annual holiday forecast...
7 Steps to Successfully Launch a Product
There are thousands of companies creating and promoting thousands of products in the global marketplace each year. You probably haven’t even heard of the vast majority—many of which failed on arrival. According to Harvard Business School research, 95 percent of new products fail in their first year. You may have a great, ground-breaking product idea,...
Tips for Starting an E-Commerce Business That is Built to Sell
Entrepreneurs are driven by many different motivators. Some may create a new business because they feel an abstract impulse to bring a particular vision to life. Others enjoy the prospect of building a legacy for their family, generating a steady stream of passive income, or even building a multinational enterprise. While many entrepreneurs won’t necessarily...
In Order to Succeed in Entrepreneurship, Get Uncomfortable, Says Square Co-Founder
When glassblower and computer scientist Jim McKelvey teamed up with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to launch Square, a startup that enables small business owners to accept credit cards, payment industry insiders told them they were crazy. And when Amazon launched a product to compete with it, many predicted it would kill off Square. But over...
How (and Why) to Continually Update Your Business Plan
“New year, new business plan.” Well, that’s not the exact saying, but in an increasingly competitive business world, it’s a nice catchphrase as we quickly approach the second month of 2020. Truthfully, you should always update your business plan to reflect your company’s current standing in the marketplace, finances, personnel, technology and more. These things...
7 Steps for Getting Your Health Food Product to Market
There’s never been a better time to launch a health food product. In 2018, organic food sales in the U.S. rose 5.9 percent. Additionally, the global gluten-free market is slated to reach $12.5 billion by 2024. While we’ve never seen such thirst for healthy products, that doesn’t make getting a health food product to market...
Why Fintech Startups Fail (and How You Can Avoid These Mistakes)
Fintechs are one of the hottest trends in the tech industry today. It seems as though everywhere you turn, there’s a new startup trying to get you to open a digital account or use their app to pay for goods and services. These companies are riding the wave of the digital revolution and seek to revolutionize...
How to Draft a Business Plan for Your Startup
You’ve determined that you have a viable business idea, and are ready to launch your startup. However, before you can begin selling your offerings or even consider incorporating the company, you’ll need to draft a business plan. Traditional business plans are generally anywhere between 30 to 40 pages long, which can feel intimidating to novice...
The Disruption Mindset: Who is Your Future Customer?
The following excerpt has been adapted from "The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Organizations Transform While Others Fail" by Charlene Li for StartupNation. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” —John F. Kennedy Who is your future customer? As business leaders, we’ve been...
6 Ways to Make Your Local Company Nationally Competitive
Starting a local business is like graduating college. It may feel like a big milestone (and it is!) but it’s also the bottom of a new ladder. At the top of that ladder are enterprise companies. If your new business hopes to one day reach that level, it needs more than just community support. Satisfied locals...
How to Bring New Life and Innovation Into Your Business
Perhaps you’re struggling to find new customers, or you’re feeling stagnant in your startup. Maybe you’re having difficulty competing with others in your industry. Whatever the case, you feel the need to breathe new life into your business. Shake things up a little! Here’s how to bring new life and innovation back into the business you so...
Who or What is Your Brand’s Nemesis? A McLaren Case Study
The following is adapted from "Wild Thinking" by Nick Liddell and Richard Buchanan ©2019 and reproduced with permission from Kogan Page Ltd. StartupNation reader exclusive! Save 20 percent on the book with code WILDCARD20 at www.koganpage.com Marty Neumeier is a big fan of picking fights. “Zag” is his recipe book for making brands radically different, and in...
What Does it Take to Run a Successful Marketing Campaign?
What are your startup's goals for Q3 and Q4 of this year? Realizing any of them requires marketing greatness — and marketing greatness requires a plan. Today’s marketing world requires a new expertise and familiarity with digital tools and online platforms. Let’s take a look at six of the components of a successful startup marketing...
How to Protect Your Products in a Competitive Market
Startups thrive on innovation and disruption, finding new ways to tackle challenges and devise solutions. However, many new businesses don’t have a strong understanding of how to safeguard their innovations in highly competitive markets. This is where design patents and trade dress rights can play an important role. Even in the earliest stages of product...
How to Spot the Difference Between a Million-Dollar Business Idea and a Dud
The startup life is built on the notion that anyone has the power to make it big with the right idea and a lot of hard work. Technology continues to level the playing field for innovators and creatives, providing new opportunities for ambitious entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must be able to communicate their stories quickly and effectively...
How This Entrepreneur Built a Side Hustle by Copying His Competitors
The following is excerpted from "How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital: The Four Rules You Must Break To Get Rich" by Nathan Latka, in agreement with Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Nathan Latka, 2019. For more information, visit capitalistbook.com. You have to copy your...
7 Lessons Business School Won’t Teach You — But Being an Entrepreneur Will
You learn many critical skills in business school: self-discipline, strategic thinking, better time management and a broader worldview, amongst many others. Also, you learn useful academic theories and how to apply them to real-world problems. But, no matter how broad your curriculum and how great your professor, you cannot learn everything within the walls of...
5 Ways to Be More Innovative in Growing Your Startup
Innovation. It’s a hot buzzword in the startup world, and yet, when you’ve been working 15 hour days and struggling to find funding, it’s a concept that you may find difficult to actually capture. While defining innovation and what makes for innovative concepts may vary from one founder to another, I think we can all generally...