Aqz

Startups, Entrepreneurship & Development

Great Online Resources for Entrepreneurs & Startups

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GUIDES TO GETTING STARTED

  1. Entrepreneur Magazine’s Startup Kits (entrepreneur.com/toolkit)

There are kits for everything from starting a restaurant to a consulting firm, complete with articles, guides, marketing tips, and more.

  1. eHow’s Introduction to Entrepreneurship

(http://www.ehow.com/topic_3173_introduction-entrepreneurship.html)

They have hundreds of thousands of great articles, including a strong set of guides and resources for how to open a business, how to incorporate, raising money, and bookkeeping.

  1. About.com’s Starting a Business Hub

(http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/gettingstarted/Starting_a_Business.htm)

They’ve curated some of their best content for starting a business, including checklists, a small business startup kit, and detailed articles on naming and calculating the cost of your startup.

  1. Library of Congress’ Entrepreneur’s Reference Guide

(http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/guide/guide2/)

The Library of Congress also lists a lot of other great books that are updated yearly. It covers practically every topic related to starting a small business.

 

IDEA INSPIRATIONS

  1. Vator.tv (www.vator.tv)

This is a place where entrepreneurs can upload short video pitches about their startup. You can also follow industry news and specific companies.

  1. Alltop Startups (startups.alltop.com)

They have a great list of blogs and news websites dedicated to the subject.

 

WEB APPS FOR STARTUPS

  1. Evernote (evernote.com)

Evernote helps you remember everything. It collects information in front of the computer screen or on-the-go.

  1. Zoho (zoho.com)

It is a suite of online collaboration tools. It includes email, spreadsheets, wiki, chat, customer relationship management, and web conferencing.

  1. PBWorks (pbworks.com)

It is a wiki, a collaboration tool, document manager, and project management tool.

  1. FreshBooks (freshbooks.com)

One of the best to use to track invoices, teams, and payments.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR STARTUP SUCCESS

  1. Plaxo (plaxo.com)

This acts as a digital address book that efficiently organizes everyone you meet. It integrates with Outllook, Thunderbird, and the Mac OS X Address Book to make importing contacts a snap.

  1. LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

It is the world’s most popular business social network. Its business features, especially those connecting you to friends of friends, are unmatched, and with over 50 million users, it is a social media tool you need to be using constantly.

 

RAISING MONEY

  1. Introduction to Venture Capital

(http://www.slideshare.net/pricew/introduction-to-venture-capital)

If you’re clueless about how venture capital works (most people are), this short presentation by Will Price, former venture capitalist and the current CEO of Widgetbox, explains all of the basics.

  1. The Funded (thefunded.com)

This entrepreneurship community is focused on helping you raise money by giving you ratings and inside details of the practices of countless venture capital and angel investor funds. The information, once you’re in, is invaluable to choosing the firm that will help propel your business to the next level.

  1. How to Fund a Startup

(http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html)

This guide by Y Combinator co-founder and early-stage investor Paul Graham is shockingly detailed on the different ways to raise money, the disadvantages of each approach, how venture capital firms operate, and the reality of bringing investors into your company.

 

SOCIAL COMMUNITIES FOR STARTUPS

  1. StartupNation (startupnation.com)

This startup community network has extensive and active forums, useful knowledge hubs, community groups, and plenty more.

  1. Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com)

With Hacker News, users add relevant and interesting stories on the topics of programming and startup entrepreneurship and consistently hold thought-provoking discussions. It’s an incredible place for insight and advice on startups.

  1. Young Entrepreneur (youngentrepreneur.com)

Focused around discussion forums, Young Entrepreneur is a great place to ask any startup question on your mind or just to read the over hundreds of thousands of posts made over the years on the site.

  1. PartnerUp (partnerup.com)

This is a community that really focuses on one thing: helping you find business partners. PartnerUp is a community ideal for finding and networking with people that will shore up your weaknesses and help you answer those nagging questions about the partnership side of business.

Advice for First-Time Startup CEOs

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BE FOCUSED

Many novice entrepreneurs feel the need to jump at whatever opportunity they come across but not all opportunities are worth their weight in gold. Avoid getting side-tracked. Juggling multiple ventures will spread you thin and limit both your effectiveness and productivity. Do one thing perfectly, not 10 things poorly. If you feel the need to jump onto another project, jump onto a project that might mean something about your original concept.

 

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

Do not start a business simply because it seems popular or boasts large hypothetical profit margins and returns. Do what you love. Businesses built around your strengths and talents will have a greater chance of success. It’s not only important to create a profitable business, it’s also important that you’re happy managing and growing it day in and day out. If your heart isn’t in it, you will not be successful.

 

YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING

No one knows everything, so don’t come off as a know-it-all. Surround yourself with advisors and mentors who will nurture you to become a better leader and businessman. Find successful, knowledgeable individuals with whom you share common interests and mutual business goals that see value in working with you for the long-term.

 

YOU’RE A STARTUP, SO ACT LIKE IT

Forget about fancy offices, fast cars and fat expense accounts. Your wallet is your company’s life-blood. Practice and perfect the art of being frugal. Watch every dollar and triple-check every expense. Maintain a low overhead and manage your cash flow effectively.

 

LEARN UNDER FIRE

There is no such thing as the perfect plan. There is no perfect road or one less traveled. Never jump right into a new business without any thought or planning, but don’t spend months or years waiting to execute. You will become a well-rounded entrepreneur when tested under fire. The most important thing you can do is learn from your mistakes–and never make the same mistake twice.

 

FOCUS ON CUSTOMERS, NOT INVESTORS

Focus on giving your customers the best product possible, and you’ll attract the attention of investors. If you need large sums of capital to launch your venture, go back to the drawing board. Find a starting point instead of an end point. Scale down pricey plans and grandiose expenditures. Simplify the idea until it’s manageable as an early stage venture. Find ways to prove your business model on a shoestring budget. Demonstrate your worth before seeking investment. If your concept is successful, your chances of raising capital from investors will dramatically improve.

 

KNOW WHEN TO CALL IT QUITS

Contrary to popular belief, a smart captain does not go down with the ship. Don’t go on a fool’s errand for the sake of ego. Know when it’s time to walk away. If your idea doesn’t pan out, reflect on what went wrong and the mistakes that were made. Assess what you would have done differently. Determine how you will utilize these hard-learned lessons to better yourself and your future entrepreneurial endeavors. Failure is inevitable, but a true entrepreneur will prevail over adversity

What is the Perfect Startup Team?

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 Entrepreneurs know that for every startup success story, there are thousands more that never make it out of the garage. Even startups that manage to raise millions in seed funding can crash and burn before they establish themselves as a viable, sustainable company.  The success of startups are not just about the product or technology, it is about the team.

 

What, exactly, makes up the perfect startup team?

 

THE VISIONARY

The visionary equates to the designer. He must be technical in front-end development and understand human-centered design approaches. In short, he must have a creative mind and understands how design affects user experience. He must be able to turn an idea into something that people will enjoy using and will enjoy viewing.

 

The Visionary’s to-do list:

  1. Build an eye-catching website – The success of some startups has become heavily weighted on that company’s ability to attract and retain users because of the fact that users like the website.
  2. Designing and testing the product – The visionary works with the salesperson to design the ‘must have’ features of the product. Once the mockups have been built, he should put those designs in front of real customers.
  3. Branding – After deciding on a company name and brainstorming a logo representing the company and its products, it is the visionary’s job to create that logo and all other brand assets.

 

THE INVENTOR

The inventor (or the developer) is a technical person who can create anything that the founding team can dream. He should be well-versed in programming so that changes can be made to the product at a moment’s notice. This role is especially important in the early days of the startup because without a product, the salesperson can’t sell and without a backend to tie into, the designer’s front-end is useless.

 

The Inventor’s to-do list:

  1. Product development
  2. Product development
  3. Product development

 

THE SALESPERSON

The salesperson, otherwise known as the business person, must be an experienced business individual who understands sales, marketing, and business development. This person must be able to easily and accurately convey the value of your product or service to potential customers, investors and partners. This person must also be able to properly communicate to the technical team members; this becomes critical for product development when user feedback begins pouring in. He should be hungry, curious and willing to do anything and everything to move the business forward.

 

The Salesperson’s to-do list:

  1. Customer development – In the early days of the startup, the salesperson should be talking to customer and prospecting.
  2. Product management – It is the salesperson’s job to relay the customer’s needs to the technical team. He should be able to identify the ‘must have’ features and plot them on a product roadmap.
  3. Selling and blogging – Once customer development is done, the salesperson’s focus should be on selling the product and one of the best ways to drive adoption and build sales pipeline is to blog about problems in the industry.
  4. Recruiting – With the assumption that the business is growing, the salesperson should focus on recruiting suitable people to be on the team. He may not be able to interview for technical skills but he can set up interviews and decide whether applicants are a good fit to the team.

Do you have your own ideas of the perfect startup team?