The 9 Most Common Start-up Mistakes Making mistakes is a great way to learn. Making mistakes is also not particularly fun. It's a lot more fun to avoid them entirely. Here are some of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs—and businesspeople in general—tend to make: 1. Most successful people are solid planners and excellent adapters. 2. Just be you. 3. Great, but execution is everything. Check out everything on the business menu, but only select a few items at a time. 4. An estimate is theoretical. 5. 6. Apply sensitivities and create plans in case your estimates are wrong. 7. Sometimes it's not the business or the market. 8. Business is serious enough. 9. What matters most is what matters most to you.
The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters | pmarca-archive This post is all about the only thing that matters for a new startup. But first, some theory: If you look at a broad cross-section of startups — say, 30 or 40 or more; enough to screen out the pure flukes and look for patterns — two obvious facts will jump out at you. First obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of success — some of those startups are insanely successful, some highly successful, many somewhat successful, and quite a few of course outright fail. Second obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of caliber and quality for the three core elements of each startup – team, product, and market. At any given startup, the team will range from outstanding to remarkably flawed; the product will range from a masterpiece of engineering to barely functional; and the market will range from booming to comatose. And so you start to wonder — what correlates the most to success – team,product, or market? Let’s start by defining terms. So: Why? Andy puts it this way:
SME marketing channel preferences | B2B market research agency By Andrew Dalglish - SMEs. There are close to two million, they generate half of the UK’s GDP and employ 60 per cent of the private sector workforce. SMEs are a potentially significant opportunity for many B2B marketers then, but how best to open a conversation? This was puzzling me so I asked 450 buyers of B2B services within SMEs to imagine a prospective supplier wanted to engage with them. Their answers provide clear guidance on where best to target marketing resources. An overview The fourteen channels explored fall into four categories based on their effectiveness. Prioritise – channels with the highest impactDeploy selectively – channels without mass appeal but effective amongst manyThink carefully – channels disliked by the majority but appealing to a minorityHandle with care – channels that may alienate as many dislike And there are six specific learnings – outlined below – which will help ensure marcoms have the best chances of breaking through. Adopt a segmented approach
The importance of SMEs in Europe « The Sustainable SME Did you know? The 23 million SMEs in Europe act as incubators of entrepreneurial culture, and provide 100 million jobs. SMEs make up 99% of all companies operating in Europe and the SMEs provide 67% of total EU employment. SMEs make up 99% of all companies operating in Europe SMEs provide 67% of employment in Europe SMEs play a fundamental role in the European economy It is also important to remember that all large companies start as SMEs. Overall, SMEs make a significant contribution to a country’s GDP and employment. SMEs are important to society in general SMEs are important for economic and social reasons. SMEs Need Support There is recognition that incentives for entrepreneurship are important. Watch out for future posts on SME supports and funding opportunities in the EU Like this: Like Loading...
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers: Ben Horowitz: 9780062273208: Amazon.com: Books 5 Easy Ways to Kick-start Your Business Planning - Business Plan Strategy Don't know where to start with your plan? Here are some tips to get you going--today. Have you been putting off the business planning? You know who you are. Do a SWOT Analysis SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The author is an Entrepreneur contributor. What is an SME? - Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) - Enterprise and Industry "SME" stands for small and medium-sized enterprises – as defined in EU law: EU recommendation 2003/361 The main factors determining whether a company is an SME are: number of employees and either turnover or balance sheet total. These ceilings apply to the figures for individual firms only. For the details of how this works, see: What help can SMEs get? There are 2 broad types of potential benefit for a company if it meets the criteria: eligibility for support under many EU business-support programmes targeted specifically at companies of this size: E.g. research funding, competitiveness and innovation funding and similar national support programmes that could otherwise be banned as unfair government support ("state aid" – see block exemption regulation). External study on the implementation of the SME Definition (2012) DG Enterprise and Industry carries out a regular monitoring of the implementation of the SME definition. Executive Summary on Evaluation of the SME Definition
A Recipe for Growth: Adding Layers to the Cake | Jeff Jordan Businesses don’t grow themselves. One of the most important jobs of a CEO is to aggressively define and pursue a growth agenda for his or her business. Why is this important? Growth typically improves a company’s competitive position and provides increased scale and leverage, and investors clearly value growth. The pursuit of growth continues to be important regardless of the lifecycle of the company. Obviously it’s critical early in a company’s life… or it won’t be a company for long. The first real operating job I had was managing eBay’s U.S. business in mid-2000, which included the ebay.com website. It was clear we needed to quickly define a growth agenda that had the scale to fight gravity’s impact. Marketing had some leverage, but it was limited. eBay was already one of the biggest marketers on the Internet and efforts to optimize spend were already underway. Buy-it-now was surprisingly controversial to many in both the eBay community and in eBay headquarters.
What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy? The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers. Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. The objectives that a good brand will achieve include: Delivers the message clearlyConfirms your credibilityConnects your target prospects emotionallyMotivates the buyerConcretes User Loyalty To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day.
The SME Envoy The competitiveness of the European Union (EU) is fundamentally dependent on the wellbeing of its small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The EU's 23 million SMEs make up 99 % of all EU companies and account for the majority of new jobs created. SMEs are thus an essential source of growth, increased employment and better jobs in the European economy, which are key aims of the Lisbon strategy. Although they are affected by many EU policies, it is difficult for SMEs to make their opinions heard. In order to give them an opportunity to express themselves, and so as to implement in practice the "Think Small First" principle set out in the European Charter for Small Enterprises adopted by the Santa Maria de Feira European Council in June 2000, the European Commission decided to appoint an SME Envoy. The SME Envoy acts as the interface between European SMEs and the Commission. Internally, the Envoy's role is to improve the Commission's awareness of the problems facing SMEs.
The Venture Capital Power Law - Analyzing the Largest 100 U.S. VC-Backed Tech Exits Of the 100 largest VC-backed tech exits since 2009, Sequoia Capital invested in a remarkable 22 of them. Benchmark Capital invested in the highest percentage at the early stage. Venture capital returns are often said to follow a power law. Simplistically, the best investment returns more money than the rest of the investments combined. We analyzed the largest 100 U.S.-based tech M&A or IPO exits since 2009 to see whether the power law actually holds and who the most frequent investors in those companies are. The data below. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. The chart below highlights the distribution of top U.S. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. Sequoia Capital’s exit of WhatsApp was just 1 of 7 exits out of the 100 that counted just a single institutional investor. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. Of course, simply “getting in” on a big exit does not guarantee strong investment returns as the nature of VC is such that those investors who jumped in earliest are most richly rewarded. Methodology/Notes
Branding in the Digital Age - What Does That Mean? If this title makes you feel like you’ve just won a game of Jargon Bingo, you are not alone. Us Web types are quick to latch on to names for things – Web 2.0 (and 3.0), LAS, “The Online Conversation” – and it’s easy to talk about a concept without really thinking about what it means. Most people, by now, understand that a brand is a sum of perceptions; what do you, your staff, your business partners and your customers think about you and what collective meaning is then ascribed. So, when you apply this to the digital or information age, what exactly are we talking about? Matt Riley, Idea Bounty guy and Senior brand planner at Quirk. I sought out the perspectives of people smarter than me – Mr. Matt’s view is that ‘the digital age’ just refers to the presence of digital tools that have made it easier for people to engage with your message. “Branding is about creating a persona and positioning it in a way that allows people to engage with it and fulfill a goal that you have.” Also Check Out: