Marketing Plan for your startup

December 5, 2011 3 Comments

Even when you have brilliant product and/or service, your startup cannot succeed without effective marketing. And this begins with systematic research and careful planning. It is very dangerous to assume that you already know about your intended market. You need to do market research to make sure you’re on track. Use the market planning process as your opportunity to uncover data and to question your marketing efforts. Your time & efforts will be well spent.

There are two kinds of market research: primary and secondary. Secondary research means using published information such as industry profiles, trade journals, newspapers, magazines, census data, and demographic profiles. This type of information is available in  libraries, industry associations, chambers of commerce, from vendors who sell to your industry, and from government agencies. There are more online sources than you could possibly use. Trade associations and trade publications often have excellent industry-specific data.

Primary research means gathering your own data. For example, you could do your own young crowd count at a proposed café, use the yellow pages to identify competitors, and do surveys or focus-group interviews to learn about consumer preferences. Professional market research can be very costly, but there are many books that show small business owners how to do effective research themselves. In your marketing plan, be as specific as possible; give statistics, numbers, and sources. The marketing plan will be the basis, later on, of the all-important sales projection.

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Managing finances for your startup

December 5, 2011 Leave a comment

Unless your rich dad is bankrolling your entire startup without concern for what and how you spend, you need to keep your expenditures under control, and plan your finances well right from the day zero. This is one of the most important Mantra to make your startup successful, especially for the Bootstrappers. Read the full post HERE

An alarmingly high percentage of startup closures are due to poor financial management. If your business is not going to be profitable, it won’t survive. You need to have a sound financial budget for projected expenses, startup costs, sales, revenue, profits, etc. Financial management is actually not too difficult if you are using the right set of tools, but is one of the most important factors for the success of any startup.

You need to spend time thinking about the optimal financial management in the current planning process of your startup, which will make it ready to take advantage of opportunities as they come together. I will recommend that as the founder of your startup,  it will be in your best interest to learn and be comfortable with numbers. Believe me, no part of financial management is rocket science, and you can easily learn to understand how each aspect of your financial plan affects your startup, which will allow you to quickly find optimal solutions to increase profitability.

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Story of a startup: Part 3

December 5, 2011 Leave a comment

15 days later after our last meeting with S, we met another potential partner, A who showed interest in the idea of Green. Over cups of cappuccinos, we began discussing the idea in detail and crunching numbers and forecasts. The idea was back on track, and it seemed that this is the partnership we have been looking for, that every member of team has set of skills that complements and will help building a strong team to build this start-up and succeed. Read the full post HERE

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Story of a Startup – part 2

December 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Next day, armed with our ‘Green-Pop’ idea & never say die approach and enthusiasm, we met S at a coffee shop (CCD). We discussed the idea at length over several cups of coffee. We discussed the target market, pyramid marketing structure to set up the sales chain, sourcing design and in turn starting a pop-art movement in India, identifying and managing vendors, value addition, financial requirements. We were happy that we are on verge of creating something innovative, and with that we decided to meet the following day with some background research on various modalities. Read the full post HERE

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Evaluate Your Startup Idea

October 29, 2010 Leave a comment

For an idea to become a profitable business opportunity, it should be evaluated, both within your current group and experts. I am writing about five major questions to ask while evaluating your business idea, though there can be several more addressing wide array of concerns in order to create a foolproof plan.

Read the full article HERE

1. Targeted Market Segment

You need to identify important problems of the consumers that your business intends to target, and think about the value they will gain. It is important to focus on customer’s needs rather than the attributes of the product/service planned. The market need has to be carefully assessed. “Is there a market segment that you can target by offering clear and compelling benefits at a price the targeted customer is willing to pay?” The answer to this question will help you identify the market segment you are trying to enter. The segment may be described in terms of demographic, geographic, or lifestyle factors.

2. Business Model

You have to clearly identify how you intend to solve the customer’s problem. This will include a detailed product description and overview of how it is going to be produced and delivered to the target customers. Think about developing and employing superior organizational processes, capabilities and resources as compared to your competitors. Your business model will clearly identify the economic viability and the profitability of your startup.

3. Market Size

Ponder over your market size and share. Think about who will buy your products beyond your family and close friends. You have to figure out a way to convince your target customers to buy your product. Also figure out a way if you can reach out to a different segment of customers at the same time. This will also help you realise the kind of investment you require to run your startup, and then you have to plan for raising finance.

4. Maintaining Niche and Protecting your Business

You will have to constantly think about how are you going to protect your business from other existing businesses in your domain and possible new entrants. There has to be some differentiating strength that gives you an advantage. business strangths can be as varied as low-cost structure, superior and/or innovative product quality, dedicated channel, or proprietary elements such as patents, copyrights etc. Also focus on building relationship within your domain. the number and quality of contacts up and down the value chain is an important determinant of eventual business success.

5. What’s in for you?

The business should make it worth to be you part of it. it should be a startup you are proud running.Any startup that gives you back your money within three years is good. if it can within one year, its brilliant.

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