Developing a Startup Marketing Plan

Congratulations on starting your own business! Isn’t that why you are thinking of developing a startup marketing plan? Often new business owners don’t think they need a formal business or marketing plan. But I say these two living documents are a must — not an option — to not prepare (and refer to often). Not sure how to create those plans yourself? Hire a consultant. For marketing plans, you can even use the services of a Score counselor for free.

Without marketing, no one will know about your business. A marketing plan offers a detailed outline of the strategies and tools that you’re going to use to effectively communicate and create awareness of your business among your target audience. Like a business plan, the marketing plan will help you focus. A marketing plan will also help you understand your business and industry.

Getting Started

Your first step is to do the research. Don’t guess about who your target audience is and where they can be found. Are you targeting single 20-somethings, married 30-somethings with children, or retirees? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, or Internet forums? Not doing the legwork will cost you valuable marketing dollars.

Step two is to define your goals, both short term and long term. In developing the marketing plan, you will need to have clear and specific achievements for your marketing efforts, such as building a positive online reputation or attracting more business from a particular age segment. Think in terms of what you really want to accomplish within a specified time period. You can set the goals for x months. Next, take these goals and translate them into measurable objectives: maybe you want to increase Facebook engagement or traffic to your website. Objectives will give you metrics that will be helpful in focusing your efforts.

Strategies are next on the list. Strategies are developed together with tactics to attain your goals and objectives. This could be an emphasis on social media or becoming an authority through blogging. The tactics will need to be aligned with the tasks people need to complete to make things happen. Tactics need some form of coordinated execution. Maybe you assign one person to manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts and someone else to blog. Assign everyone specific tasks and give them the means to complete those tasks; then make sure everyone on the team can coordinate their efforts with those of their team members.

At the end of the exercise, you should have a document with the following sections:

1. Summary or Overview: No more than one page long. The summary should provide a brief description the business and the major points in the plan. This section is to be written last.
2. Situation Analysis: A detailed and honest assessment of the market, competitors, opportunities, and challenges the business faces. Can be done through a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.
3. Marketing Strategy: Keeping in mind the SWOT analysis results, create a strategy to help you take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the challenges. The marketing strategy should focus on helping you achieve your marketing goals and objectives.
4. Marketing Tactics: The tactics are created in line with the strategies. They are a plan of action plan to execute the broader strategies.
5. Marketing Budget and Timelines: Includes the projected costs and timelines for the marketing plan.

Writing a marketing plan for your business should become a yearly ritual. I also believe you should evaluate your results every 90 days and make adjustments if appropriate. Just don’t change everything at one time, because you will never know what is working and what isn’t. Make one change, measure the results and then move forward. It could also be important to revamp your marketing plan whenever you are launching a new product or service.

 

Read the original story here: http://www.solopreneursllc.com/developing-a-startup-marketing-plan/

How To Build An Uncool Startup…On Purpose

There’s been a giant sucking sound the last few years.  You’ve probably heard it.  It’s the sound of social media startups vacuuming up the world’s venture capital and media mindshare.  But what about all the other startups?  You know, the “uncool” ones?

 

Startups that make tangible things seem to have fallen out of favor in recent years.  Think about new companies tackling big challenges like life-saving therapies, food security, or sustainable energy.  They seem to have disappeared in the popular media.  Steve Blank describes this as Facebook killing Silicon Valley.  Fortunately, popular buzz is not the same as startup reality.  You might not hear much about the uncool companies, but they are out there, like ants diligently building their colonies.  Even during these heady social media years, many thousands of uncool startups have continued to hack away at uncool problems and make progress.  That’s fortunate for the world.

The popular tide appears to be turning.  In the last few months, I’ve noticed a resurgence in interest and respect for uncool startups.  That’s been refreshing.  For instance, Peter Thiel talks about renewing the ambitious dreams of American innovation.  Sramana Mitra writes about funding “fat startups” again.  Dylan Tweney of VentureBeat comments: “The companies that have the biggest mindshare are, quite naturally, those that most people can relate to, because they’ve used them: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. But the hard technology startups never went away.”

Perhaps, just perhaps, uncool startups are becoming cool again.   After all, companies that make tangible products with huge potential impact… that’s the historical legacy of Silicon Valley.

So how do you build an uncool startup in the era of Facebook?  For years, my team has been building several of them. One of them, Liquidity Nanotech Corporation (or simply, Liquidity), is now launching a revolutionary water purification cartridge that can create EPA-quality drinking water without the need for chemicals, electricity, or pressure.  Anyone can take water from a river or lake, let gravity pull water through the filter, and get drinkable water free of bacteria and viruses, at better than World Health Organization standards.  [Full disclosure: my firm owns shares in the company.]  Building this uncool startup has been hard.  Watching the company arrive at where it is today, therefore, has been that much sweeter.  The story has spanned many years, starting when I met the original scientists at Stony Brook University who had generated promising lab data with research funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Navy’s R&D division.  It’s been a real journey since then.

Full story:http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorhwang/2014/05/06/how-to-build-an-uncool-startup-on-purpose/

How to Write a Business Plan? Here’s a Method That Doesn’t Actually Suck

Sorry for being this direct, but writing a business plan the traditional way simply sucks.

I mean, you have to take care of all the boring elements like: the SWOT analysis (or should I sayprediction), executive summary, business description, market strategies, competitive analysis, design and development plan (not only for online businesses), operations and management plan, financial factors, and so on.

This is a lot of work, and from my perspective it’s work that won’t bring you any reasonable insights.

For instance, the main problem with the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is that you don’t even have the chance to accurately describe the reality you’re in, you’re just playing the guessing game.

Almost every SWOT analysis is just a prediction mechanism and a way of foretelling the future. You’re not listing your actual strengths, you’re listing what you think your strengths are. You’re not listing your actual weaknesses, you’re listing what you think your weaknesses are, and so on…

That’s why I want to present an alternative approach at writing a business plan. One that’s much simpler and easier to grasp.

Now, I need to set one thing straight. I’m no expert on the economy or business development. But I have my own experiences and those of my friends. And since the following advice has turned out to work for everybody so far, I’ve decided to share it with you too.

Element #1: What you’ve got

Simply start by listing what you’ve got.

What I mean here is everything you can offer to your customers. Things like: products, services, content, etc.

Be somewhat detail oriented when going through this step. If you’re listing a new product of yours, make sure to mention its main features and characteristics.

Depending on the nature of your business, you may just have a single item to offer, which is fine. We’re not going for quantity here.

Element #2: Who are you going to sell it to?

Aka your target audience.

Only don’t make it lame. Lame is where you try to define your average customer like this, for example: “it’s a woman in her 30s, mother of two, and working a 9-5 job as an accountant.” I mean, how can anyone come up with that? What research tools do they have? Surely not anything a small business owner can afford.

Besides, not every business has an audience that is so specific. For instance, if you’re selling socks and live in Austin then your target customer base is “people with feet living in Texas.” If that’s true then don’t try to make it narrower just for the sake of it.

Go with a general description that’s nothing more than a starting point – your starting audience. If it turns out that your main audience is actually someone entirely different then nothing bad will happen, but you need to be ready and accept such a situation.

Element #3: Why would they buy?

What makes your product better or just as good as your competitors’? Or what’s some other reason someone would want to work with you?

Just be honest and not overly promotional. This is about facts.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to be better than your competition to be a successful business owner. Is Pepsi better than Cola? I mean, scientifically better? No. It’s the same thing.

Full story : http://lerablog.org/business/how-to-write-a-business-plan-heres-a-method-that-doesnt-actually-suck/

Brainstorming a Great Name for Your Startup

What’s in a name? Turns out, plenty.

Creating a great name for your startup involves more than just dreaming up something unusual and staking your claim. I know it, because I’ve started plenty of small businesses. Some of the names have been great, but some were duds.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about naming your business.

Do your research, and Google the name first. You may have a great idea, but someone as clever as you may have claimed the name before you. And if other businesses share the name, are you located in the same state or city? If so, you might run into potential legal issues when your business starts to get noticed. Plus, some names are just too similar and confuse your customers. Case in point — one of my businesses was initially called Nationwide Interchange. After fielding too many phone calls confusing us with Nationwide Insurance, I changed the name. Better to choose a name that is unique as possible from the very start. Lesson learned!

Make sure that the domain that you want is available.  These days, your domain is your business card, and it’s crucial to have a website address that people can easily remember. So even if you’re months away from having a completed website, think about your domain name and claim it now before someone else does.

When I’m starting a business, I search for potential domain names at GKG.net. If the name is unavailable, I might consider a variation. But in the end, I find that if you can’t get the domain name that you really want, you’re better off selecting a different name altogether.

Find a name that’s easy to pronounce. Remember when the Dunder Mifflin employees on “The Office” couldn’t figure out the correct pronunciation of their new parent company — Sabre? (Saber? Sabra?) You want customers to remember you for your excellent brand, not be puzzled over your unusual name.

Think of Ford, Apple, Google, Hallmark, Lego: Their names are short, and they roll right off the tongue. Easy to say, easy to remember, easy to buy from.

Play with the language. Use alliteration to create a memorable name, like Best Buy or Chuck E. Cheese. Steak-n-Shake used alliteration as well as rhyme to create their memorable name.

Take a risk — make something up. Zazzle, Chick-fil-A, Zulily, Google  – these are bold name choices that make the business stand out and demonstrate confidence, creativity, and fun.

Choose words with positive connotations. The “Ace” in Ace Hardware says that with the right tools, anyone can fix a toilet or install a cabinet. Because the name Nationwide Interchange was a source of confusion, I renamed it Top Echelon Network  to make my customers feel like they were in the best of company. My company Patriot Software  inspires thoughts of our country’s heritage and entrepreneurial spirit.

Read the full article by Mike Kappel here

Tax advice and anxiety relief for small businesses

Filing the self-assessment tax return can be troublesome if you don’t seek advice. Photograph: Linda Nylind

The adverts will tell you it doesn’t need to be taxing, but most small business owners and the self-employed find tax a complicated burden that distracts from doing real work. If it’s not the paperwork, it’s paying the bill.

But with the self-assessment deadline quickly approaching, it’s time to bite the bullet. The cut-off for paper-based returns was the end of October, and the online option closes at the end of January. You shouldregister an account, if you haven’t already, as soon as possible.

Because, no matter how good you think your excuse may be HMRC isn’t interested, and they have a £100 fine for anybody filing late.

Andrew Minsky, partner at Nyman Linden, says that good tax practice doesn’t begin and end in the weeks before the deadline, but is ongoing. While it might seem a pain at the time, it’s worth it in the long run.

Minsky says: “Before setting up, consider getting professional advice to ensure that you choose an appropriate trading structure for your business. Once you have decided you will need to notify HMRC within three months of you starting to trade, otherwise you can incur penalties.

“Then, during the year, keep good records. Even if you are using an accountant to file your returns and accounts, you are still legally required to maintain proper records. This will be particularly helpful if you are unfortunate enough to be investigated by HMRC, and you should keep paperwork for six years.

“After the year end, get your records together as quickly as possible for early filing. Get to know your tax bill as early as possible, so you have time to ensure you get the cash together. You may reduce your payments on accounts if your income has dropped and if you’re using an accountant – they tend to charge less when the deadline is less urgent.”

Minsky says it’s also important to maintain a working knowledge of filing and payment deadlines. “Penalties are harsh if you miss these, and you need to file even if you do not owe any tax.”

Mitch Young, director of tax at Adler Shine, says there is work you can do beyond filing early to make life easier and to ensure you keep as much of your profit as possible.

“If you’re self-employed, a good tip is to set up a direct debit for class 2 national insurance so you never miss a payment,” he says. “You pay class 2 national insurance contributions at a flat rate of £2.70 a week.”

When it comes to claiming for allowable expenses, various opportunities exist, like claiming for travel, equipment, start up costs, stationery and so on. If you work from home, you may claim a proportion of your bills attributable to business use such as lighting, heating, cleaning and insurance, as well as a proportion of rent, business rates, domestic rates.

For previous tax years, HMRC has automatically accepted £3 per week as being reasonable cost for working from home without the need to produce receipts to justify the claim. For 2013-14 onwards, there is a new simple flat rate which covers homes and vehicles, and this can be calculated online.

However, working from home can create capital gains problems when you come to sell, warns Young.

 

Read more about this article  Tax advice and anxiety relief for small businesses.

 

 

It’s Never Too Late to Start: The Inspiring Story of Barbara Miller

It is never too late to become an entrepreneur.

While some people start their entrepreneurial endeavors at a young age, others begin late in life, just when traditional conventions dictate that they should retire and take life a little more easily. One thing is sure, though: no matter what age you start, you need to be tough to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Barbara Miller, founder and President of the Miller Paper Company based in Amarillo, Texas, is toughness personified. If there is any phrase that can aptly capture the spirit of Ms. Miller, it is this old adage: When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

For Ms. Miller, the going got about as tough as it ever does  losing a job, starting a business, and winning her bout with cancer all of these after she reached the age of 60. Despite all adversities, she certainly got going. She transformed the corporation that she started from a nondescript start-up to a multi-million dollar company in just a span of five years.

It’s Never Too Late to Start

Being an entrepreneur was not foremost in Barbara Miller’s life.  In fact, she spent the most part of her life as an employee, working for various corporations in the paper industry.

However, an unexpected twist of fate led her to shift gears away from the relative comforts of being an employee to one at the helm of her own ship. I have been in the industry for more than 30 years, said Ms. Miller.  A situation came about that several of us employees were shoved out the door. We decided that if we’d want a paper company, we’d get on with it. So we just literally opened up overnight.

With her former colleagues joining her, Ms. Miller pulled her resources together to start her own company.  Miller Paper Company opened its doors in January 1995 with 15 employees.  The company, based in Amarillo, Texas, is now a leading wholesale distributor of paper and related products in the Midwest.

At her ripe age and after four grandchildren, Ms. Miller has proven that it’s never too late to jumpstart an entrepreneurial career.

The Fight of Her Life

Her greatest start-up challenge was not raising capital, nor finding a strong management team. Rather, it was her health.

Five months after opening the business, Ms. Miller was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Lesser mortals would have been crushed, but not Ms. Miller. She remembers her surgeon reassuring her son with the words: “She’s a tough old bird, she’ll make it.”

Luckily, the disease was caught in its early stages. She had surgery to remove the cancerous growth. “After that surgery I had chemo, and bone marrow transplant afterwards in 1997,” said Ms. Miller.

How did this affect the business? Ms. Miller credits her team for keeping her vision going. “People who work in this company are just outstanding individuals. There were absolutely no problems; they know what they’re doing. They just carried on!” During this time of crisis in her life, she continued to provide outstanding leadership to her business and remained very active in her civic involvement.

 

 

Read the full story: It’s Never Too Late to Start: The Inspiring Story of Barbara Miller

3 Reasons Sole Proprietorship Might Not Be Right for You

There are numerous reasons why an entrepreneur should consider running a business as a sole proprietor — meaning it is owned and operated by one person without legal distinction between the owner and the business. But business attorney Nina Kaufman says there are at least three reasons to go with a different business structure:

1. You eventually want to seek investors or partners. This might be the most obvious reason. As a sole proprietor, you’re legally on your own.
2. If you’re doing “risky business.” Say, for instance, you’re manufacturing a complicated product that might not deliver on time. If something goes wrong, the business owner can be sued without legal protection from a business entity.
3. You want to do business with major corporations. This is a hurdle for the simple reason that larger companies tend to do less business with sole proprietors than with other businesses with more legal protection, Kaufman says.

 

Nina L. Kaufman, Esq. is an award-winning New York City attorney, edutainer and author.

Online Business Law

Setting up your business on the Internet can be a lucrative way to attract customers, expand your market and increase sales. For the most part, the steps to starting an online business are the same as starting any business. However, doing business online comes with additional legal and financial considerations, particularly in the areas of privacy, security, copyright, and taxation.

Rules and regulations for conducting e-commerce apply mainly to online retailers and other businesses that perform consumer transactions by collecting customer data. However, even if you do not sell anything online, laws covering digital rights and online advertising may still apply to you.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the primary federal agency regulating e-commerce activities, including use of commercial emails, online advertising and consumer privacy. FTC’s E-Commerce Guide provides an overview of e-commerce rules and regulations.

The following topics provide further information on how to comply with laws and regulations related to e-commerce.

Protecting Your Customers’ Privacy

Most businesses collect and retain sensitive personal information from their customers and employees such as names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers and other account numbers. Protecting personal information not only makes good business sense, it can also help you avoid legal problems. Depending on the type of data you are collecting, and who you are collecting it from, you may be subject to federal and state privacy laws. This guide explains which privacy laws apply to your business and how to comply with them.

• Overview of Privacy Laws

  Learn how the Federal Trade Commission enforces companies’ privacy policies about how they collect, use and secure consumers’ personal information.

• Identity Theft – Business Owner’s Responsibilities

  Learn how to protect your customers’ personal information against identity theft, and your responsibilities when one of your customers becomes an identity theft victim.

• Using Consumer Credit Reports

  If your businesses uses credit reports to extend credit to your customers, there are rules and regulations you must follow to ensure privacy of credit information.

• Privacy Rules for Financial Companies

  From national banks to local mortgage lenders, any business that handles personal financial information must comply with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act.

• Children’s Online Privacy

  Learn how the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires businesses to follow specific rules and regulations when collecting online data from children.

• Computer and Information Security

  Find out how to not only protect your company’s computer systems, but the sensitive information contained in them.

• 10 Step Tutorial For Starting An Online Business

  A brief tutorial for starting an online business.

• Selling Internationally/Exporting

  Offers information to retailers participating in the global economy via the Web. If you are going to ship your products overseas, you need to be familiar with these basic exporting rules and regulations.

Online Advertising and Marketing

An old cartoon in the New Yorker showed two dogs in front of a computer, and had the caption “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog.” The inherent anonymity of the Internet has fostered a number of shady advertising and marketing practices, such as unsolicited email spam. Over the past decade, federal and state governments have passed additional advertising laws that protect consumer privacy and ensure fair and truthful advertising practices online. If you plan to advertise online — whether you’re buying ads on search engines or direct marketing through email — you’ll need to understand some basic rules.

Digital Rights/Copyright

Personal data is not the only thing protected on the Internet. Digital works, including text, movies, music and art are copyrighted and protected via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) . The DMCA offers a number of protections for information published to the Internet, as well as other forms of electronic information. Among its many provisions, the DMCA:

• Limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet. However, service providers, are expected to, upon notification, remove material from their web sites that appear to constitute copyright infringement.
• Limits liability of nonprofit education institutions for copyright infringement by faculty members or graduate students.
• Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software. However, reverse engineering of copyright protection devices, is permitted to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems.
• Provides exemptions from anti-circumvention provisions for non-profit libraries, archives, and educational institutions solely for the purpose of making a good faith determination as to whether they wish to obtain authorized access to the work.
• Outlaws the manufacture, sale, or distribution of devices used to illegally copy software.
• Requires that “webcasters” pay licensing fees to record companies.

 

Find out how to handle day-to-day legal issues that could affect your small business.

How to Choose the Best Legal Structure for Your Startup

When starting a business, your decision on how to structure it is an important one. We examined  the pros and cons, and what they mean for various types of startups. Here’s what you can expect from the four most-popular business structures.

 

 

Infographic by   KARA OHNGREN PRIOR on Entrepreneur

Incorporating Your Business

Of all the decisions you make when starting a business, probably the most important one relating to taxes is the type of legal structure you select for your company.

Not only will this decision have an impact on how much you pay in taxes, but it will affect the amount of paperwork your business is required to do, the personal liability you face and your ability to raise money.

The most common forms of business are sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and S corporation.

A more recent development to these forms of business is thelimited liability company (LLC) and the limited liability partnership (LLP). Because each business form comes with different tax consequences, you will want to make your selection wisely and choose the structure that most closely matches your business’s needs. If you decide to start your business as a sole proprietorship but later decide to take on partners, you can reorganize as a partnership or other entity. If you do this, be sure you notify the IRS as well as your state tax agency.

Sole Proprietorship
The simplest structure is the sole proprietorship, which usually involves just one individual who owns and operates the enterprise.

If you intend to work alone, this structure may be the way to go.

The tax aspects of a sole proprietorship are appealing because the expenses and your income from the business are included on your personal income tax return, Form 1040. Your profits and losses are recorded on a form called Schedule C, which is filed with your 1040. The “bottomline amount” from Schedule C is then transferred to your personal tax return. This is especially attractive because business losses you suffer may offset the income you have earned from your other sources.

As a sole proprietor, you must also file a Schedule SE with Form 1040. You use Schedule SE to calculate how much self-employment tax you owe. In addition to paying annual self-employment taxes, you must make estimated tax payments if you expect to owe at least $1,000 in federal taxes for the year after deducting your withholding and credits, and your withholding will be less than the smaller of: 1) 90 percent of the tax to be shown on your current year tax return or 2) 100 percent of your previous year’s tax liability. The federal government permits you to pay estimated taxes in four equal amounts throughout the year on the 15th of April, June, September and January. With a sole proprietorship, your business earnings are taxed only once, unlike other business structures. Another big plus is that you will have complete control over your business — you make all the decisions.

There are a few disadvantages to consider, however. Selecting the sole proprietorship business structure means you are personally responsible for your company’s liabilities. As a result, you are placing your assets at risk, and they could be seized to satisfy a business debt or a legal claim filed against you. Raising money for a sole proprietorship can also be difficult. Banks and other financing sources may be reluctant to make business loans to sole proprietorships. In most cases, you will have to depend on your financing sources, such as savings, home equity or family loans.

Partnership
If your business will be owned and operated by several individuals, you’ll want to take a look at structuring your business as a partnership. Partnerships come in two varieties: general partnerships and limited partnerships. In a general partnership, the partners manage the company and assume responsibility for the partnership’s debts and other obligations. A limited partnership has both general and limited partners. The general partners own and operate the business and assume liability for the partnership, while the limited partners serve as investors only; they have no control over the company and are not subject to the same liabilities as the general partners.

Unless you expect to have many passive investors, limited partnerships are generally not the best choice for a new business because of all the required filings and administrative complexities. If you have two or more partners who want to be actively involved, a general partnership would be much easier to form. One of the major advantages of a partnership is the tax treatment it enjoys. A partnership does not pay tax on its income but “passes through” any profits or losses to the individual partners. At tax time the partnership must file a tax return (Form 1065) that reports its income and loss to the IRS. In addition, each partner reports his or her share of income and loss on Schedule K 1 of Form 1065. Personal liability is a major concern if you use a general partnership to structure your business. Like sole proprietors, general partners are personally liable for the partnership’s obligations and debts. Each general partner can act on behalf of the partnership, take out loans and make decisions that will affect and be binding on all the partners (if the partnership agreement permits). Keep in mind that partnerships are also more expensive to establish than sole proprietorships because they require more legal and accounting services.

Corporation
The corporate structure is more complex and expensive than most other business structures. Acorporation is an independent legal entity, separate from its owners, and as such, it requires complying with more regulations and tax requirements.

The biggest benefit for a business owner who decides to incorporate is the liability protection he or she receives. A corporation’s debt is not considered that of its owners, so if you organize your business as a corporation, you are not putting your personal assets at risk. A corporation also can retain some of its profits without the owner paying tax on them.

Another plus is the ability of a corporation to raise money. A corporation can sell stock, either common or preferred, to raise funds. Corporations also continue indefinitely, even if one of the shareholders dies, sells the shares or becomes disabled. The corporate structure, however, comes with a number of downsides. A major one is higher costs. Corporations are formed under the laws of each state with its own set of regulations. You will probably need the assistance of an attorney to guide you. In addition, because a corporation must follow more complex rules and regulations than a partnership or sole proprietorship, it requires more accounting and tax preparation services.

 

Read the full article : Incorporating Your Business