7 Tips to Help Startups to Handle Failure

One hard truth about the business world is that nine out of ten startups will fail. You must accept that and put your next step keeping the possibility in mind.

Building a startup demands immense hard work but one cannot guarantee the result. No matter how optimistic an entrepreneur is, one needs to be realistic and aware of the correct statistics about failure. Essential is to know how to cope with failure. The ability to bounce back differentiates between successful entrepreneurs and unsuccessful ones.

# Accept Your Emotions

Failure can be hurting and tremendously stressful. There are cases where mental status after a startup shutdown has lead to mental collapse. The first most important thing you need to do is accept your emotions.

Accepting your emotions makes it hurt less in the long run, and rejecting them makes it all the more difficult. It can in fact lead to making you moody or extremely pessimistic about situations.

# You Are Not Alone

Surround yourself with like-minded people. One of the biggest assets of being part of an entrepreneurial community like us is that you are surrounded by people who are going through pretty similar things. As a coworking community, we support each other during the high times and the low. Why not come visit?

# Passion Besides Your Startup

It’s important to have a hobby – which you love besides building your startup. It always keeps you engaged and improves your persona. You may not progress in your startup – but a hobby such as music, sports, or even yoga can make you feel accomplished and alleviate stress.

# Let Your Mistakes Be Your Lesson

A startup may have more than one reason for facing failure. Find out what went wrong for you. Once you understand your mistakes, it becomes a lot easier to avoid them in future. Mistakes made in business become a great source to learn about your business.

# Networking

Ever wondered why startups have so many meetups and entrepreneurs just love to hang out there? That’s because at these events they realize that many like them are also on a leaking boat. Science shows shared misery increases trust. It develops empathy and makes them feel that they’re not alone in this difficult journey. Others too are climbing different mountains of equal difficulty. Besides, one can get a prospective client or partner there! You may even end up with mentors who can help you along the path to success.

# Don't Stop Moving Forward

The shutdown of one startup should not become the reason for you to stop from achieving your goals. There may be a loophole in the idea or the way it was executed was not proper. Give yourself the chances to achieve your goals. Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

# Plan Your Next Idea and Take Action

Buckle up, pull your socks higher and make a fresh start. Don’t forget the previous mistakes and take necessary actions to move nearer to your goals.  Get rid of the negative mindset and believe that YOU are not a failure.

Top Essential Tools To Better Manage Your Business

Being your own boss can mean being your own marketing department, public relations team or sales squad — you name it, small business owners often end up handling it themselves, at least at some point. With so many hats to wear, you need to make every second count.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there that can streamline tasks, boost productivity and, in sum, save lots of time and money. Most of these services are free, and all of them do a fantastic job addressing the everyday challenges that small business owners face. What’s not to love?

#SquareSpace - Build A Website

Squarespace makes beautiful products to help people with creative ideas succeed.
Their platform empowers millions of people — from individuals and local artists to entrepreneurs shaping the world’s most iconic businesses — to share their stories and create an impactful, stylish, and easy-to-manage online presence.

#BuildFire - Mobile App Builder (iOS & Android)

BuildFire is the leading mobile app development platform choice for businesses, organizations, individuals and resellers. With their intuitive system and highly responsive customer support, they help hundreds of businesses build mobile apps every day. With their aggressive development cycles and infinitely open architecture, they will be there to serve you both now and far into the future.

#FreshBooks - Cloud Accounting Software

FreshBooks know you went into business to pursue your passion and serve your customers - not to learn accounting. This is why they believe in executing extraordinary product and service experiences that helps save you time and get paid faster.

#MailChimp - Email Marketing Platform

Everyone starts small. But with the right resources, you can execute big plans. MailChimp’s features are powerful enough for Fortune 500 companies at a price point that works for anyone. You know your business. They will help you grow it.

#DropBox - File Hosting Service

Save files on your computer, then access them on your phone from the road. Everything you keep in Dropbox is synced automatically to all your devices.500 million people around the world use Dropbox to work the way they want, on any device, wherever they go. With 200,000 businesses on Dropbox Business, they are transforming everyday workflows and entire industries.

#MindMeister - Mind Mapping Software

MindMeister is an online mind mapping tool that lets you capture, develop and share ideas visually. More than 6 million people already use their award-winning mind map editor for brainstorming, note taking, project planning and tons of other creative tasks. MindMeister is completely web-based, which means there's no download and no updating! Whether you're working on Windows, Mac OS or Linux, you can always access your mind maps right inside the web-browser.

#PayPal - Payment System

PayPal is a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. PayPal is one of the world's largest Internet payment companies. In 2015, 28% of the 4.9 billion payments we processed were made on a mobile device. With their 192 million active customer accounts, PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in more than 200 markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 56 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 25 currencies.

#InVision - Web & Mobile Prototyping Tool

They help companies of all sizes unlock the power of design-driven product development. That's why teams at Evernote, Adobe, Airbnb, Salesforce, and many more fire up InVision every day. InVision gives teams the freedom to design, review, and user test products—all without a single line of code. With intuitive tools for prototyping, task management, and version control, it's your entire design process, all in one place.

#Google Analytics - Analytics Tool

Google Analytics is a freemium web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. Google launched the service in November 2005. Google Analytics is now the most widely used web analytics service on the Internet. Google Analytics is offered also in two additional versions: the subscription based Google Analytics 360, previously Google Analytics Premium, targeted at enterprise users and Google Analytics for Mobile Apps, an SDK that allows gathering usage data from iOS and Android Apps.

Business Success Tips for Startups and Small Businesses

Toying around with the idea of starting a company? Worried about things that may go wrong or making the wrong decisions? Did you just start a company but are concerned about how you are doing things? You are not alone, and you definitely are not in unchartered waters.

There are not only many thousands of people just like you who are working on starting their own company or have just launched their company, but there have been thousands of people who were once in your shoes who’ve gone on to grow some wildly successful companies, many of which you probably have heard of or even use on the regular basis.

#Talk to People

It sounds like a given, but a lot of first-time startup founders are actually pretty timid when it comes to putting their ideas out there, either because they don’t want to risk other people stealing them or they fear fellow entrepreneurs will think they’re foolish.

But without talking to people—customers, advisors, experts, potential investors, and the media—you won’t be able to get the feedback you need to make your idea better. The more you talk it through with different types of people, the easier it is to refine it and produce something that will truly resonate with your customers. Your customers’ feedback can help you work through any bugs or imperfections.

#Right Name

You want people to remember your name (be able to recall it). The more readily your name can be recalled, the easier it is for you to expand your reach to users/customers/investors.

In order for a name to be memorable, it should be unambiguous and somehow distinctive. If it sounds like many other names out there, people are not going to recall it (or if they do recall it, they're not going to recall the right one).

So, how do you know if your name is memorable? You don't. That's why you need to test it. Tell people your company name in various contexts (on a website, in an email, in person, on the phone, etc.) — and see if they can recall it a few minutes or a few days later. It takes a bit of work, but it's worth it. The good news is that if your name is not memorable, it'll show up in the data pretty quickly. And, as disheartening is that the name you love just doesn't test well — better to know now than years from now when you have a bunch of equity (emotional and otherwise) invested in it.

What makes a name simple?

1. quicker to type-in (especially on mobile)
2. easier to spell-out to someone over the phone
3. more efficient to include in a tweet (or other “length constrained” channels)
4. simpler to come up with a logo for
5. less likely to be acronymized or otherwise shortened by others

#Choosing The Right Market

It’s easy for startup founders to believe the whole world will love their products. After all, founders eat, sleep and breathe their products. The reality is that only a small portion of the population is interested in your product.

If you try to market your startup to everyone, you waste both time and money. The key is to identify a niche target market and go after market share aggressively.

How do you choose the right market?

1. Market Size – Are you targeting a regional demographic? Female? Children? Age? Know exactly how many potential customers are in your target market.
2. Market Wealth – Does this market have the money to spend on your product?
3. Market Competition – Is the market saturated? As in, are their many competitors?
4. Value Proposition – Is your value proposition unique enough to cut thru the noise?

#Make Customers A High Priority

Though it should go without saying, your customers keep you in business, which means that customer service should be at the top of your priorities. But customers can do more for your business than make purchases. They can also help you to improve your products and services so that your business can thrive. By listening to customer feedback, you too can learn the best ways to improve your products and services to meet your customers' needs.

#Location Still Matters

Even though more businesses are starting out online, your physical location can still be an important factor in the success of your business. If you plan to set up a physical shop, you'll need to go where your target audience is. If you plan to set up an online store, you still need to consider your location, at least for networking and economy purposes.

Here are few questions that can help you decide on the best retail location for your business.

1. Is the facility located in an area zoned for your type of business?
2. Is the facility large enough for your business? Does it offer room for all the retail, office, storage or workroom space you need?
3. Do people you want for customers live nearby? Is the population density of the area sufficient for your sales needs?
4. If you choose a location that's relatively remote from your customer base, will you be able to afford the higher advertising expenses?
5. Is the facility consistent with the image you'd like to maintain?
6. Are neighboring businesses likely to attract customers who will also patronize your business?
7. Are there any competitors located close to the facility? If so, can you compete with them successfully?

#Social Media

Startups tend to choose the social media networks they engage on without much strategy. The two most common mistakes are trying to master every network and trying to master certain networks just because the competition is doing it. If all of your competitors are on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you should be too, right? Maybe, but maybe not.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest and now Instagram, are some of the most popular social networks today. All of them can be great content promotion and community building tools, but they all have unique characteristics. Facebook, for example, is typically powered by your existing customers who enjoy visual posts like pictures and video. Twitter, on the other hand, is often powered by potential customers who respond well to links (e.g. blog links).

Each social network ‘works’ differently, as in, how the community takes, interprets and digests your sharing and content varies. Reddit is often referred to as a very guarded network and detests spammers. Unlike twitter, here you can’t just schedule various messages every day. You can’t just jump on, run some ads and expect people to upvote all your content. Be mindful of the network and community you are trying to reach, it may not be in the social space you first thought.

#Budget

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the money. How much can you afford to spend on your startup marketing strategy? Remember that while inbound marketing leads cost 61% less than outbound marketing leads, they are not free. Set a budget early in the game and accept that limitation.

57% of startup marketing managers are not basing their marketing budgets on any ROI analysis.

More importantly, carefully plan how you intend to divide that budget. Maybe your blog has been your most powerful tool to date and you want to invest 40% of the budget on it. Or maybe you want to spend 35% of the budget to develop a new eBook or online course. Just be sure you have the logistics settled before you start spending (or you might just lose your hat).