Starting a business can be a thrilling and rewarding journey, but it also comes with its fair share of challenges and uncertainties. Whether you’re an… Read More »Unlock Your Entrepreneurial Dreams with eBizplan’s Customized Business Startup Plan
You’re battling in vain for months now to get someone or somebody to buy into your groundbreaking business idea. Indeed, you’ve spent lot of time and money to get funds from your bank, other banks and small business development institutions. Sadly, there’s not a glimpse of hope, not even an invite for an interview. Giving up hope, you’ve decided to terminate your project. However, luckily for you, someone suggested that you should apply to get funded by angel investors. Wow, what a break! That intervention has changed your life for the better…
So, are angel investors the solution for small businesses and start-up funding problems?
Read More »Are Angel Investors Divine Interventions or are they Devils in Disguise?
Many successful businesses got funded by a venture capitalist (VC) when starting-up. After all, it seems that VCs have lots of money to invest. In fact, in 2018, the value of VC investments in the United States amounted to approximately 99.5 billion U.S. dollars (Statista).
So, if can’t get enough money to get your business started, but you’ve a (really!) great business idea, then getting a venture capitalist to invest may be a sound idea…However, VCs have, just like all other funders, loaners and investors, their own criteria and standards they use to evaluate investment opportunities.
And there’s a good reason why VCs are so picky on where to invest their capital. Tomer Dean from TechCrunch not long ago interviewed a well-known venture capitalist. The VC had the following to say about the success rate of start-ups:
Read More »How to get a Venture Capitalist to Fall in Love with your Business Idea
Lean Start-ups are used for developing products and businesses based on ‘validated learning’, getting customer feedback quickly and often. It was introduced by Eric Ries during 2011 (1) with the objective to eliminate uncertainty in the product development process. Since then, this practice has transformed the way companies are developed (Natasha Hussein, Entrepreneur).
Most astonishingly was the news that Lean start-ups have made business plans redundant. Indeed, a whole industry has grown up around the idea that business plans are now no longer necessary, says David Ehrenberg, Young Entrepreneur Council in the Chicago Tribune.
Two months into your online business and something is terribly wrong. You haven’t made one sale thus far. What could be wrong? After all, you’ve got the best eCommerce platform, with stunning graphics and detailed product catalogs. Even more, every product your site has a picture with a price and a description about its features and attributes. And yet, no sales. The thing that is wrong is that you haven’t done startup marketing.
No wonder nobody finds your website or talk about your business in the social media channels. Without a marketing strategy in your startup plan, your website will eventually be doomed to the darkest corners of the internet.
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It’s very easy to create a website. Why not? Almost every business and professional person of note has a website. Surely, if you create a website your business will flourish, and with billions of web users to target – wow, the money is there to be made.
A recent blog page by wix.com “7 Tips for Creating a Stunning Website for Free” achieved 3.7 million likes. Indeed, the people want websites.
So you can start to create a website. It’s very easy…
Read More »You can create a Website in less than 20 minutes – then what?
Borrowing money from a bank to start your business is not an obvious option for prospective business owners. Unless you are well known, with a track record of starting and running successful businesses, no formal sources of capital are likely to invest in you in the early stages of your business 1. Banks usually require an operating history to reduce their risk.
Read More »Borrowing Money from a Bank to Start your Business
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You, the aspiring entrepreneur, frequently have three sources of getting money to start your business: (1) personal savings, (2) friends and relatives, and (3) other individual investors. Using personal savings to start your business to start your business will now be discussed.
A lot of small businesses start without a business plan. As a result, there’s no vision (where do they want to be?); or a mission (how will they get there?). Nor goals (what do they want to achieve) or strategies (how will they achieve their goals?)