Month: April 2023

Starting a business is a challenging journey, especially when you don’t have access to many resources. However, many successful entrepreneurs have shown that with the right mindset and approach, it’s possible to achieve success even with limited resources. In this article, we’ll explore 10 popular strategies that can help you do that:

1. Build A Strong Network

Networking is one of the most effective ways to gain access to resources you might not have otherwise. Attend events and conferences related to your industry, join online communities, and reach out to potential mentors and advisors. By building a strong network, you can tap into a wealth of knowledge and connections that can help you grow your business.

In the connected world of business, the reality is that the people you have access to are likely the most powerful resource at your disposal.

2. Embrace Partnerships

Another way to gain access to resources that can benefit your new business is to look for complementary organizations that could draw value from your project and reach out to them. Of course, this would be much easier to do if you have a good network and authoritative people behind you – hence, the value of networking for founders.

3. Leverage Social Media

Social media platforms offer a cost-effective way to reach potential customers and build brand awareness. Identify the platforms where your target audience spends time, create engaging content, and engage with your target customers or other potential stakeholders in your business.

Consider that the digital environment plays a critical role in almost all marketing strategies for startups that don’t require a big resource investment.

4. Offer A Freemium Model

If your product or service lends itself to a freemium model, offering a limited version for free can be a great way to attract customers without a big marketing budget. This approach allows potential customers to try your product before committing to a purchase and can help you build a loyal user base over time.

5. Focus On Customer Retention

Acquiring new customers is always important, but retaining existing ones can be even more valuable in the long run. Focus on delivering a great customer experience, and consider offering loyalty rewards or other incentives to keep customers coming back.

In addition, research on customer loyalty indicates that returning customers tend to spend 33% more than the ones who are new to the business. Furthermore, boosting customer retention by as little as 5% can result in a profit increase ranging from 25% to 95%.

6. Build A Referral Program

Word-of-mouth marketing is how your business can grow without a marketing budget. A referral program can help you capitalize on it. Encourage your existing customers to refer their friends and family to your business, and offer incentives for successful referrals. This is one of the main strategies Dropbox used to grow to a Unicorn without excessive marketing spending.

7. Use Automation Tools

Automation tools can help you streamline your operations and save time and resources. Look for tools that can help you automate repetitive tasks, such as social media posting or email marketing, or that can help you manage your workflow more efficiently.

8. Focus On A Niche Market

While it might be tempting to try to appeal to a broad audience, focusing on a specific niche market can help you stand out and build a loyal following. Identify a specific customer persona or segment that your product or service is uniquely suited to, and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

9. Be Scrappy

Finally, the most important strategy for succeeding with limited resources is to be scrappy. Look for creative solutions to problems, and don’t be afraid to try new things. Remember that most successful businesses started small, and with hard work and determination, you can achieve your goals too.

“Having the money to buy something, or pay someone, often robs us of an opportunity to be creative.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Dave Meadows and Mike Sovie are co-founders of ColdCallRX, a provider of outsourced cold-calling and lead generation services based in Tampa Bay, Fla., that they started in 2020.

One way they’ve positioned their company to scale up is by creating standard operating procedures, or SOPs. Entrepreneurs use these documents to describe how they do things in the business—whether it’s answering a customer service call or entering information into a database—so it is easier to train new hires.

Some later find that when they sell the business, having SOPs in place makes it more attractive to potential buyers, who know they can step into ownership without confusion about how to keep things running smoothly. “A business that can operate without the owner day-to-day is worth way more than a business that requires the owner,” says Sovie, who has a background in pharma, where many processes are standardized in this way.

In the case of ColdCallRX, the SOPs consist of simple video clips of each task, along with written instructions. “If someone has a question, you can send them a quick video,” says Sovie.

ColdCall RX has organized the SOPs into a playbook, which has a table of contents for all of its SOPs, covering topics like client onboarding, software systems and training, and virtual assistant management support and training.

The company also shares a “best practices” SOP with its clients to help them get the most out of the relationship, offering guidance on scenarios like what to do if they get a call from a key contact at a company ColdCallRX has been pitching on their behalf. “We are an extension of their sales team,” says Meadows.

So how do you create SOPs for your own business? I turned to Carrie Wulf, an operations expert and self-described “SOP geek” at Wulden Professional Solutions in Wallingford, Ct., for advice.

“In the last year there has been an uptick—people are realizing they need to put these procedures in place,” she says. “They want to start taking vacations. People are realizing I can give my assistant this library of SOPs and they will know exactly what they need to do and how it should be done.”

Here are three tips to start applying today.

1. Consider all types of learners. Some people learn best from a video. Others do better when learning from an audio recording or a written document. Your SOPs will be most successful if you create them in several formats. “Whenever I’m writing an SOP, I include a link for a video walk-through,” she says.

2. Consider every single step. Someone should be able to follow the SOP even if they’ve never worked for your business before. “My goal when I write SOPs is to be able to hand that document over to someone how has never performed that task before, so they can do it following the SOP as it’s written,” says Wulf.

3. Make it easy on yourself. Wulf uses a video messaging tool called Loom to talk through and record the steps of each process. If you opt to use it, she suggests recording yourself with a Zoom screen share.

Ultimately, SOPs are a simple tool. However, they can make a real difference if you want to grow your business—and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Patrick Murray is founder of On Air Parking, a startup that brings in $9 million in annual revenue helping consumers find unsold airport parking for a discount, via an app similar to Hotwire. Murray partnered with a private investor in the parking lot industry to get the business off the ground and has hired a president to run the company and its team of about 10 contractors. However, he hasn’t opted to go the venture capital route.

The Los Angeles area entrepreneur is ambitious about growth, but he’s decided to do things his own way. To make sure he has time to enjoy his family—he’s both a husband and father to two children ages two and four—he’s designed his business to scale up while he’s working only works four hours a week, relying on both his team of contractors and a variety of apps and tools to run it efficiently. His inspiration came from both Richard Branson’s autobiography Finding My Virginity, in which Virgin Group’s founder discusses his reasons for working from home, and Tim Ferriss’ classic The 4-Hour Workweek.

Murray held back emotion as he talked about the freedom he has on a recent community event I moderated recently at the New York Public Library. “It brings tears to my eyes, talking about it now, because I love my kids so much, and there were times I thought I wouldn’t be able to have that flexibility,” he said.

Murray is part of a universe of entrepreneurs that doesn’t get as much attention as the startups making the rounds of Silicon Valley for funding—a universe that venture capitalist Allison Long Pettine calls “Ecosystem 2.” She is president of Crescent Ridge Partners, a venture fund, and co-founder of Ad Astra Ventures, another fund that backs high-growth startups with at least one female founder, both based in San Diego.

Entrepreneurs in Ecosystem 2 are ambitious founders running startups where growth and profits matter but not at the expense of the entrepreneurial ideas that drove them to launch a business in the first place or at the cost of prioritizing people—their families, employees, customers, and community. If Ecosystem 1 is about maximization—of funding rounds, the size of the business and the size of the exit—Ecosystem 2 is about optimization and resourcefulness. “This new ecosystem is built on rigor and skill but also compassion and empathy,” says Pettine.

The founders of startups in Ecosystem 2 often find a way to start and grow their businesses that does not depend on following the rules of winning traditional venture funding—rules that have become as well-defined as applying for a job on Wall Street and often require founders to go through training at accelerators so they can pitch in a specific way and make the right impression. Though founders in Ecosystem 2 are often fully capable of playing that game, they are often more committed to building a business and a life that fits their unique vision than conforming to the rules and opt for other routes to funding, including self-funding. “If you are that innovative, you may not fit a pattern,” says Pettine. If they do raise venture capital, it is at a stage where they have more agency over how their startup will be run after the deal or from funds that support them in doing things their own quirky way.

In some cases, founders don’t have much access to the networks that open the door to capital. Rather than wait a lifetime for systemic change, they take creative routes to finding funding, so they can start and grow their businesses now. “These entrepreneurs and innovators aren’t trying to win a game that is stacked against them,” says Pettine. “They learn to play the game and create a new game—one they know they can win. “

I’ve come across many startups that embody Ecosystem 2 as a journalist in the past few years, and was very interested to learn that Pettine was observing a similar trend in her own work when we collaborated on several writing projects supported by one of my nonprofit clients. We both agreed that the growth of these scrappy, innovative and capital-efficient businesses is one of the most exciting, democratizing and underreported trends in business. Graham Cochrane, a digital entrepreneur and author who participated in the panel, calls these firms “life-giving businesses.”

One benefit of staying part of Ecosystem 2 is freedom. The freedom to be an old-school entrepreneur who is driven by passion for their idea above all. The freedom to allow the business to grow at its natural pace, not a fund’s timeline. The freedom to participate fully in their personal lives and communities, something that is hard to do when trying to meet relentless funding goals. If the entrepreneurs do go the traditional funding route, it’s usually when the business has reached the stage where the owners will have more of the agency they want over the future of the business and their own lives.

It’s hard to put a number on the startups in Ecosystem 2 because not all startups raise their hands to stand up and get counted. However, there were 16,465 venture deals in the U.S. in the U.S. in 2022, according to research firm Statista, and 359,000 new businesses formed in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2022 alone. While many of these new businesses are more likely to be traditional small businesses than scalable startups, no doubt there are many traditional startups among them that are bootstrapping or turning to other types of funding.

The growth of technologies like artificial intelligence seems to bode well for founders in Ecosystem 2. Just as cloud-based tools made it less expensive to run a startup, and lowered the barriers to entry for founders who lacked much startup capital, it appears that artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT will do so, as well.

Ultimately, we’ll probably always need venture capital, or a substitute, to scale businesses to the size of a Google or Facebook. But many founders, while looking to scale, aren’t bent on reaching that size and are content to find other routes to funding and growth. Maybe they don’t want to go through the training and grooming required to become part of the funding ecosystem. Maybe, like Murray, they want to enjoy each day of their lives with the people who matter most to them while still scaling up. One of the most interesting stories to cover in the years to come will no doubt be the trajectory of the many startups that are part of Ecosystem 2.