Here are a few of my favourite ways:

1. Connect with founders in your city who have been funded. Ask for their advice. Impress them and let them introduce you to their investor. It’s worth remembering that local investors may not identify themselves as investors. They are more likely to identify as entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, lawyers and so on. Individuals who have used their capital to invest in real estate, companies, and own stakes in local businesses. You may also consider finding a co-founder who will not only invest, but help you grow.
2. Accelerator programs have an open invitation for applications from entrepreneurs who are serious about growing their idea. These programs usually include a demo day, this is where you will pitch to a crowd of investors, so be ready to nail it. Not all accelerator programs are alike, do your research to see what type of track record and success stories have been developed.
   1. Techstars Toronto Accelerator
   2. Badhouse Ventures – www.badhouse.ca
   3. SOSV – sosv.com
   4. Mass Challenge – masschallenge.org
3. Successful fundraising is about visibility and getting noticed by the right people. Attending an event is a smart way to achieve this. This can include everything from pitch nights to development and coding marathons to tradeshows. There you can speak with seed investors and ask for their advice after the show. Requests for advice are a great way to showcase your venture. Consider attending these:
   1. SaaS North
   2. Money2020
   3. TechCrunch Disrupt
   4. South by Southwest
   5. Collision
   6. Finally, don’t forget about more passive events where investors are likely to be, like sporting events, fundraises, film festivals, and even more eccentric events like Burning Man.
4. It’s a difficult cycle to break: You need money to get customers, but you need customers to get money. Try kickstarting your project by offering an early discounted buy-in for those early adopters. This will help you raise funds and engage early customers. If you can acquire real customers for your product then you will be under less pressure to see outside money, plus nothing impresses investors as much as sales and users.
5. Social media can be a great resource for a lean startup, or a solo entrepreneur looking to test the market and attract investors. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways of reach others. You can take a two-pronged approach, writing your own posts and updates while actively approaching others for collaboration and engaging influencers. Here are some options:
   1. Product Hunt – Community
   2. LinkedIn
   3. Facebook
   4. Twitter
   5. YouTube
6. Government based funding has been around for a long time. They often have connections and resources that can get you started in the right direction even if they can’t help you with your specific investment needs. Officials with an interest in supporting the local economy are more likely to connect you with the right people.
7. Find out where your ideal seed-stage investors source their funds and start developing relationships before you need the money. Then when it is time, you will be more comfortable asking those LPs for an introduction.
8. Apply to present to your local angel group. Angel investors are usually high net worth individual that invests in a new or small business and will provide exchange for equity your venture or business. A good way to approach these types of investors is to ask for feedback for your venture rather than asking for money right up front. They may not always be willing to write you a check after an initial presentation. Don’t forget social in your search for angel investors.

Most seed-stage investment deals happen within these realms, so get involved in one, pitch your idea and if you nail it the investors will come to you.

Good luck!

The post 8 Ways to Find Investors for your Startup appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

You dream of being an entrepreneur. A full-time commitment to the new opportunity matters. Ideas don’t count. Execution counts. And execution requires focused founders. If no one is working on the opportunity full-time, how will you make progress? The more people who are all-in and working exclusively on the opportunity, the greater your chances of success will be.

Having said that, you will want to test your idea, validate it and achieve some level of pre-sales before you quit your day job. After all, there are bills to pay. Leaving a job with a steady income is a big decision. It’s scary and risky. As a founder, you are already aware that startups are inherently risky but also come with big rewards when successful. So, do as much as you can to ensure the success of your venture before leaving your full-time gig.

Here are 4 signs that you’re ready to leave your secure, paycheque-producing but not what you want, job.

The venture is ready for the next step but you don’t have time to take it there

Do you find yourself working most nights and weekends? Are sales coming in but you’re feeling behind the 8 ball, having trouble keeping up with demand? Or do you simply have a to-do list that exceeds the time you have available? Once you’ve validated your idea and ensured people will pay for it (pre-sales are the best barometer), you can start thinking of committing full-time. And assembling your team.

Your savings can support your needs for at least a year (you can count on a small salary from your venture if you really need it but you may want to reinvest the revenue to grow the company).

Your new business may start off profitable enough to draw a salary but it is more likely that you will need to manage cash flow and reinvest the income to sustain the company, produce inventory, test new channels and create awareness. So, it’s best to have a nest egg of savings that will sustain your needs for at least a year. And become a pro at making Mac & Cheese!

You are so passionate about what you’re doing that you wake up every morning thinking about it and go to bed at night doing the same.

You are ready to work hard, constantly thinking about how to push your company forward. You are 1000% committed to it – in other words, this is not a test. You’re not saying to yourself “I’ll give it 6 months and if it doesn’t work, I’ll drop it”. You are committed to making it work (yes, there is a time to call it quits but you are nowhere near that thought process). One of the keys to entrepreneurial success is the single-minded commitment to a new venture. Successful founders will do whatever it takes, and whatever needs to get done, to make something happen.

You are ready to go with your gut!

You can always find a reason to justify why it’s not the right time. Don’t overthink it. If your gut is telling you that you’re ready, go with it. If your idea has been validated and you have been talking to customers, receiving consistently positive feedback, go with it. If your potential customers have placed pre-orders or indicated that would pay XX amount, it’s a good sign. If you have approached resellers and received verbal commitments or (even better) PO’s, go for it. If you started a website and sales are coming in, go for it. You have proof of concept and your gut is telling you to pursue it.

A word about investors:

If you feel that you need investors, here are some words of advice. Firstly, try to bootstrap your venture as long as possible. Working on a new opportunity full-time demonstrates commitment. If you aren’t able to do that, consider other ways you can show commitment to potential investors. Investors want to see what is commonly known as “skin in the game,” a term that refers to founders having something at stake in the outcome of their company.

Most investors are hesitant to invest in something that the founders won’t commit to on a full-time basis. However, many founders need funding to be able to focus on the opportunity financially, which results in a big catch-22. So, what do you do if you aren’t ready to quit your day job? If you can show that your product already generates revenue or users while you continue to work on it part-time, then you can make a credible case that taking on investment and going full-time would propel you to greater success. Today, most digital ideas can be proved by early experimentation and customer discovery. It’s always important to show early proof of your concept to potential investors, but it is even more important when you aren’t able to commit full-time to your opportunity.

Bottom line: work on the idea, turn it into an opportunity, follow the and Lean Startup methodologies (100 Steps 2 Startup program if you like) until you have enough evidence to give you the comfort you need before quitting your job.

If you are chasing your dream but haven’t done enough research yet (research can be done at night and on weekends), it might be a bit premature. In the end, there is never a perfect time to quit your job. But if the criteria above make sense, and your gut says “Go For It” this is the time to start scaling your own business and begin an exciting chapter in your life.

Good luck!

Note from 100 Steps 2 Startup:

For more in-depth advice on how to Know When to Quit Your Day Job, check out Startup Opportunities by Dr. Sean Wise & Brad Feld.

When to quit your job for a startup

The post When to Quit Your Job for a Startup appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

You don’t need to have the details of your idea perfected. You don’t even need to have an idea yet! The most successful businesses start with the customer first, then move to finding a problem to solve. So, don’t stress if you don’t have an idea, or have one that’s “half-baked”. The most important part is to start. Once you have your customer, and the problem to solve, the rest will evolve over time.

Before you explore how to start a business, take a moment to ask yourself these key questions.

1. Who is the customer?

Are you the customer? Being your own customer is important not only because you’ll have important insights, but also because you’ll have easy access to other potential customers. And access is the most underappreciated aspect of starting a business. To be successful, you need lots of access to customers because you’ll typically collaborate with them to make the best solution. You’ll use your “early adopters” (people who have the problem you have identified) to test your idea, and then to test your MVP (minimum viable product). You’ll go back to them periodically to improve your idea, solve issues that may arise and get feedback along the way. You’ll pivot, likely more than once, based on your early adopters’ reactions to your idea. They are your test market.

Bottom line: Serve a segment that you belong to.

2. What is the problem you are trying to solve?

Now that you have a customer segment to target, explore the big problems that this group is struggling to solve. What is the most inelastic problem facing those customers? Meaning, what is so important to them that would they gratefully pay to have solved? You want to find a problem that is serious enough that early adopters will pay even when the solution is not perfect.  Many entrepreneurs start by selling their product/service even before explaining the problem they are trying to solve. Don’t make that mistake. Ensure you are solving a REAL problem that your potential customers have articulated for you. Don’t guess – ask them. Do your customer discovery and find out how they feel about a problem you’ve identified.  This will ensure you are solving a problem that exists and help you find out how inelastic it is.

Bottom line: Find an inelastic problem that people will pay to have solved.

3. What’s wrong with the status quo?

Take time to explore the solutions that currently exist so you can understand why they are not adequate. What does a new solution have to address to overcome these flaws. Do it differently and better!

Bottom Line: What is missing from the solutions that currently exist?

4.  What is the USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

Competition is natural. In fact, it’s a good thing. It proves that there is a market for what you are selling. Now the question is… what sets your product or service apart from the competition’s? What is UNIQUE about your solution that others don’t have. Your solution must be 10 times better than the competition’s in order to win over customers. If it’s not, change it up based on customer discovery interviews and make it so!

Bottom Line: Make sure your product/service offers something that is unique and significantly better than what the competition offers.

5. Will anyone buy it?

The cost to launch a prototype solution has dropped significantly, making it easier and easier to test new ideas and pivot based on customer feedback. It is more important to get early user commitments than it is to perfect your solution. Create your Minimum Viable Product and go test it by selling (or pre-selling) it. In other words, sell the product or take orders for the final version. If you can’t find buyers for your beta version, it could be that the problem you’re solving isn’t big enough for a larger market. Get proof of concept. Sell now, perfect later.

Bottom Line: Get proof of concept by taking orders based on your beta version.

6. How/Where will you market the product?

Looking back at the answer to Question 1, you’ll have identified who your customer is. Make a little Avatar of your customer. Give the Avatar a name. So why is Johnny frustrated with the problem they have? How painful are these frustrations? What are they currently using to solve the problem?  How old are they, what do they do for a living, what type of accommodations do they live in? Do you know what Johnny’s hobbies and interests might be? What are Johnny’s hopes and dreams?

Now, look at your Customer Persona (Johnny’s page) and figure out where you can reach them. Since YOU are a member of the group that has the problem you’ve identified, you are in a unique position to figure out where to reach them. Think social platforms (which ones), educational institutions, blogs, influencers, reddit groups, forums, specialty stores, transportation preferences and so on. Wherever you can find your customer, that’s where you can market your product/service. They are all different channels. Try several, drop some and add new ones, until you find the right mix.

Bottom Line: Where, online and offline, does your potential customer hang out?

7. Can you generate a profit?

If you can’t eventually generate more revenue than costs, your venture is dead. Find the lowest-cost way to attract new customers. Facebook ads? Contests? Trade shows? Organic social media? Find and convert users quickly and at a low cost. Then, once you have that, find ways to increase revenue by extending value (upselling) to your current customers.

Bottom Line: Are you generating more revenue per customer than it costs to attract that customer?

8. Can it scale?

Scaling is the process of building your profitable business and selling to a larger market or a new geographical location. It is premature to scale until you have an ability to make more money from each new user than it costs to attract and onboard them. Once you can do that, determine if the infrastructure is in place to go from $100,000 in revenue to $500,000, 2 million and even 50 million. It won’t be but you’ll have to ensure that it can be done when necessary. Remember, in order to scale effectively you have to have margins that will allow for that. The most scalable companies have profit margins greater than 50%.

Bottom Line: If you can add many more customers without significantly increasing your costs, your business is scalable, and will be profitable. Do you have a vision that includes the team, infrastructure and margins in place to scale profitably?

If this is the year you finally become an entrepreneur, ask yourself these questions first, then just get on board and start!

Good luck.

The post 8 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Launching Your Own Business appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

First: Create a Minimum Viable Offer (MVO):

An MVO will confirm that there is an opportunity to be exploited. It differs from an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in that it is more of a draft of your concept rather than a rough prototype of the product/service itself. You are articulating your concept using the minimum number of benefits needed to sell it. It must answer the question around what value your product/service delivers to what specific niche that would deliver what desired result.

Henry Latham of the Agile Insider uses the following outline to create an MVO:

We help [NICHE] achieve [DESIRED OUTCOME] with [OFFER].

For example: We help busy business leaders save time with a lightening fast email app.

A good MVO will be low cost and still be able to accurately measure your early adopters’ interest. In other words – how likely are the people-who-have-the-problem-you’ve-identified to purchase your solution.

The MVO is a tool to help your potential customers gain an understanding of your solution, without requiring a product to be built … yet.

It can be a statement, a simple website, an explainer video, a social media page, a diagram or mock-up, or a blog post.

An MVO is not the same as an MVP. A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has just enough features to gather validated learning about the product. It is the most basic thing you can create, and sell, to test whether the customer really wants what you are building. The MVO describes those features, or value, without actually building the prototype yet. You test the idea with an MVO. You test the product with the MVP.  Critical to remember … your MVP must deliver the value you promised in the MVO.

The MVO describes the value. The MVP delivers it.

Second: Conduct Customer Validation Interviews:

You’ve developed an MVO so you can test your idea by asking potential customers what they think. That’s your goal. Now it is time to see if anyone will actually buy your idea. You’re going to ask potential customers who will tell you.

If you have been using Lean Startup principles to start your business, you would have already talked to some people in your potential target audience (people who have the problem you’ve identified) about:

1. the problem they are experiencing,
2. what they really want in a solution and
3. what they are currently using as a sub-optimal solution.

Hopefully you used their language and feedback to develop your MVO. They are the best people to go back to now to find out what they think. They’re the ones who are your early adopters, so now is the time to say…I listened to you and this is what I came up with. Did I get it right? And if not, why not?

• Set up at least 20 customer validation interviews (more is better) with people who have the problem you’ve identified (your early adopters). Bring your MVO with you.

The Customer Validation interviews will help you validate your offer. Remember, the MVO articulates the benefits of your idea and the outcomes your customers will experience. These interviews will help you find the answers to some of the next steps you’re going to take.

• It is important to be open ended in your questioning and not leading.

This is your chance to find out if your product has legs so get the good, the bad and the ugly! If it isn’t going to work, you want to know NOW, before you invest more time, energy and funds into building a version that no one wants to buy. If they say they don’t like it now, they aren’t going to like it later unless you fix it.

Talk to your customers about how they want the solution to look. Do they want a website or a mobile app? What features are most important to them?

• Remember to ask open-ended questions and only stop when you’ve had validation from at least 40% of your interviewees.

Validation means they agree about the existence of the problem and your proposed solution. If you can’t easily get to 40%, try pivoting. Most founders pivot several times before reaching idea validation. You want to land on the idea that people want, and will pay for. Before you pivot, make sure you are talking to TRUE early adopters, the people who need a solution to the problem you’ve identified.

End by asking them if they would sign-up/purchase your product/service. And test different pricing models.

• Keep pivoting and testing until at least 40% of the people who hear your offer say “YES” and confirm demand for your solution to their problem. When you get to this point – you have validated your idea!

Keep track of each interviewee’s answers individually so you can compare them later, looking for similarities. A sample Customer Validation Interview worksheet is below if you need it:

You need to hear the same message again and again before you know that you aren’t just talking to outliers. Research shows that if you don’t get 40% of your customer interviews giving you a thumbs up, you need to go back to the drawing board.  If you get 40%+, you can keep moving forward and develop your MVP.

Why might the number be less than 40%? There are several reasons, but it is possible that no one is interested in your MVO. It also may be that some are, but not enough. Maybe you didn’t correctly figure out the value proposition or maybe you aren’t talking to the right people – ones who are actively looking to fix that issue.

As mentioned above, if you’re less than 40%, pivot. Most companies pivot at some point –pivoting isn’t a failure; it is a sign that you’re doing the appropriate testing along the way and only moving forward when your hypotheses are validated. It means you are being a smart entrepreneur, and you’re maximizing your chance of having a successful startup.

Customer validation interviews are the most important part of how to start a business. So keep going until your results indicate you are ready to build your MVP. Then you’ll go back to your Early Adopters to get their feedback on it.

Good luck!

The post How to Test, or Validate, Your Business Idea appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

How many people do you know that want to start a business with their best friend? Probably at least a few. Now, how many partnerships do you know that have blown up? Also, probably at least a few. Why do you think that is?

The biggest reason partnerships fail is that most entrepreneurs don’t know how to find the right partner. They just pick someone they know. They assume that because they like to hang out together, or have a beer together or went to school or even grew up together, it means that they will also partner well together. Sorry to say, but that is just not the case.

Unfortunately, going into business with a friend is more likely to wreck the friendship than help your business. While there are definitely exceptions to the rule, your best advice is to keep your friends as your friends and instead, choose a partner that has the specific qualities you need to augment and offset yours. The best way to say it is that partners need to hire each other.

You could go it alone rather than get into the complications that come with having a partner, but the fact is, having the right partner is awesome. It is great to have someone to share the passion, share the work, bounce ideas around, bring skills you don’t have, contacts and networks and even money.  The right partner will cheerlead when you are getting frustrated, celebrate your successes, and balance you out in a whole bunch of ways.  Honestly, a great partner is like a great marriage, and sometimes you need to date a lot before you find the right match to build a successful business with.

How do you do that?

The first thing is that you really need to decide what your partner needs to bring to the table. Where are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? There is no point in both of you being excellent in operations and horrible in sales. Figure out what skill set and experience would best complement yours.

Then get out there and date.

• Talk to professors at entrepreneurial programs – some of them hold events that put their students with people who have businesses that need partners. Some bring in entrepreneurs to present to their students.
• Join networks in your local area – many also have good events where you can meet people. Talk to people in the industry you want to target – there are many who have great inside knowledge of the industry because they’ve seen what is currently working and what isn’t. They may know a good fit for you … or they may want to move to something entrepreneurial.
• Think of people you’ve worked with over the years. Does anyone strike you as having the skillset you’d need to be a good partner?
• Investigate the many online “find-a-co-founder” sites. Some examples to get you started include StartHawk and CoFoundersLab. There are many others.

My husband is in the private equity business and regularly buys businesses in which he partners with current owners/operators so in effect, he is always doing due diligence on potential partners. We have a family policy that we have dinner with the potential partner and that person’s spouse/partner (if there is one).

One of the things you learn outside of the traditional interview process is how the person treats others. You’d be surprised how much you can learn by seeing how s/he interacts with waiters, and parking lot staff members and other people in a subordinate role. It is also important to see how that person interacts with you in social setting and also how s/he talks with their partner and with your spouse/partner. This person and you are going to be spending a LOT of time together, and likely your families are going to get to know each other pretty well. If you can’t mesh in a social situation, that is probably going to be a red flag. Not that you’re going to be hanging out together, although you might, but you are going to have a lot of late nights and weekends and you’re going to want to be with someone who you like.

Ok, now you have dated a lot and are thinking about getting engaged. What’s next? People often miss talking about a few key things:

1. Where do you see the business going? Who is the target customer? Make sure you are aligned.
2. What are your expectations regarding hours and commitments? If you’re going to be burning the candle at both ends and the partner sees this as a side hustle, get back on Bumble.
3. What do you see as your main areas of responsibility and what does your partner see as theirs? Is there too much overlap or is there good division?
4. Are you equal partners or do you have more equity or voting shares? Some businesses give extra shares to the person who came up with the idea – and that person either gets more money or gets the tie-breaking vote in case of disagreement.
5. Along those same lines, do you agree on policies regarding situations where one wants to do something and the other doesn’t. In my business, one partner could try to persuade the other but if either had a hard NO on the idea, it was a no.

There are lots more suggestions but this will get you going. The final thing is that partnership agreements aren’t mandatory, but like a marriage contract, they are there to protect you if things go sideways. The hope is that you’ll never need one, but it sure is good to have one if there is trouble. It is also useful to have if you are talking about building to an exit – it should be very clear if there is a big win how the spoils get divided.

I was lucky – I had an amazing partner that wasn’t a friend when we started but is one of my nearest and dearest now, and I attribute it to the fact that we say we hired each other. We complemented each other from a business perspective and were totally aligned from a personal one. We made it through one exit and then went right back in for round 2 and exited that one too. Follow some of the above rules for finding a great partner to end up with someone who is going to be with you to the end.

Good luck.

The post How to Find the Right Co-Founder for Your Startup appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

First things first…have you done the research to make sure that it is actually a good business?  A crazy number of business start-ups fail because they never start with the most important part of any business…the customer. If you have never asked the customer if you are a) providing a solution to a real issue that need solving and b) providing it in a dramatically better or cheaper or smaller way than the current solution and c) providing something that is not just a nice to have but a need to have – ie something they will actually be willing to pay for, you’re already behind the 8-ball.

Second, have you read up about the Lean Startup Methodology, a scientific method that helps entrepreneurs use information to steer through the startup process? It helps cut risk, but having you test and pivot, launch early and iterate often, and most importantly, talk to customers right from the start. The advantage to this method, is that it prevents you from spending a whack-load of money on something that isn’t going to fly, and prevents you from taking big steps in directions that are not optimal.  If you are going to be starting on a shoestring, at least make sure that you are spending what little money you have on the right things.

Let’s say you’ve worked through everything in the Lean Startup program and you’re good to go but you need some funding to really get going.. Now what?

There are a bunch of options for raising cash including:

1.    Self financing through savings, mortgaging your home or selling assets

2.    Friends & Family.

3.     Lines of credit.

4.     Business loans from a traditional lending institutions like a  bank or Credit Unions

5.     Business loans from an organization that focusses on small business or microbusiness loans. In Canada, the BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada) is a great place to start, as is the Canada Small Business Financing Program. Each provides funding for different purposes so reach out to both. Also, look at your local economic development organization like Community Futures Development Corporation (CFDCs) or Community Business Development Corporation (CBDCs). Don’t forget that if you are a woman or a member of a visible minority or any other identified group, there may be specific opportunities for funding targeted at that group.

6.    Government-sponsored start-up programs such as incubators, youth entrepreneur programs, etc. Look at the Self-Employment Program (for unemployed Employment Insurance eligible individuals) and the Seed Capital ConneXion Program for Young Entrepreneurs (for young entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada). What’s great about many of these is that they offer not only resources, but contacts and mentoring too.

7.    Angel investors, Venture capitalists and other private sources. Many of the members of this group are much more likely to invest in a spin off of something that already exists or in a tested and true entrepreneur with a track record of building successful companies, but you never know.

8.     Government grant programs. These ones are super time consuming to find, to apply to and have the drawbacks of usually only funding certain activities (rather than unrestricted use) and taking a long time to be decided on, but they ARE available. Just be aware that if you are looking for grants in Canada, you need to use the appropriate terminology in investigating what’s available using terms like: small business financing, shared costs, subsidies, rebates, contributions, awards, tax credits (or tax rebates) or nonrepayable loans.

Finally, people starting new businesses assume they are going to need a LOT of money, and there is no question that some businesses do, but “one-third of Small Businesses Start with Less Than $5,000”

https://smallbiztrends.com/2019/01/startup-funding-statistics.html, so it must be possible to do it without a lot. How do you do it? Don’t spend on things that don’t add value. Here are some ideas:

Don’t spend money on things that you just don’t need to have, like fancy logos, business cards, high end equipment (if lower end will be ok for a few years), web development agencies (build your own using free templates), accountants (buy some accounting software and DIY), etc.

Don’t spend money on fancy office space. Work from home or from a library or coffee shop or hotel lobby. Rent desks or meeting spaces as you need them from a shared workspace company.

Don’t incorporate early. Unless your business is one that comes with high risk of liability, don’t incorporate til you’re making enough money to justify the cost of doing so and the additional admin costs that come with it.

Don’t buy your staff new computers and other tech.  You can save thousands by buying older, refurbished ones.

Don’t attend a bunch of conferences and when you do go, don’t bring the whole team. Most of them don’t offer enough value for one person, nevermind multiple, so pick and choose carefully.

Don’t assume that freelancers or contract suppliers are not high quality. There are some excellent people especially in the graphics, and web development areas that are one wo/man operations and charge accordingly. Many people who come to the startup world from big business assume you need to pay a lot for quality.

On the same note, don’t assume that all of your freelancers need to live in the same big city as you do. There are excellent people on other sides of the world but also, really good people who live and work in small cities/towns in the same province/state. Their living costs are lower, so usually their prices are too.

We covered a lot of ground above, from making sure you start the right business, in the right way, to ways of raising money, to spending that money in the most efficient and effective way possible. A big thing that wasn’t mentioned above though, was that many people start businesses as a “side hustle”, using the stability and money coming in from their day job to finance all of the early stages of the startup, until the kinks are worked out and the business is ready to take to another level. Side hustles are great, low risk ways to make sure that you can put food on your table and keep the heat on while you are getting the business up and running and they certainly don’t mean you aren’t committed to going all in. They are practical and for many people, a really smart idea.

When you’ve researched and pivoted and tested and pivoted again, and you know that the customer wants your product/service and will pay for it, there will be plenty of opportunity to quit your job and take the leap.

The post How to start a business with little or no money appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

You have a background in law, or medicine or teaching (or anything else) and you have a great idea for a startup. You want to start a business. That’s awesome! You don’t know how to code…Not so awesome?? Actually, don’t go back to your day job – there is still hope for you. These days, while most startups (although not all) have a significant tech element, there are things you can do to fill the tech gap and still start your dream company. Check out some of the options below.

First of all … while you may not know how to code, I guarantee there are people you know who do. So, when you are in the stage of trying to get your MVP – your minimum viable product – figured out, you can try to take advantage of the knowledge of people around you who can get you going.  There are great young people coming out of programs at universities, coding schools, startup programs, engineering companies, etc, who might be really excited about getting involved in a startup. Even a shorter-term opportunity looks good on a resume and might lead somewhere else. Go to Meetups to find out about programming groups, check out UpWork for low-cost coders for hire (and other freelancers for hire sites), network and generally put the word out about what you are looking for. You might be surprised at the quality of the people you hear from.

Secondly … you can use low-code and no-code development platforms. These platforms are specifically for someone like you. They allow you to develop a simple concept and even some of those early modifications you’re sure to need with almost no coding knowledge and not a lot of time or money. Just keep a few things in mind.  Low/no code platforms lock you in. So if you see that your business might, in future, need to build out something a lot more sophisticated, you have to make sure you can migrate what you’ve got into that new model as you may not be able to build your ultimate product fully in these platforms – although in many cases, they can accommodate pretty sophisticated algorithms. Often, data migration can be a limitation of these platforms so make sure you investigate that before going all in. While you’re investigating, find out about the security of their platform, and the tech support they offer. You’re going to need both. However, if your business idea looks like a good fit with these platforms, they really do offer a great solution for those without coding skills. Check out Salesforce for Startups, Microsoft Ventures which offers Windows App Studio and Project Spark (lets you build apps and games) and, depending on your business, e-commerce companies like Shopify and Etsy.

Thirdly … find a partner who has the tech skills you’re missing. There are lots of pros and cons to having partners and great coding skills are not enough to justify handing over half the company, but it may be that one of the people you meet will do the work for free in exchange for some shares. There is a lot of that “work-for-shares” stuff going on in the startup community and you never know which of those opportunities is going to hit big, so some techs do it as a side hustle and some do it in between full time gigs.

A few things to consider…  some industries are super-techie, top to bottom. If you don’t speak the language, you don’t get the keys to the kingdom. Part of launching a startup is knowing the customer and making sure you are offering something they actually need and are willing to pay for, and part is knowing the industry you’re trying to join – your competitors, your suppliers etc. Some customers and markets don’t need you to have the tech background to play in their sandbox, but others are going to lock you out if you don’t know all the words they want you to know. Before you use one of the low/no code platforms and launch into one of those markets on your own, do the research to minimize your risk of failure. If you DID choose one of those super-techie markets (like an idea for a new app), you’ll have to find a CTO or a tech partner who can be your intermediary/translator. Think pretty seriously about entering that market if you are going it alone and know nothing about coding.

Regardless of what your market needs tech-wise, you will have to learn enough to ask the right questions. You’ll need to be knowledgeable enough to understand what tech people are telling you and to make sure that you can clearly convey the needs and objectives of the business to your tech suppliers in a way they understand. You don’t need to be an expert, but you probably should take an intro to coding course or a get a ‘coding for dummies’ book so you don’t get left out of conversations you should be intimately involved in.

The world is definitely changing – all those tech geeks who may have been picked on in junior high are now making millions and running the world. But just because you weren’t one of them in high school, doesn’t mean you will be locked out of the startup world now. You just have to surround yourself with some of those people to ensure that your company can check the tech box, even if it isn’t being handled by you directly.

Many successful startup founders are not techies and do not code. You can be one of them too. Just surround yourself with smart people whose skills complement yours. 

The post Can I Start a Business Without Knowing How to Code? appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

Becoming an entrepreneur can be very gratifying.  Some of the most common reasons for wanting to become an entrepreneur are reported as:

• I want to be my own boss
• I want to follow my passion
• I want more time to spend with family and friends

Whatever the reason, taking the plunge to launching a startup can be hard and a bit scary. The best way to ensure that the decision is a good one is to take some proven steps to ensure you start up on the right track. What kind of steps, you ask?

Before you start…

Look at the groups you are a part of, the things you are interested in (ie: photography, pets, students, new parents, tennis, fitness, or social justice issues like bullying, mental health, BLM) to see if people in those groups have unsolved problems relating to that group. Then interview members who can help you identify something that is not only an unmet need, but equally importantly, something that people would pay money to have resolved.

This is a great way to see if there is an obvious business idea that you can capitalize on. The idea has to be noteworthy (customers will pay for it), usable (customers can actually utilize it), valuable and feasible (you can create it).  Research also shows that your idea has to be 10x better than what currently exists. This helps ensure your customers will buy yours over the next best option.

Sometimes, the idea can be developed in a variety of ways. Best practice will tell you to test every hypothesis about your product or service and only move forward if the test confirms your hypothesis. If it doesn’t, you either need to iterate (ie change some of the features) or pivot (try something completely different).  Only when your test confirms your hypothesis do you keep proceeding. This takes a lot of the risk out of the process, as you never jump in with both feet with an untested product or service.

What kinds of startup ideas are on our list for 2021? In the current environment, there are a fair number of online options that can let you run a side hustle or start to build something that can be your primary source of income.

Startup ideas on our list for 2021:

1. Shopify (and similar platforms) has taken some of the challenges out of selling or reselling products because it offers everything the ability to create a website and use their shopping cart solution to sell, ship, and manage products. It also manages payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement. Instead of having to pay for each of these components individually, you take all the risk away because their proven solutions are available on a subscription basis. It’s an online store that is yours, unlike Etsy, which is also good, but which is more of a marketplace where you sell alongside other online sellers. If your research indicated that there was a product that would provide solutions to unmet needs, this is a great way to start to sell it.
2. Have you travelled to other places where they have products that are not yet in your country/city? Some of the best new business opportunities come from finding something elsewhere and either developing a competitive offering or licencing the original for your country or region. Talk to friends in other countries and ask about the favourite new thing they’ve bought or discovered recently. Would there be a market for it at home?
3. What are you really good at? Can you use one of the new online course development platforms like Thinkific to create a course that others might pay to take? It could be guitar or the best way to do a puzzle or cooking or science or astronomy. People are always looking for new things to learn. You can generate revenue from what you know best.
4. Childcare is always needed. Even looking after one or 2 children can be an great help to parents trying to balance WFH with managing childcare.
5. Elder care is another huge and growing need. While some seniors need professional care with medical underpinnings, the vast majority of elder care simply involves things like doing errands, taking them to appointment, shopping, and companionship. It is most helpful to seniors to be able to stay in their own home environment as long as possible as it reduces confusion, and gives them comfort. Often family members are either unavailable or live too far away to deal with the small day to day needs so this is a great one.
6. Most small companies or not-for-profit organizations don’t have the funds (or needs) to have full time staff handing things like article/landing page writing, blogging, newsletters, social media, product photography, etc. It is most cost effective to outsource those tasks and if you have skills in any of those areas, why shouldn’t they be outsourced to you? Depending on the needs of the company and the task, you can either structure payment on a monthly retainer basis or on a fee for service basis. This type of work is a great side hustle as you can take on as much or as little of it as you want and can often schedule the work to be done evenings and weekends for maximum flexibility.
7. Do you have a vehicle? Having wheels opens up several types of employment. Many executives employ virtual assistants to do things like managing calendars, appointments and emails to making phone calls and travel arrangements, to managing events to personal errands. If you like your days to be different and varied, this is a good one for you. You could also drive for one of the ride sharing apps, or start a local courier service. Grocery shopping services are also an excellent service to start, especially for older clients.
8. Does everyone always comment on your style, your clothes, your hair and your accessories? Perhaps personal styling is in your future. Offer to style a friend or 2 and post before and after pics to social media. Arrange relationships with your fave stores as many will kick back some of the total sale to you in addition to the client fee.
9. How’s your nail game? Could you offer a mobile nail service? Or makeup? Or hair? It might take some people awhile to get used to going back into a salon surrounded by a lot of people so one on one service might be just the ticket.
10. Are you a new parent? You may not have time to start a new business too but keep track of everything (product or service or app) you WISH you had in that first year. Those ideas may prove golden when you have a bit more time on your hands.

Following a startup program can help reduce the risk you face when building your own business but in the end, starting a business or a side hustle can give you flexibility, extra cash and some control over your life – if you choose the right idea.

With hard work, and by following best practices, you will soon be able to envision quitting your job so your side hustle becomes your full-time hustle!

The post 10 Great Startup Ideas For 2021 appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

One of the best ways to launch a successful business is to use a scientific method that has been proven to give you a leg up. Called the Lean Canvas method, and based on the Lean Startup methodology, it takes you through a variety of steps that help you ensure that you have answers to all the questions that you’ll need to address to ensure your business is a standout. It focusses on identifying problems and helping find solutions and at the end of the day, it allows you to be able to explain your entire business in one page. Imagine the “elevator pitch” of business plans. How much thinking do you have to do about your business before you can distill it into an elevator pitch? A LOT! This is the same – you do all of your thinking and planning and testing up front until you can distill the information into one clear and easy to understand page. While the long form static business plan isn’t used so much anymore, this one pager becomes a living, breathing document which is constantly being iterated and updated

Wanna know how?

Your business plan is going to have 9 section as follows. They show up in a particular order because that is the order in which you’ll move through the process until you can fill in that section with the couple of sentences and/or images that show the details of that section. The steps are:

1. Customer Segment
2. the Problem
3. Unique Value Proposition
4. Solution
5. Channels
6. Revenue Streams
7. Cost Structure
8. Key Metrics
9. Unfair Advantage

You can use this template to create your one-page biz plan:

Wait…it STARTS with customer segment??

I know. It might seem strange to start there, but if you don’t know who they are, you can’t identify their problem(s). Even if you have a business idea, the Lean Canvas method asks you to go through the process from the start to make sure you’ve actually got an idea that will succeed. And one of the things that prevents startups from succeeding is that the entrepreneurs forgot to make sure that there is actually a target market that wants the thing they’re trying to sell.

So the Lean Canvas method asks you to look at the customer first to see what issues that segment of the market has and which ones are as yet unsolved or unsatisfactorily solved. You often do sections 1 and 2 closely together or at the same time.

A better solution

Once you’ve figured out who the customer is and what the issue is, you can address the problem with your own solution. All the evidence indicates that the best solutions have to be exponentially better than what is currently out there. That means not just a little bit better, faster, stronger, cheaper or lighter, but 10X better, faster, stronger, cheaper or lighter. If you aren’t offering a solution that is exponentially better, it is unlikely that people will switch from their current solution, even if it is sub-optimal, to yours.

One of the other things that it is important for entrepreneurs to understand is that there is a difference between a “nice to have” solution and a “need to have” one. The “nice to haves” have to be a LOT better than the current alternatives than the “need to haves” which probably don’t have any current alternatives and which, as such, are a significant unsolvable pain point for the customer.

Along the same lines, entrepreneurs also have to understand that there is a difference between issues and opportunities. There are some unsolved issues that are just not going to get fixed, or if you do find a solution, people aren’t going to pay for it. Opportunities are problems which people would pay to have fixed. Don’t waste time on anything that isn’t an opportunity.

A value that’s unique

So now that you have been able to fill in the problem and what you would do differently, you need to drill down to the ACTUAL product. What is the UVP – the Unique Value Proposition – ie how does your product differ from what is out there now?  How have you solved the identified problem? You’ll obviously have to have a handle on the competition to develop this one.

Where are your customers?

Then you need to get into the nitty gritty. What marketing and advertising channels will you use to bring your idea to market and reach your customer? You’re going to have to create an offer experiment, with a “hook” (a thing you say or show to get people’s interest or attention). You’re going to need to show those people a Minimum Viable Offer (like a prototype) to gauge their interest and let you test the assumptions you’ve made. This is something you’ll want to do a lot – assume, test, prove/disprove assumptions, continue or pivot, rinse, repeat! The Lean Startup method uses this testing so that you don’t make costly mistakes or take unnecessary risks by moving too far, too fast.

What’s the right price?

Next you’ll figure out how you’re going to make money. You need to prove you have a sustainable business model with the ability to have money coming in. Do you have the right price; the price at which people will buy but at which you’ll also be able to make money.

Have you figured out your costs?

There are costs that are one offs, and those that are ongoing and part of figuring out the sustainability of your business model is knowing what those costs are and therefore, how many sales you’ll need to make to keep the lights on.

Key metrics

One thing that people don’t set up in advance nearly enough is the set of key metrics that will help evaluate how the business is doing. They spend a lot of time reacting and just flying by the seat of their pants but often that means that they spend time on the wrong things; the things that don’t matter or don’t matter as much. Before you get crazy busy, figure out what metrics will actually tell you if you are moving in the right direction and what activities support those metrics so that you can focus your scarce time and resources on those things.

Finally, be able to articulate your Unfair Advantage. That’s your “secret sauce” – the thing that you have that no one else has. The thing that makes you standout because it can’t be copied or bought.

On your way!

If you progress through all of these steps and fill in boxes on the one-page template above, being aware of the fact that you need to complete them in pencil for awhile as they’re likely to change as you test and iterate and pivot, you will be well on your way to a sustainable business. And you’ll have done it without getting into massive debt or taking massive risks until the business justifies it; until you know that you’ve answered the questions and dealt with the problems that are going to undermine your chances of having a successful startup.

So what’s holding you back? The best time to start is today. Good luck.

The post 9 Steps to Writing a 1-page, Lean Startup, Business Plan appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.

RIGHT NOW is the best time to start a new business. Unfortunately, many potential founders are fearful. This is not anecdotal. Between 1978 and 2012, the number of new companies declined by nearly 44 percent, according to the Kauffman Foundation. Research tells us that the top two reasons for not starting a new venture are: (1) I don’t have the money; and (2) I don’t know how.  Two excuses that are no longer material, as I prove below.

Yet despite this rise in fear, and based on the most recent data, people have been most definitely getting their startup on in this Pandemic. Through the week ending Oct.3, 2020 business applications were up a record 40% YoY. This is an all-time high, and best of all, these applications include many “high propensity” businesses, which are linked to firm creation and staff employment, The Economist reports. This result reversed 2 previous trends: (1) High propensity” applications fell off the cliff after the last recession; and (2) New-business creation has been on a downward slide for decades.

So even at this moment of intense uncertainty, entrepreneurs are rushing to form new businesses more than ever. The number of applications for US business tax identification numbers was up 93.6%.  So even after the pandemic closed hundreds of thousands of businesses across America, applications for new US businesses are rising at the fastest rate since 2007. Why? A mix of necessity and opportunity.

Here are my top 10 reasons why now is the best time to start a business:

1. There’s plenty of room in the market. More businesses were lost during the first three months of the pandemic than normally close in an entire year, with millions of businesses around the globe permanently shutting their doors. COVID-19 has accelerated the process of transformation, creating opportunities for new ventures to embrace a new future.
2. The pandemic has introduced new needs in the market. From a widespread need for reusable masks to better video conferencing options to at-home fitness solutions, COVID-19 has created thousands of new unmet market needs.  And these needs and problems are opportunities entrepreneurs can address.
3. Crisis breeds opportunity. General Motors. EA. Burger King. Trader Joes. Microsoft. Uber. Square. Airbnb. Some of the largest and most successful global companies were started during times of economic crisis.
4. Many have more free time than ever before. Chances are, the commute to your home office is a whole lot shorter than your commute to work. If working from home has freed up time in your schedule, use it to start a side hustle outside of regular office hours.
5. Early adopters are all online.  Face it, we are all stuck at home. Which means so are your new venture’s future customers. Use this to engage in customer conservations to explore the assumptions your business relies upon.

The above pandemic-based factors combine with trends that make starting a startup even easier in 2020, including;

1. Costs are at all-time low. Capital is no longer a barrier to entry.  While the cost to launch a jewelry store online in 1998 was greater than a million, today, using online platforms, you can launch a jewelry store with exponentially better features, for less than $500.
2. Infrastructure exists. During the dot.com boom there was no Facebook, Linkedin, Payal or even Google. So entrepreneurs had to do everything manually from scratch. Today, the internet’s infrastructure is robust and contains almost all the tools a new venture needs.
3. The path to success is known and proven: Design Thinking. Disciplined Entrepreneurship & the 100 Steps 2 Startup program are all well-known paths to building a billion dollar business.  These paths were built following the road made clear over the last two decades by the likes of Google, eBay, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, Uber, and thousands of other fast growth startups.
4. Geography no longer matters. Once upon a time your customer base was limited to those who could attend your store or order from a catalog.  But the internet changes all that and geography is no longer a constraining factor for 21st Century Entrepreneurship.

And finally,

1. What choice do you have? Employment is precarious. Government support only goes so far. In the end, we must all be responsible for ourselves and for generating the means to care for our loved ones. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but Entrepreneurship Empowers Everyone!

So, looking back at those top two reasons for not starting a new venture, we can see that you don’t need huge capital and you don’t have to know how. You’ll figure it out along the way. The most successful businesses start by looking at the customer, identifying an unmet market need and launching a minimum viable product. You’ll iterate many times based on customer feedback but there’s no excuse not to start now. If you have an idea and would like to know if it’s worth pursuing, I invite you to take the free quiz below.

Onwards and upwards.

The post 10 reasons why NOW, during a pandemic, is the best time to Start a New Business appeared first on 100 Steps 2 Startup.