Tips For Having A Successful Career As An Entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur is an exciting and rewarding job but also comes with a lot of responsibility and risk. Whether you thrive in the business world or not is up to you, and all the pressure to do so is on your shoulders.

There are many tasks and to-dos to tend to any given day, and you have to know how to manage your time properly to accomplish the most important tasks. Review the following tips so that you can have a successful career as an entrepreneur and feel good about all that you accomplish when you look back on your professional life one day. Put forth an extra effort and dedicate yourself to your business so that you have no regrets at the end of the day.

Follow Your Passion

One tip for having a successful career as an entrepreneur is to follow your passion. Choose an industry and path that you enjoy and motivates you to want to perform well. Think it through so that you’re sure the direction you choose will be rewarding and you will want to be a part of for a while. If you don’t love what you do each day, then you risk not having the drive and energy to overcome obstacles and roadblocks that try to stand in your way.

Have A Plan

You should have a written plan when going into business for yourself. You must have a sense of direction and an idea of what you want to achieve as you get started. The plan should be all-encompassing and include what you want to accomplish in the present, five, and ten years from now, and in the future when you’re ready to retire. Make sure that you don't get caught up asking how to sell my business privately and know who you can turn to for help when it’s time to pass your business to the next person and owner. Planning for the future as an entrepreneur is a must. Operating day-to-day is not an effective way to build a long-term and sustainable venture.

Take Calculated Risks

It’s also vital that you get used to taking calculated risks if you want to have a successful career as an entrepreneur. These risks are going to allow you to surpass the competition and innovate your products or services over the years. Otherwise, you may get comfortable or stuck in one place for too long and start to miss meeting your goals. Make sure you set aside plenty of time to problem-solve and think through big decisions before you move forward with them. Let calculated risks help you take your business to the next level so you can excel and achieve more than you ever imagined.

Hire Great Help

Another tip for having a successful career as an entrepreneur is to hire great help, support, and partners. You need people on your team and side who are goal-oriented and are invested in the business and your future. As you grow and expand, it’s going to become a more substantial job that you won’t be able to handle and shouldn’t try to juggle by yourself. Be picky about who you bring into your company and choose to assign critical tasks. The more you can trust your employees and partners to get the job done right, the more time you can spend on other significant initiatives that will ensure your business excels.

Secure A Mentor

Every good entrepreneur can admit they don’t know it all and will reach out and ask for help along the way. Build a more successful company by securing a mentor who you can bounce ideas off of and contact for advice. You can ask them about what mistakes they made in the past so you can avoid committing the same errors. It’ll be comforting to know you have someone who you trust that you can call up or meet with when you have questions and concerns about how to proceed with your business.

Focus on Client Service

Make your customers a top priority if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur. Focus on offering consistent and exceptional customer service so that you know your clients are well taken care of and feel appreciated. Without them, you don’t have a business and risk running into trouble with keeping your doors open. Train your employees, so they understand how to treat customers and the policies you have in place, so they’re prepared to handle the tough conversations and questions. Providing top-notch quality service is the key to building a successful company.

Challenge Yourself

You’ll get a lot further in your career when you commit to challenging yourself. Be careful not to let your ego get in the way of you working on your personal development over the years. You have the time to work on improving yourself when you make the time for it. There are plenty of online courses you can take and seminars and conferences you can sign up for that will help you advance in areas that you find difficult. Know your strengths and weaknesses, so you can hone in on improving specific skill sets.  

Make Wise Financial Decisions

Another vital aspect of your business you can’t let slip through the cracks is your finances. If you want to have a successful career as an entrepreneur, then you need to commit to making wise financial decisions. It all starts by having separate accounts for your business and personal life and tracking all transactions and expenses in detail. You may want to consider hiring a financial director or bookkeeper on your team who can handle these logistics for you if you don’t have the time. They can alert you to any red flags and advise you about how to proceed if you discover that you need to find ways to cut back spending.

Take Care of Yourself

You’re going to be very busy as a business owner and entrepreneur. You mustn’t let your health and wellness take a backseat over the years. You need to find ways to take better care of yourself and make sure you feel your best each day. For instance, you should make sleep a priority, exercise daily, and eat nutritious meals that give you the energy you need to get through each day. Be sure to stay hydrated by drinking a lot of water and taking breaks away from your desk and the office every so often to clear your mind. The better you are at taking care of yourself, the more likely it is that you’ll be successful in your career because you’ll make fewer mistakes and wiser decisions.

Admit to Your Mistakes & Get Comfortable Failing

You can also have a more successful career as an entrepreneur by admitting to your mistakes when you make them. People will respect you more when you’re truthful and honest in your interactions with others and at work. Also, get comfortable failing and taking a few steps back once in a while as failure is inevitable as an entrepreneur.

The path to success will not be perfect, and there will be challenges that try to stand in your way of achieving your goals. Use your mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities to do better the next time you’re put in a similar situation. You’ll begin to trust yourself more and have more self-confidence the more you do this in your career.

Conclusion

Use these tips to help you have a more prosperous and gratifying career as an entrepreneur. Remember, that your path to the top may not be easy but that it is possible with the right attitude, mindset, and approach. Believe in yourself and avoid making excuses for why you can’t or why it’s too hard to beat out the competition and become a profitable and stable company people come to know and trust. Make sure you appreciate the journey and take the time to celebrate your small wins along the way.

Live Your Best Life as an Unapologetically Ambitious Female

When you think about the term “ambitious“ it can often carry a number of negative connotations, especially when it comes to being a woman. Like many other women, you may have been told by your significant other or your parents that your hopes and dreams were way too big. Proving them wrong has always been your number one goal in life.

You aren’t afraid to admit that you are unapologetically ambitious and you want to be self-employed. Chasing your goals and owning a thriving and profitable business that allows you to live a life of freedom is something you know you can achieve. If you have always had this type of motivation inside you, you have everything you need to succeed. Use some of the following advice so that you can ignore the haters and live your best life as an unapologetically ambitious female.

Nail Your Morning Routine

You might be wondering why a morning routine is so important as a female entrepreneur. At the moment, your morning ritual involves staring at your alarm clock with bleary eyes, wondering when it’s going to stop. Instead of starting your morning feeling low on energy and unmotivated, imagine kicking starting your day with the ultimate fuel. You can fuel your body or you can fuel your mind; there are a number of different options for you to explore.

Many high achieving female entrepreneurs experiment with biohacking, which is essentially tapping into the way your body works in order to attain peak performance. Starting your day with a meditation, yoga stretch, or a run outside will set you off on the best foot possible. You also need to nourish your body by eating a healthy and balanced diet. As soon as you take care of your morning ritual, you will find that the rest of your day slips into place seamlessly. Try out your new morning routine for a week and you will soon get into your new flow.

Prioritize Self Care

The biggest mistake that female entrepreneurs mate is thinking that they need to adopt a 24/7 hustle mindset. Although you will need to work your butt off in the first few months of launching your business, this should not be the norm. Working every single hour of the day is going to take its toll on your mind and body. If you do not practice good self-care, you are going to experience burn out.

At some point in your entrepreneurial journey, you are going to experience burnout; it’s inevitable and it happens to everybody. The biggest lesson you need to learn after this is how to avoid it in the future. You might think that your morning meeting takes priority over your own self-care, but this is the wrong way to approach it. Taking care of yourself will ultimately take care of your business, which will guarantee huge success in the future. When you reverse engineer the big picture of your business in this way, you will start to see why your own health is paramount. Make non-negotiable appointments in your calendar if you struggle to practice self-care; this will help you to stay on track and it will always be a priority for you.

Hone in on Your Zone of Genius

Now that you have tackled your morning routine and self-care rituals, it is time to hone in on your zone of genius. This is a very simple but effective task that will pave the way for you and your future business. Knowing what you are truly good at will help you to make waves in the industry you want to tap into. With certain MBA concentrations, you can focus on your strengths and grow your skills in an educational environment.

Many female entrepreneurs don’t do the groundwork when it comes to starting the business from scratch. It is so important to recognize your own strengths rather than mimicking somebody else’s business idea. Although it can’t hurt to mirror other people's general ideas, it is so important to be authentic to yourself. In the future, it will become so hard to sell if you aren’t truly invested in the product or service you have created. This is why honing in on your zone of genius will make your business more lucrative. When you love your career, life feels so much easier. You would have stayed in your old office job if you wanted to wake up dreading your work every single day. If you don’t already know what your superpower is, why not ask your friends and family for advice? It is probably very clear to them what you are good at; sometimes it can be difficult for us to recognize these talents in ourselves.

Get Extremely Organized

When you are starting and growing a business from the ground up, you need to get extremely organized. There is no time for forgetting specific tasks or losing your way when taking a course. These early months are so precious so you need to use every pocket of time wisely. Create a list of needle-moving tasks that are going to support your business growth. Don’t get drawn into menial tasks that aren’t going to help you thrive and grow.

There are a number of different ways you can organize your time, but the best way is to focus on just one or two tasks each day. It is a proven fact that if you try to switch up your brain capacity too often throughout the day, it can become ineffective. For example, you should use one day of the week for administration tasks, one day for finances, one day for being creative, and other days for networking and meetings. Dedicating one day of the week for each of these tasks pillars will make your business grow in a smooth and streamlined way. This will help you to beat any overwhelm and it will prevent you from burning out.

Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

There is absolutely no shame in asking for help when you are just starting out with your business. You might have a very specific zone of genius that isn’t suited to deal with finances, analytics, graphics, marketing, or copywriting. You need to focus your time on the elements of your business that you excel at. You do not need to be a jack of all trades to be a successful female business owner. There are millions of successful female entrepreneurs that have skills that you could benefit from. For example, you may want to hire a virtual assistant to help you with your social media engagement; you may also want to hire an accountant to assist you with your forecasting and cash flow. Hiring people for your business before you are ready will always pay off, as it prevents you from backtracking on tasks that need to be completed imminently.

Hire a Mentor Who Has Done It Before

If you were to sit down and ask a handful of female entrepreneurs what their biggest regret was, it would probably be, not hiring a business coach or mentor. You may think that you can do this all on your own using Google as your private tutor. Although you can find all the information you need on the Internet, sometimes you just need a confident and accountability partner to see you through those tough times.

Growing a business is a hard slog that you will need to adjust to. Have a look online at some of the top business coaches in your industry. As soon as you find one that resonates with you and has experience in your line of work, you can simply reach out to them and see how they can help you. A business coach will walk you through any strategies they have learned during their entrepreneurial journey and they will see things in your company that you may not have ever noticed yourself. 

Holding yourself back from what you really want to achieve won’t serve you well in the future. Even if you want to conform to society right now and stay in your dead-end 9-to-5 job, you know you’re not going to stay there for much longer. Why not take the leap and make it happen now?

Sometimes you just need that little extra push to cheer you on and make you feel positive again. Use all of the advice given above and you will be in The strongest position possible to chase your dreams, conquer your goals, and show everybody that it is possible to be an ambitious female entrepreneur.

The Skills You Need to be a Successful Entrepreneur

Would you like to start your own work-from-home business to spend more time with your family or to have the freedom to travel? Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Listed below are some skills that people who have successfully started their own businesses possess. 

Creative Problem Solving

Entrepreneurs need to be able to look at problems and see solutions, especially if they have limited resources. Innovations like workflow automation or MVP identification can help creative thinkers save time and get ahead. Follow your passion for a new way of doing business.

Managing Your Time

People who start their own businesses need to be self-starters and able to manage their own time efficiently. That often involves making use of new tools or methods of accomplishing tasks more efficiently. Companies such as Mitratech can help improve workflow efficiency and free you up for other tasks.

Clear Communication

The ability to get your point across successfully is very important to anyone starting a business. Clear communication preempts a number of problems, such as missed deadlines, ordering mistakes, and time lost to fixing errors. Taking the time to proofread anything you write to send out to clients can head off many annoying delays.

Persistence

Everyone experiences setbacks when they are starting a new venture, but what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the failed ones is persistence. Don't let rejections, delays, or progress that is slower than you would like get you down. It is difficult to keep going when orders are slow or clients are only trickling in, but that is exactly what you need to do. Try breaking your goals down into smaller steps to keep yourself from falling victim to burnout.

Pay Attention to the Numbers

While you need to give yourself a pep talk occasionally to keep going, you have to be realistic about financing issues. It is important to keep ROI in sight and to weigh financial decisions carefully.

Build a Brand

It can take some time to create a recognizable brand, but it is another important part of building a business. Putting thought and effort into branding will pay off in the end.

Sell Yourself and Your Product

Like branding, finding the right places and customers for your products is crucial to success at building a business. If you are uncomfortable approaching strangers with your message, have a friend help you practice your pitch.

If you are creative, a good communicator and persistent, among other qualities, you probably have what it takes to start your own business and run it successfully.

Smart Solutions To Common Small Business Conundrums

Whatever type and size business you run, there will always be obstacles to overcome. Of course, when you are operating a small business, there are some conundrums you are more likely to encounter. The good news here is that they are often very solvable in simple, smart ways. Keep reading to find out more. 

Lack of staff skillset 

One of the issues small businesses often face is that they do not have enough employees to cover all of the skill sets they need. For example, a small online t-shirt retailer won't have an IT specialist to build their site or run their network. There are also unlikely to have a marketing professional to create their strategy.  

Luckily, two solutions can be applied to this problem. The first is to outsource the projects that you cannot complete yourselves. This is an option due to the gig economy. Of course, with outsourcing, you will still need to shoulder a significant cost, as the best people do not come at a cheap price. 

Alternatively, you can remove the need for additional specialist skills in your business—a task that is now possible by using products like SimplyClouds hosting service. In fact, this service is designed to be so simple to use and manage that you won't need any specialist IT services.

Smaller marketing budget 

Smaller businesses often come with smaller budgets. Of course, this applies to all departments, including marketing, which can be problematic. After all, marketing your business lets your customer base know what you have to offer and helps to convince them to buy. Without marketing your small business, it could struggle to sell as many products as it needs to be successful. 

There is hope here, however! This is because effective marketing doesn't have to be expensive.

Of course, now with social media, search engine marketing, and SEO, it is possible to create marketing content that fulfills your small business goals—all without having a sky-high budget. In fact, the focus is now on content that is entertaining, informative, and engaging, rather than slick big-budget campaigns and productions. This means that small businesses have just as much chance of being successful in their marketing campaigns as any multinational conglomerate. 

Restricted income stream

Finally, an issue that can plague many small businesses is limited income streams. When a company only has a single stream set up, this makes the whole enterprise risky. 

Planning to have multiple streams of income from the outset of launching your business is the way to go. You can do this by appealing to different demographics or by diversifying the products and services you offer. This approach will help you to create a stable income for years to come.

Please note, this article contains affiliate links.

How to Start Your Own Online Trading Business

Photo Credit: ethereumcode.io

Back in October, Fem Founder published ‘7 Easy Business Concepts Every Founder Needs to Know’. The article discussed what you need to know to establish and run a business — from gaining a competitive advantage to customer acquisition, cost and everything else that matters. 

But just in case the pursuit of a traditional business — selling a product, for instance, or providing a service — doesn’t appeal to you, there are alternatives. One alternative is online trading. Here, all you’ll need is a bit of capital, internet access, a PC, and lots of knowledge, foresight, and courage. So, if this pursuit interests you, here is a primer on how to start your own online trading business. 

Trading Stocks

First thing to do here is to familiarize yourself with the stock market. The Balance defines stocks as “small pieces of a company.” When trading stocks, you are in effect buying shares in a company and earn a profit by selling them in the future, when the price increases. So, say you buy Apple stocks for $1,729.2 at $172.92 per share and suppose these stocks appreciate to $180 per share. You can then sell your stocks for that price, meaning you will have earned $70.8 from the trade. 

Once you’ve acquainted yourself with stock trading, go online, find an online stock broker, and open an account. Some of our recommendations in this regard include TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, and E*TRADE, although you can try out other sites, too. From there, it’ll be about applying what you have learned, following the stock market, and buying and selling stocks. 

Forex

Forex stands for foreign exchange. As with anything trading related, first thing to do here is to learn why currency values rise or fall, and what influences these fluctuations. Once you understand this, you can proceed to opening your own account online. 

For forex, BM Magazine recommends starting with at least $1,000. Having that initial capital means you’ll have a buffer just in case you incur any losses at the start. Even if you do, it’s important to stay the course. Remember, not every venture will provide you a revenue stream right away. Study the different currencies you’re interested in trading, get the latest news, and keep trading. 

Trading Precious Metals

The process involved in trading precious metals is pretty much the same as the previous two options: learn about it, open an account online (peruse the web for this step), and start trading. Articles on Investopedia that teach you how to trade gold are a great resource and are written clearly and are easy to understand. Gold happens to be the most popular among precious metal traders, as they use it to diversify risk during tougher economic times, which might impact their financial holdings. 

As far as trading gold is concerned, there are a few options. One is through public exchanges, which are regulated platforms that are centralized and act as intermediaries. Another option, according to FXCM's article on gold trading, is over-the-counter trading through the New York Commodities Exchange. Among these two options, trading via public exchanges is the recommended as many risks, including fraud, lack of transparency, and loss of funds are mitigated. 

The most important takeaway here is the need to continue to learn as you go along, starting with the basics up to the more advanced workings of the market. The trading platforms are relatively easy to use, and the capital required is by and large within your reach. Now, it is worth keeping in mind that investing doesn't guarantee anything. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. 

Data Loss: 4 Ways to Help Your Small Business Recover

By Amy Collett

Data is invaluable to any modern-day business and losing it can mean the death of a company. According to Clutch, 58 percent of small businesses are not prepared for data loss. Because of this, the majority of small businesses that lose their data are forced to shut down within six months of an event. Don't let this scare you just yet! If you act quickly and take the correct next steps, your business can recover and you can prevent this problem from occurring again. 

1. Call in Professionals

When you first notice missing data, don’t try to recover it yourself. It’s very possible your data is still accessible somehow, but messing around in your storage system can lead to permanent loss. Specialists like Secure Data Recovery know their way around hardware and software, which makes them the best bet for safely recovering data without causing additional damage. They can also help you keep your important business operations online while you work to recover from the loss. Until the pros can conduct an analysis of your problem, it’s best to shut down your computer completely.  

2. Determine the Cause of Data Loss

Most often, people have no idea why their data is missing. Try to find out what went wrong so you can help your data recovery specialists get your data back and prevent the problem from happening again. Data is most often lost due to human error, technical failure, or targeted attacks. For example, it’s easy to accidentally delete the wrong files or overwrite existing files when updating your business records. On the other hand, your data loss may be the result of a virus or malware. In this case, it's very possible that attackers are stealing data rather than simply deleting it. Look out for the signs of a data breach if you suspect this may be occurring. 

3. Write a Letter to your Customers 

Most states have laws in place requiring businesses to notify their customers if their data is stolen. Although this can hurt your company’s reputation, it’s much better than facing class-action lawsuits. You may be required to send your customers a written notice detailing everything you know about the data breach. Two of the most important things to include in your notice are what your business is doing to fix the situation and what specific actions your customers can take to protect themselves.

4. Be Prepared Next Time

Just because you already lost your data once doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. Preventing data loss is an important part of business planning and should be one of the first things you do as your business recovers from this setback. Set up a solid recovery plan and a system for conducting regular backups. Mashable recommends backing up your files to more than one computer and storing at least one copy off-site. Ideally, you should back up your important files every day and a minimum of once per week.

An IT disaster recovery plan should also be developed so you know exactly what to do the next time you’re faced with a major system problem. This should include a way to quickly switch your operations to run on backup data so you can reduce downtime. 

Finally, be on the lookout for signs of a failing hard drive: 

●      Frequent error messages

●      Slower computer performance

●      Scrambled file names

●      Frequent program crashes

●      Files and folders that disappear

●      Grinding or clicking sounds in your computer

If you notice any of these problems, back up your data immediately and have a professional take a look at your system. Your computer's hard drive is the device that stores and retrieves digital information. When it goes, your data goes with it. 

Although being faced with significant data loss will likely cause immediate panic to any business owner, there’s a very good chance you can get it back. The greatest cost to your business will be the downtime you're forced to endure as you get everything back up and running again. This is why you should turn to professionals who know how to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

About the Author:

Amy Collett is the creator of Bizwell.org, a website that helps professionals and entrepreneurs build and strengthen their personal brand. She is author of the upcoming book, You, Exemplified: The Role of Personal Branding in Your Professional Life. When she isn’t helping clients boost their careers or businesses, she enjoys coaching her daughter’s soccer team and training to become a yoga instructor.

7 Easy Business Concepts Every Founder Needs To Know

By Kayleigh Alexander

Over 500,000 new businesses are set up every month, but only half manage to get to the five year mark, a statistic that can be a little alarming if you’re thinking of founding one of your own. 

The infancy period of any start-up is volatile, and it can be especially difficult for entrepreneurs who don’t have any previous business experience.

Having a grip on some basic business concepts will give you some of the tools you need to successfully establish your brand and then keep it growing. Don’t blindly fight against established business norms — learn them, boss them, and then choose to subvert them if you want.

Here are seven easy business concepts that you need to know to help you realize your wildest creative business dreams.

Competitive advantage 

One of the main challenges for young businesses is finding a way to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage over other brands in a given market.

Put simply, a competitive advantage is an advantage you have over your competitors.  This is achieved by giving your customers greater value — either by offering lower prices or justifying higher prices by providing a better product or service.  

In his 1985 book ‘Competitive Advantage’, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter outlined three core ways that businesses can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage:

●      Cost leadership means providing reasonable value at a lower price, which can be done by improving operational efficiency. Basically doing more with less — gig economy businesses are great for this

●      Differentiation means delivering greater benefits to the customer than your competitors can. This can typically be achieved through having an innovative product, a very high-quality product, or delivering a similar product as your competitors, but offering exceptional customer service. Differentiation is often how creative businesses like yours stand out

●      Focus means that the company’s founders understand and serve their target market better than its competitors. The key to focusing is to choose one specific target market, often a niche that bigger companies don’t serve, and then concentrating hard on nailing it.

Supply and Demand 

The concept of supply and demand is directly relevant to any company competing in the marketplace, regardless of its size. Supply and demand mean that a market will respond to changes in demand and supply to overcome surplus and shortages and therefore maintain an ‘equilibrium price’. For example, a shortage of gold leads to a higher price, because, as demand for gold increases, the upward pressure on prices would naturally prevent a shortage.

Source: The Dasinger Daily

Understanding the specific supply and demand issues affecting both the sales and the purchases that your business makes will enable you to make more informed decisions.

Return on Investment

Return on Investment (ROI) is the financial benefit that is received from an investment, or, put more simply, a measure of what you get back compared to what you put in. For example, say you spent $1000 per month on Google Adwords, and your business made $2000 as a direct result of the ads, your ROI would be the difference. ROI is usually measured as a ratio, which in this case would be 2:1, because for every $1 you spend, you get $2 back.

Calculating ROI will help you to track what’s working and what isn’t working for your business. If your ads aren’t generating a profit, you will know that you need to make changes to them, or drop them altogether in favor of another form of marketing. 

Fixed and Variable Costs

When you start a business, your costs come in two forms: fixed and variable. Fixed costs don’t change when your sales volume changes, but variable costs do. Examples of fixed costs include the rent you pay for the space that your company uses, such as an office or storage facility, insurance, marketing and management salaries. Examples of variable costs are material and labor, the costs of which go up and down depending on sales. 

Source: PrepLounge

Understanding which costs are fixed and which are variable will enable you to budget and plan accordingly, and help you to identify what is a profitable price level for your products or services. If you suddenly lost your biggest customer account and therefore 25% of your sales, you’d still need to cover your fixed costs to keep your company running; figuring out these costs could be crucial to keeping your company alive.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the total worth of a customer to a business over the entirety of their relationship. It’s important to your business because it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to acquire new ones. According to the book Marketing Metrics, “businesses have a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer, whilst the probability of selling to a new customer is only 5% to 20%”. Increasing the value of your existing customers will really help to drive growth. 

However, measuring CLV isn’t easy, with only 42% of companies feeling able to do it, and citing poor systems, lack of coherent marketing and lack of integration as the reasons why.

If big, established businesses struggle to measure CLV, then new and small businesses are likely to find it hard to make accurate measurements, but you can make a start with this simple formula: customer revenue minus the cost to acquire and serve the customer. If you are prepared to really drill down into the concept, there are more complex calculations that will help you get a more accurate result.

Customer Acquisition Cost 

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) means the price that your business pays to acquire a new customer. It can be worked out by dividing the total costs associated with acquisition by total new customers, within a specific time period. For example, if you spend $500 on marketing in one month and acquire 500 customers, then your CAC is $1. Web-based companies can roll out highly targeted campaigns and track customers from leads to conversions, making their CAC highly accurate. 

If you’ve just started a business, acquiring customers is crucial to making sure it is a success, but if you spend too much money on acquiring customers, then you won’t be able to pay your other costs and keep your business afloat. CAC is directly relevant to CLV, and combining the two will allow you to calculate what is the true value of a customer to your business.

Minimum Viable Product 

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique where a new product is introduced to the market with basic features, which will capture the attention of early adopters. Companies such as Uber, Dropbox, and Airbnb all started as MVPs and achieved very rapid growth. An MVP is a bare-bones version of a product that includes a minimum of features and directly addresses the core problem it is trying to solve. Once the initial product is successful, more features can be added.

Source: Cheesecake Labs

An MVP allows you to release your product to market in the shortest possible time, reduce start-up costs and test demand before spending money adding all the bells and whistles.

An easy creative product-based MVP would be a print-on-demand business with low overheads. Simply set up shop, hook up with an app like Printful, and go out looking for ways to make your first sale. Using print-on-demand methods means you can keep costs of production down while you test your designs and brand out with your target market. 

On the service side, you might be looking to start a consultancy coaching business for creative entrepreneurs. Before going all-out, test the waters with a series of blogs, a webinar, or a training course (Thinkific is good for this) to gauge whether you have a viable market and compelling message. You may find that you need to adapt your messaging.

You can work directly with users to analyze behaviors and get feedback, allowing you to develop your product in ways that you know customers will like. Developing your business in this way can also avoid large capital losses, therefore attracting potential investors because it is a low-risk venture.

There’s a lot to learn when setting up a new business and there is no guarantee of success, but educating yourself about some of the basic principles will stack the odds in your favor. A firm grounding in everything from basic economic theory such as supply and demand to sophisticated development techniques like MVP will help you found a business that is both profitable and sustainable.

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Kayleigh Alexandra is a content writer for Micro Startups — a site dedicated to giving through growth hacking and shining a light on innovative startups. Visit the blog for your latest dose of startup, entrepreneur, and charity insights from top experts around the world. Follow us on Twitter @getmicrostarted.