18 mistakes that will kill your startup

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1. Single Founder – as a single founder you have almost zero chance of getting funding from Paul Graham. Why? It’s not a coincidence, he says, that founders who succeeded did so as a team of at least two.
2. Bad Location – you can change everything about a house but its location. Likewise, if your startup is in a bad location, you can’t change the nature of that location. It’s easier to move the startup. Where to? Silicon Valley.
3. Marginal Niche – by choosing an obscure niche a startup may paint themselves in a corner. If you are afraid of competition, this is not the way to avoid it.
4. Derivative Idea – there are only so many Twitters for pet owners one can come up with. The bottom line is that the Google of tomorrow will not be like Google.
5. Obstinacy – or inability to adapt kills startups who would have survived had they not been too stubborn to see what their users were telling them.
6. Hiring Bad Programmers – knowing a good programmer from a bad one often takes being a good one yourself, or having a trusted one on your team. Exceptional programmers are always in short supply. So the odds are stacked up against hiring good ones.
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform – how fast you can scale will determine whether your startup lives or dies once you get traction. On the wrong platform scalability will be the bottleneck. And users often don’t wait for you to figure it out.
8. Slowness in Launching – before you actually launch you are in the dark about whether your startup should even exist. The longer you delay the launch the more you delay getting the answer. If you are afraid to know what the answer is, you might want to ask yourself why.
9. Launching Too Early – launch too early, though, and you may be completely unprepared to handle your growth, or worse yet to present a usable product.
10. Having No Specific User in Mind – somewhere someone will for sure be interested in your product, you just don’t know who yet? Sounds like those people may not exist. Be sure to check.
11. Raising Too Little Money – you get what you spend on. With too little money you may not be able to flesh out your product in to its full potential.
12. Spending Too Much – spending too much before you grew enough to have the numbers to raise the next round, and you are out of cash, which often spells the end.
13. Raising Too Much Money – raising too much will likely make you feel like a huge success even before you made anything useful. At the end of the day it’s users, not investors, you want to impress the most.
14. Poor Investor Management – if the choice is between making investors happy or making your users happy, always choose the users. If the user is happy your investors will make money eventually.
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit – you can always make money later. This however, cannot be said about making users happy. You need to make something they want now.
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty – you can’t solve all your problems with coding. Businesses are built on relationships. Go out and meet those people.
17. Fights Between Founders – founder conflict is too common. Founders being ambitious people are almost bound to disagree.
18. A Half-Hearted Effort – a lack of determination to see the startup through to the end is not rare. If you feel like you have other options in life than building your startup, you will probably mentally hang on to them.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/18-mistakes-that-will-kill-your-startup-2015-3#ixzz3kPTs60Uz

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"PRE -PAID MARKETING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES"

Marketing 101: Small Business Owners What Is Your SWOT?

Are you a #smallbusiness owner? Do you know what your SWOT is? Well if you don't thats fine I providing some info that may help you figure it out.  

First let me tell you want SWOT Means: A SWOT analysis is a common tool for business analysis and marketing planning. The letters stand for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

A SWOT analysis is a common tool for business analysis and marketing planning. The letters stand for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths

Strengths are capabilities and resources that give companies a competitive advantage. For example, a marketing manager who knows a rival company has a larger advertising budget might list that as strength for the rival company. A lack of sufficient marketing dollars may also qualify as a weakness for the marketing manager’s company. Other examples of strengths that may appear in a marketing SWOT analysis include notable brand name recognition and a proven, loyal customer base.

• . What does your company do well? 
• . How strong is your company in the market? 
• . Does your company have a dear strategic direction? 
• . Does your company's culture produce a positive work environment?

Weaknesses

A valid list of weaknesses is just as important in the marketing analysis. A company could suffer because it has poor brand recognition or customers regard the company’s products or services as unreliable or overpriced. Weaknesses are important in a SWOT because they suggest how best to position a company against a rival that is stronger overall.

• What could be improved at your company? 
• What does your company do poorly? 
• What should be avoided? 
• Is your company unable to finance needed technology?
• Do you have poor debt or cash flow?

Opportunities

Opportunities illustrate moves a company could make to enhance its position. In a marketing SWOT, that could include listing extensive cash resources and financing as a chance for a company to quickly grow market share by spending more money on advertising and promotion.

• What favorable circumstances are you facing? 
• What are the interesting trends? Is your company positioned to take on those trends? 
• Is your company entering new markets? 
• Is your company advanced in technology?

Threats

Threats are similar to weaknesses. A threat in a marketing SWOT shows how a company is vulnerable to developments in the marketplace. For example, an established company that has always relied on traditional advertising in its marketing could face threats from new, entrepreneurial companies determined to build market share through social networking.

• What obstacles do you face? 
• What is your competition doing? 
• Are the required specifications for your products or services changing?
• Is changing technology threatening your position? 
• What policies are local and federal lawmakers backing? Do they affect your industry? 

Considerations

OneRecourse.com uses the SWOT to help determine how best to use the your company’s marketing budget given other factors in the marketplace and the competitive landscape.

How Much Money Does it Cost To Start A Business? Read and Find Out

51% of Inc. 500 CEOs said they chose entrepreneurship because it suits their skills and abilities.

Recent research by Gallup and Inc. shows that those traits include a much higher than average level of determination, work ethic, and willingness to take on new challenges.

57% of Inc. 500 CEOs told us they are company founders, while 36% said they are part of a co-founding team. An additional 7% came into their company as an investor or senior executive after it was started.

43% of Inc. 500 co-founders started their company with a close friend. Only 14% of co-founders said they started their company with a family member.

68% of Inc. 500 founders said their entire founding team is intact. Only 13% said they have half or less of that team still in place.

SOURCE: INC.COM

What Is More Important - Sales or Marketing and Why?

The question a lot of small business owners face is not having a marketing budget. Marketing is what will drive sales if you don't have a budget for that then you are hurting your business. Time to invest and enjoy my video along with my blog post.

Marketing plays an important role in selling. It helps sales teams find and qualify leads and maintains contact with prospects throughout the sales cycle. Although sales and marketing reside in different departments in most organizations, integration between the two can help to improve overall performance in terms of revenue and profit.

Sales is important because it is the bottom line. Marketing is about getting a product known. At the end of the day, it's about the business bottom lines - and about getting results.  You cannot sell a product without marketing. Marketing comes first. Advertising is about getting a product known. Marketing is about identifying a customer's need or want. If a customer doesn't need or want it, you can't sell it.

To prove this, let's say you are in the business of selling T-Shirts. You advertise all of the quality and custom graphics of this new T-shirt line that your trying to sell. You have two potential customers. Jack and Jill. Jack is a brick layer for a construction company. Jill is an college student.

There are two customers in front of you at the store and you really want to sell this these cool T-Shirts. Wouldn't you say that your probably going to spend more time explaining the quality and custom graphics of these T-Shirts to Jill. Your probably going to show her why she needs to wear these shirts, how this t-shirts is going to make her fashionable and feel great about her style. How this t-shirt is going to help her stay more update with the fashion trends, etc. etc.

Your marketing started when you were faced with two potential leads. You identified their occupation which allowed you the opportunity to convert the lead into a sale.

You can do all the advertising you want to both Jack and Jill. However, this is not enough to sell a product to a customer. You have to be able to convert the lead into a sale by identification which is a part of marketing. If you never explained to Jill how she needs this t-shirt in her life to make her more fashionable, you never would have sold it. If you take a little more time finding out about Jack, perhaps you can sell him too. Perhaps he has a t-shirt collection on the side.

Do a little more fact finding about Jack, the lead and see if there is a fit where your custom t-shirt would make it a must have for his collection. Then too, perhaps you can convert this lead into a second sale.

BOTTOM LINE 

"You cannot sell a product or services without marketing. Marketing comes first."

The Single Biggest Reason Why Startups Succeed

OneRecourse is happy to share this video from TedTalk its perfect for start ups to take a look at.

Click To Learn A New Marketing Strategy For Your Small Business

1. 
   Do you know what drip marketing is? learn how it can help your business. Drip marketing is a communication strategy that sends, or "drips," a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media can also be used.
2. "ENJOY THE VIDEO PLEASE SHARE IT MAY HELP SOMEONE YOU KNOW"
4. 
   
   
5. 3 ways to use drip marketing campaigns when it comes to sending emails 
6. 
   
7. Educational Tool: Offer a seminar or workshop that delivers one lesson each week and is directly related to your brand. Creating content that customers can use outside of purchasing your product helps to build brand loyalty and all-around good feelings. This can be a series of tips, videos, whitepapers or other educational content. Keep the campaign full of valuable content and those readers will never leave you.
8. Great for: Local governments, consultants, home improvement stores, libraries and health care providers.
9. Renewal Reminders: Automate contract and subscription renewal processes with messages timed to be sent as the contract period draws to a close. This can also be done for season tickets, domain registrations and credit card fees. These emails are the perfect messages to automate because they hardly ever change in structure. You can also use them to add in a little subtle marketing to show off upgrades or new additions.
   Great for: Publications, fitness clubs, property management companies, sports teams, credit card companies and web hosts.
10. Coupons and Promotions: Create a series of coupon offers for new signups to introduce them to additional products or features and drive sales. This is one of the most used forms of drip email campaigns as it is based on a person’s action of buying or signing up for something. Be careful not to send too much in this case as it will have the opposite outcome and you will only annoy your audience. The goal should be to touch base just enough that your deals stay top of mind for that next purchase.
    Great for: Retail stores, hospitality providers, restaurants, software providers, health clubs, grocery stores and web hosts.