5 Steps to Ensure That Your Business Idea Can Really Work

Running a successful startup isn’t rocket science, but it’s also a delicate skill. It’s crucial when running a successful startup is to ensure that your idea can work. After all, one of the biggest reasons why so many entrepreneurs fail is because they are working with ideas that just aren’t applicable to the real world.

Balancing the needs of your consumers and your desire to create will mean life or death for your business. And unless your products can fill a need for your audience, it doesn’t matter how passionate you are about the product – it won’t work.

This guide is going to help you ensure that your business idea is viable and has a chance of working in the grand scheme of things.

Can You Build It?

To start, it’s necessary to see whether you can even build the idea. It may be easy to think that you can solve a problem by implementing different ideas, but often, the real reason why this hasn’t happened to begin with is due to the fact it’s impractical.

Rather than going straight to market, you should first build your product as a concept. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the finished product, but putting something out to test before finalizing will ensure that many issues can be addressed. There’s nothing wrong with building an early-stage prototype and testing it out in action with a small group. The feedback collected from choosing this step could save you product trouble down the line.

Is it Cost-Effective?

Once you are sure that you can build your idea, you need to be sure that the idea is cost-effective. But how do you determine how cost-effective something is?

You can begin by looking at your own bank balance. How much will your idea cost to make at this current time, and do you have the resources to cover it? If not, would you be able to gather resources to pay for the costs? Being able to examine whether it’s in your best interests to move forward with a costly project could play a big role in the future of this idea.

You also have to consider the price point you would have to sell an item at in order to make money. Sometimes you can have a perfectly good product, but because the manufacturing costs, it’s impossible to make a profit.

You can work out the price point by looking into your target market and getting an idea of the current price ranges for similar products.

Do People Want It?

For some people, this may be the first step. But even if it’s not, this is an important step to understanding if an idea is worth moving forward on. In many cases, inventors can’t test the demand for their product without a working prototype first. Go bold and take your product out to the general public.

People often fear this step the most, opting instead to confine product testing to biased family members and friends. But examining the true market appeal of a product will better serve you when it comes to bringing quality products to life for consumers.

Can You Market It?

By now, you know that there’s some demand for your product and you can make a profit. But the determining your product’s potential for marketing isn’t easy. Just because there’s a demand for a product doesn’t mean that you can marketing will come smoothly.

This is where you have to do research. Look into what your competitors are doing and you need to formulate a strategy. If you have a strategy that works, you may decide that it’s worth trying out.

Correct Scaling

At this point in the process, you may discover that you’re ready to warrant a limited rollout. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make at this stage is to go all in. Going all in and hoping for the best can quickly drain your budget. It also means that you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the line if your product doesn’t sell like you wanted it to you are going to find yourself in trouble.

Start small and monitor how quickly you can sell your products. As time goes on, you can start to scale your efforts with a reasonable guarantee of making that money back. Remember, scaling too fast is one of the surefire ways to fail your startup.

The Biggest Decisions

For entrepreneurs, these are the business decisions that will prove to be the most difficult. You shouldn’t risk everything on one product idea or service. Startups need to ensure that they have performed due diligence prior to investing a significant amount of money in a venture.

How will you make sure that you validate your big idea?

Source: http://bit.ly/1OpcgkF

5 Obvious Truths About Successful Entrepreneurs

Every entrepreneur hopes to be successful. Some entertain the remote possibility of becoming very rich. But most entrepreneurs do not achieve the kind of material wealth that Bill Gates enjoys. You may wonder -- what are the secrets to their success?

I have been fortunate to start several software companies myself and now lead the team at Aha! -- I always want to keep learning. So, I read as much as I can about innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the stories of successful entrepreneurs. 

Of course, their upbringing, influences, and personalities are all very different, as well as the companies they lead. But I have noticed a few important qualities that any entrepreneur should emulate if they want to be successful.

Here are five obvious approaches that you should definitely follow:

Work with the best

Having a great idea for a business is not enough. You need the complementary talents of others to help you reach your goals. As Marc Andreesen once said, "Everyone wants a Sheryl, the high-powered business person with deep capabilities in sales, marketing and operations," referring to Sheryl Sandberg, who Mark Zuckerberg hired as the Facebook Chief Operating Officer. 

Takeaway: Surround yourself with great people who will round out your team and challenge you to bring your best. 

Tackle tough problems

Elon Musk could have easily developed a line of gasoline-powered cars and been successful. But he believed that electric-powered cars mattered for the health of our environment, and sought to make them affordable with his latest model. He is also tackling a second problem -- how to keep those cars powered -- and is rolling out a network of charging stations across the world. 

Takeaway: If you are looking for an opportunity, consider taking on a difficult problem that most others are afraid to tackle.

Pursue your passions

Many successful entrepreneurs first focused their energy on what made them happiest and it paid off. Self-taught software developer Larry Ellison started Oracle so he would have a working environment that he enjoyed. Likewise, Bill Gates spent countless hours programming as a kid, launching his first business at age 15 along with school friend Paul Allen (his partner in founding Microsoft.)

Takeaway: You cannot go wrong if you are pursuing what you love.

Live generously

Many wealthy entrepreneurs have realized they can put their money to good use and change lives for generations. Bill and Melinda Gates, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, and many others have signed the Giving Pledge to donate half of their wealth to charity. Sheryl Sandberg started the Lean In Foundation to empower young women and is also working to stop hunger in the Bay area.

Takeaway: No matter how much you have, being generous will help you live a life of purpose.

Know when to innovate

Being first matters. Case in point: In the 90s, Jeff Bezos heard the Internet was growing by 2,400 percent annually and recognized the great opportunity there. Inspired by the digital catalogs of book distributors, he created a book distribution channel that completely upended the publishing industry (and Amazon panned out for other kinds of merchandise as well.) 

Takeaway: Always stay curious, keeping your eyes open for game-changing ideas. 

There is no foolproof recipe for achieving success, and there is no getting around the hard work and perseverance required. But you can learn great lessons from wildly successful and wealthy entrepreneurs and develop the qualities that will position you for success. 

 Source: http://bit.ly/24mpmZ3

25 Quotes From Famous Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur can be difficult but with

top quotes like these you can move forward

While entrepreneurs make their careers by doing things differently, the most successful ones have a handful of traits in common, including their drive, passion, and unwavering commitment to changing the world. Many of these traits are evident in the words of successful entrepreneurs in the limelight, which others can internalize to inspire their own quests for success. Here is a list of 25 such quotes from the most transformative minds on earth.

1. "I wake up every morning and think to myself, 'How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours?'" -Leah Busque, Founder of TaskRabbit
2. "If you had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." -Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company
3. "Your people determine your product." -Taso Du Val, Co-Founder and CEO o fToptal
4. "The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be." - Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
5. "The question I ask myself almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?'" - Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook
6. "So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard." -Caterina Fake, Co-Founder of Flickr
7. "Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself." - Bill Gates, Founder and CEO of Microsoft
8. "Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect." -Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter
9. "Hire character. Train Skill." -Peter Schultz, Founder and former Director of theGenomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF)
10. "Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway." - Mary Kay Ash, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
11. "So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."  - Oprah Winfrey
12. "The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer not a dreamer." - Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari and Chuck-e-Cheese's
13. "If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business." - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's
14. "I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." - Steve Jobs, former Co-Founder and CEO of Apple
15. "Fail often so you can succeed sooner." -Tom Kelley, Founder of IDEO
16. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric lightbulb
17. "Always deliver more than expected." -Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
18. Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable." - Coco Chanel
19. "We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform." - Pete Cashmore, Founder and CEO of Mashable
20. "Data beats emotions." - Sean Rad, Founder of Adly and Tinder
21. "One thing I see all the time with entrepreneurs is that they give too much of their company away way too soon." -Tory Burch, Founder of Tory Burch LLC
22. "When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do." - Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
23. "Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently." - Sara Blakey, Founder of Spanx
24. "When I'm old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say 'wow , that was an adventure,' not 'wow, I sure felt safe.'" - Tom Preson-Werner, Co-Founder of Github"
25. When we love something, emotion often drives our actions. This is the gift and the challenge entrepreneurs face every day. The companies we dream of and build from scratch are part of us and intensely personal. They are our families. Our lives. But the entrepreneurial journey is not for everyone. Yes, the highs are high and the rewards can be thrilling. But the lows can break your heart. Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable." - Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
26. 
    

 Source: http://bit.ly/1ZAcqfw

5 Startup Assets That Will Get You Acquired in 2016

Going acquired is the dream of every startup. One of the major players want to sweep in and purchase your humble product. Of course, this is not easy and for the majority of businesses, this will never happen. A renewed sense of optimism has arisen as PayPal continues its acquisition spree by purchasing eCommerce platform Modest for an undisclosed free.

So how do you increase your chances of getting acquired?

This guide is going to show you five of the assets that you need to get acquired in 2016.

A Superior Team

With the boom in startups, there’s a serious shortage of talent in practically all industries. In the tech industry, for example, it’s a major mark of honor to have someone who is above average. That’s because the majority of the best are already working for the likes of Google and Apple.

The top corporations have quickly acquired startups in recent years partly because they want to acquire the talent working for them. An idea can never get off the ground without the right team behind it.

Make sure you are making inspired hires.

Disruptive Innovation

What is disruptive innovation?

This is the type of innovation that happens when companies discover new customer categories. They then create products or services to target this new category, thus leading to brand new markets. Big companies have big decisions to make when this happens.

They either have to hold on to their profitable markets or consider investing in new and lucrative markets. The tech industry tends to see companies acquiring startups so they can gain a foothold in these new markets. The more competitive the niche the more likely big companies are going to seek to acquire startups.

One of the most important assets you can have as a startup is a disruptive innovation.

Market Share

As always, market share is important. If a company is operating in a new industry and they own 35% of that industry, a large corporation realizes that the moment they can acquire that company they will also own 35% of the share. In the event that they are also part of the competition, a company can gain an effective monopoly via acquisitions.

Take a look at social media to see how this works. Facebook is no longer popular among teens. They are more popular among older demographics. Now take a look at Snapchat. Its main user demographic is teens. It’s no surprise that Facebook has attempted to acquire the company on many occasions, thus maintaining its market dominance.

If you own a significant share in a lucrative market, this is sure to attract big investors.

A Complementary Product

Startups don’t always have to forge new markets or produce something completely new. It happens where a startup discovers a flaw with a product and then they produce a product that solves this problem. For example, when Twitter first came to prominence startups began creating products to add new features not provided by the platform.

Twitter acquired a lot of them because they knew that they could add new features while also attracting users who already loved the new features.

Intellectual Property

Sometimes a company wants to create something but it can’t. Google may have a brilliant idea in mind, but they are prevented from making it a reality because the vital piece of intellectual property is owned by someone else. Even Google can’t break the rules and push on.

Instead, Google has no choice but to purchase the company and its intellectual property. This has led to a weapons war where larger companies will seek to acquire smaller companies with the sole purpose of making sure that other companies can’t acquire those intellectual resources.

As a startup, how do you capitalize on this, though?

You really have to gear your startup towards acquiring intellectual property if you want to operate this type of business model. You need to develop a strong insider knowledge of your industry.

For most people, this will be an added bonus of releasing an awesome product in the first place. You may discover that the company in question has no interest in your product. All they want is the intellectual property you actually own. Following acquisition, they will take your product and release a much-improved version, or even something new entirely.

Source : http://bit.ly/1RfEOnb

11 Common Blogging Mistakes that Waste Your Audience’s Time

Quick question: Do you know anyone who doesn’t suffer from information overload?

We live in a world full of cheap information. At the push of a button we can get our eyes on far more ideas, blog posts, and news stories than we could ever possibly consume.

It’s hard to remember — or imagine, if you’re a lot younger than me — when information was a scarce resource. But time is a scarce resource. It always will be. And with information everywhere, it is imperative that you treat your readers’ time with respect when they give it to you.

Especially if you want to build trust with your audience so they give you more of their time in the future.

Nowadays, words can seem cheap. It doesn’t really cost anything to publish more blog posts, send more emails, share our life with even more social media updates.

But the idea that pixels don’t cost much is flawed.

Occupying more pixels means taking up more time from potential readers. If you’re not adding value with those pixels, you could be wasting the time of your readers.

And time is an irreplaceable resource. Time is precious. We all know it.

So avoid the 11 common blogging mistakes below at all costs. They waste the time of your readers by contributing to information overload without offering value in return …

Blogging Mistake #1: You love complexity

It’s often thought that complexity is a sign of academic achievement, intelligence, or sophistication.

But the opposite is actually true.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

~ Leonardo da Vinci

A sophisticated blogger uses metaphors to illustrate abstract ideas. She tells simple stories to explain complex concepts. She appreciates the time of her readers.

Next time you write, see how you can simplify your message. There’s no need to dumb down your ideas. Just help your readers process your post and be inspired by you in less reading time.

Blogging Mistake #2: You’re self-indulgent

Let’s not pussyfoot around it.

The harsh truth is this: Your readers aren’t interested in you, your life, or your stories.

As a blogger and content marketer it’s your job to help your readers, to guide them, and inspire them. Talking about your experiences is fine — it can add color and personality to your posts — but only if it helps your readers become healthier, happier, or more productive.

When you want to write a story about your life, ask yourself this: What’s in it for my readers? How can my experience help them?

Blogging Mistake #3: You think you need to publish daily

Are you clogging up people’s inboxes with your announcement of yet another post? Or are your readers excited to see another email of yours arrive?

When you publish blog posts without adding any value to conversations, you end up wasting space. You waste precious pixels.

Don’t waste people’s time with an endless stream of blog posts. Only write when you have something to say. Your audience would rather read one post that inspires them than 20 crappy posts with recycled content.

Blogging Mistake #4: You write purely for SEO

Writing exclusively for Google will bore the boots off your readers. If you’re onlywriting for robots, then you might be wasting human time. Your readers aren’t interested in regurgitated keywords that exist for crawling robots.

Don’t allow Google to turn you into a keyword-processing machine. Don’t allow Google to kill your creativity.

Always write for your audience first, then optimize for search engines later.

Blogging Mistake #5: You focus on word count

Does this sound familiar …

You’re staring at your computer monitor. At the bottom left hand corner you see you’ve written 537 words. You wonder what else you can write.

The idea that more content is always better has been heavily promoted by some, but this is wrong. The task of a writer is not to write more “text”. The task of a writer is to communicate a message in the length it takes to fully communicate that message.

Got your message across in 537 words? Well done. Now, try to do it in less than 400.

Blogging Mistake #6: You don’t write in plain English

Jargon, gobbledygook, and bombast slow your readers down.

Jargon requires your readers to stop and think about the meaning of your words. Gobbledygook takes up their time without adding meaning. Bombastic sentences slow them down because they’re full of unnecessary words.

When you cut excess words from your sentences, you’re doing your readers a favor. When you replace long words with simpler words, you’re delighting your readers.

Make your posts as easy to read as possible. Write as if you’re writing for a 12-year old. Show your readers you value their time by writing in plain English.

Blogging Mistake #7: Your conclusions are stale

It’s an easy mistake to make.

You’ve poured all your energy into writing your post. Now you’ve gotten to the end, and you wiz through writing your conclusion so all is done.

But serving up an uninspiring conclusion is like presenting the cheapest supermarket ice-cream after a lavish home-cooked meal. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Don’t disappoint your readers with a bland conclusion. Try writing your conclusion first. Or write it the day after you’ve written your post.

Put all of your enthusiasm into a conclusion that inspires, motivates, and energizes your readers.

Blogging Mistake #8: You don’t know who you’re writing for

The idea that you’re writing for hundreds (or thousands) of readers may sound great, but it can kill your writing voice … fast.

When you don’t know who your audience is, your blog posts become generic. They end up speaking to no one and just taking up space.

Instead of addressing a crowd, write as if you’re having a conversation with your favorite reader. If you’re not sure who that is, make up an imaginary friend:

• Write down what she’s dreaming of and what keeps her up at night
• Consider what you can do to help her realize her dreams and take away her worries
• Write down at least 20 ideas for how you can help in your blog posts

Having lots of people read your posts is great (of course!). But when you write your next blog post, just think of one person. Your post will instantly become more personal, more conversational, and more engaging.

Blogging Mistake #9: You don’t care about your topic (anymore)

If you don’t care, why would your readers care?

Boring text slaughters people’s appetites for reading. A good blog post is written with passion. When your enthusiasm shines through, you invigorate your readers.

But how can you get excited when you’ve grown bored with your topic?

• Talk to clients and understand how you can make their lives better
• Find a good salesman and ask how he or she would sell your ideas
• Look for an expert and learn about fascinating details
• Explore other topics and see how they can be related to yours
• Challenge yourself to write your most inspirational post ever
• Take up a writing challenge—come up with a new metaphor, write an ultra-short post, or write a poetic post

Write when you feel enthusiastic. Get blissfully happy and share your excitement. Get angry and passionately argue your case.

You can’t make a dull draft exciting, but you can improve the structure and polish a text dripping with your enthusiasm.

Blogging Mistake #10: You edit your posts in less than five minutes

Are you a super-writer who writes almost impeccable posts in one go?

Most of us can’t even edit in one go. Consider at least four rounds of editing:

• Review the flow of the post. Can you remove any paragraphs without impacting your story or argument? Does each paragraph naturally follow the paragraph before it?
• Take out the funny asides that aren’t funny or aren’t relevant.
• Polish each sentence. Cut overly long sentences in two; replace difficult words with simple ones; and cross out redundant words.
• Correct any grammar or spelling mistakes

The more effort you put into editing, the easier your post becomes to read. Your message becomes clearer, and your readers will be grateful.

Blogging Mistake #11: You don’t show your personality

Let’s be honest.

Hundreds — maybe thousands — of bloggers write about exactly the same topic as you. What makes you different? What makes you stand out?

When you share useful tips without letting your personality shine through, you become interchangeable with any other blogger in your niche. You become a “me-too” blog, a commodity.

How can you let your personality shine through and increase the value of your blog posts?

• View topics from a fresh perspective
• Present arguments to suggest an opposite approach to what most people believe is right
• Share your personal experiences to guide your readers
• Entertain with your unique sense of humor
• Develop your own blogging voice that speaks strongly to your tribe
• Share a glimpse of who you are to bond with your audience

Your personality, your experiences, and your voice make your posts unique. Your readers don’t just come back for more useful tips. They engage with you because of who you are.

The harsh truth about blogging …

Your readers don’t need another blog post.

Your readers don’t need even more tips.

What your readers need is you — your wisdom, your ideas, your unique stories on your chosen area of expertise.

Never take your readers’ attention for granted. Their time is precious. Use it wisely.

Source : http://bit.ly/1phEAiW

4 things you can do to become a better manager today

 

Effectively managing people is difficult, and no one is born knowing how to do it.

Fortunately, management can be learned. We suggest following these four steps, which are simple, but time-tested:

1. Set appropriate goals.

Goal-setting is essential. It helps employees prioritize their activities and focus their efforts. When setting goals with employees, you should make sure that they are SMART goals (specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistically high, time and resource bound).

The goals must also be meaningful to the employee. Sufficient rewards for goal achievement and consequences for failure should be specified. This will ensure that the goal and what's needed to achieve it will rise to the top of the employees' "To Do" list.

Near the end of his life, H.L. Hunt, the self-made oil billionaire, was asked to name the requirements for success. He answered, "There are only two real requirements for success in life. The first requirement is deciding exactly what you want [setting goals]. Most people never get to that point. The second requirement is determining the price that will have to be paid to get it, and then resolving to pay that price."

2. Develop a plan to achieve the goals.

After setting goals with the employee, put together a plan to achieve them. To accomplish any individual goal, the employee will need to commit to a set of actions. A goal without an action plan is just a dream. It’s not real, and it’s not likely to happen.

Most people don’t understand how to break larger projects, goals or tasks down into actionable steps. As a manager, you can use your experience and knowledge to guide the employee. Keep the number of actions from becoming overwhelming by limiting them to what the employee can reasonably accomplish within two weeks. Set dates and even a deadline that makes sense, for when the employee will complete each action step. This will create the urgency necessary to complete the work in a timely manner.

Finally, holding a meeting that occurs at the same day and time each week will give you a mechanism for checking on progress and creating a natural deadline for your staff. The meeting can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as an hour, but should be comprised of three segments:

• First segment: Have the employee report to you on his or her progress.
• Second segment: Give the employee feedback and help him or her overcome obstacles that stand in the way.
• Third segment: Set new actions, including dates and times for completion.

3. Empower the employee.

To maximize the probability that your employees achieve their goals, empower them. That means three things. First, you must properly train your workers to do the tasks necessary to achieve their goals. This includes giving the employee enough time to practice the new skills so that they become proficient.

Second, motivate your people. Rewards for success and consequences for failure should be specified. But keep in mind that an environment that relies solely on either rewards or consequences will create a dysfunctional culture: You will have employees who either become used to a country-club existence or live in fear of making mistakes. Neither is conducive to long-term productivity.

Finally, remove roadblocks that are within the company’s control. Make sure that people have the tools, equipment and information they need to do their jobs. Removing roadblocks also includes developing effective policies and procedures.

4. Assess performance and make adjustments.

Once the above three steps are complete, you will need to assess performance and make any necessary changes. We’re not talking about annual performance evaluations. A formal review may happen only once a year, but effective management requires assessing performance much more frequently.

For employees who are new to the organization or learning a new task, you may need to assess performance daily or perhaps even more frequently. Get away from your desk and computer screen and walk around the area where your employees work. Stop to talk and ask questions. Be available and interested.

Employees who have demonstrated competence may require only a weekly meeting to stay on track. But, in either case, you should take an active role in monitoring and commenting on performance, to benefit both the organization and the employee.

Managing people is difficult. It’s not an exact science, and there is no magic wand to ensure you always get it right. In fact, you won’t always get it right. Even outstanding managers make mistakes. The good news is that managing people well is a learned skill.

With work, you can improve your capability in this area. A concerted effort on your part is required. But if your company is going to thrive, your skills as a manager will be of paramount importance.

   Source : http://read.bi/1PSHvVI