Web dev learning to sell. Could use some help with cold calling. Entrepreneur |
- Web dev learning to sell. Could use some help with cold calling.
- Trapped On Groupon
- Has anyone made a living off pressure washing?
- I created myself a prison. I never wanted to go to prison, yet I created one. I hate and love my buisness at the same time. I need help and how to get out of this endless loop I am in. I fear for my health.
- How to Build a SaaS Product in 5 Steps
- Entrepreneurs who have had mentors, what was one thing you learned that you still carry with you to this day? For those of you who haven't had mentors, what could a mentor help you with the most?
- Where to find the best services to outsource?
- Which initial guides to understand how, why and when to acquire businesses?
- best book for online shop?
- AI isn't always a selling point
- I live in British Columbia and I'm wondering what type of business I need to open on my provincial site.
- Here's a tip for aspiring trades-people hoping to start their own service: don't bug clients for tools you forgot to bring to the job.
- Consistent Social Management…
- Pitch me your business ideas that make use of feeless micropayments
- Funding streams for scientific research?
- Putting "Made in China" on the same sticker as the barcode.
- What challenges do you face as an entrepreneur daily?
- Order Management Software for a Growing Small Business
- How will tax exempt forms from buyer affect me as a seller?
- What’s the #1 trait you learned that took a business from 7 to 8 figures
- Seeking Growth
| Web dev learning to sell. Could use some help with cold calling. Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:21 AM PST Hey all, I've been doing web design & development for 3 years now, mostly focusing on my skills and learning to build really nice websites. I've gotten a few clients here and there but want to be actively selling now. My initial thought was to just cold calling businesses in my area, but ik a lot of businesses really don't like random cold calls, I have a script from a couple popular Reddit posts basically just asking to setup a meeting/phone call for the first cold call and going from there to be more in depth and gauge interest. I feel like I could use some help in how to effectively approach a business with cold calling so I don't just seem like another salesy website creator. I really like helping people and want to expand my reach and client base and feel like outbound sales could really help me. So how should I be tackling cold calling local businesses so I can be effective and get their interest without seeming too pushy and salesy? Is it really just a numbers game or what should I make sure I am doing to feel more approachable and helpful and not like I'm just trying to make another sale? Thanks for any input! (X-post from /r/sales) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:49 AM PST So, I run a small day spa. And we do body contouring, massage, etc, etc. My dilemma is, I can't figure out how to stop selling on Groupon. Business right now, unfortunately, is trash (it's just that time of year) so my budget is pretty small...a huge "television and radio" marketing blitz is not in the cards for me at this time. I've done a few social media ads, but all I got were "likes and views" that didn't necessarily translate into dollars. And I don't know what to do to increase business. I've spent thousands of dollars doing morning TV, buying booths at trade shows, flyers..you name it. But I have found out the hard way that Groupon will eventually bankrupt you in the long run. BUT, it's bringing SOME money in so I can't knock it too much. I DO have repeat clients, but they're unwilling/can't afford to pay regular price for my services. So they buy Groupon vouchers over and over again. My question is,with a limited budget, HOW THE HELL DO I GET OFF OF HERE NOW? Please help... [link] [comments] |
| Has anyone made a living off pressure washing? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 07:42 AM PST Looking to start pressure washing as a side hustle for now. I have all the equipment and am going to make business cards. Going to hustle really hard. Only downside I work 12 hours a day but have my weekends off, so that would be the only time I would be able to do it. Has anyone made a living off of doing something similar? Is it possible? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2022 08:13 PM PST I am a 33 years old buisness owner (second buisness first one failed and did bankrupcy) from Québec (french so sorry for the bad english). The buisness is a mix of uber/amazon for the residential home services. Think home avisor 2.0. My model is better...wayyyy better... just dont have the human ressources and money to push the "vision". I also need to say before starting that my main qualities are my creativity and perseverance. You will understand why I add this. First of all let me say that my buisness is going well...money wise. I built it from nothing and now I have like 80 employees. I have 2 kids, a loving wife that works with me. Before you say delegate, my buisness is delegated, only thing missing is some kind of CEO for R&D (which is what I do 90% of the time and it pretty impossible right now to replace me, the simple taught of learning HubSpot, dispatch software, all the jobs of everyone, reports etc makes me want to vomit). So what my problem ? Well I am always in one of these 2 states : 1 - Blow it up man and take the money and do NFT or something chill with no responsabilities 2 - Expand until you reach higher than Icarus did I cant go in between, it either nothing or everything. I am also a perfectionnist and super creative which makes me see upgrades to do everywhere forever and it drives me mad. And this buisness is killing me because I used to be a 155lb 12% fat super cardio guy that dont drink, dont take caffeine, dont smoke or anything. Now this "prison" is making me drink while working, smoke (never smoked until 33 years old), take caffeine and I even did benzo. I am 170lb and no muscles, just à skinny dad boby and it making me crazy. Since I want my health back I am in a constant state of withdrawal of...everything...because I want to stop bad...but then the job/responsabilities make me fuck my body up again. Eternal cycle of withdrawal. I just feel like I created myself a prison. I hate my buisness and I love it at the same time. I became a millionnaire all by myself with no help coming from a poor background. But now I feel like I maybe did the wrong thing. No amount of success / money / fame etc. = Health + Time My health is still ok (I do all the blood test / take my heartbeat 100x times a day / pressure everything) and signs...say I will live...for now...but I feel like something bad is just around the corner. If someone told me what my ideal life was now...I would say Socrates....chill...think....talk. Now I am the opposite of that. I pushed this thing to far. And of course I realize the obvious..."hey just slow down"...Well i tried...30 times +... i just come back to full expansion after...then full destruction....then I say ok we cant destroy it let slow down...I try it...then the cycle restart all over again. I want time + health + feeling god damn normal. I cant do my day without taking a fuckload of stuff. I dont train anymore, i dont see friends anymore etc. All this for what ? Money ? I dont even have time or the énergy to spend it. And yes while the really little time I had on vacations I was sober of everything / fasted / trained... the whole super health package. I get back to work ? Where is my vape and Captain Morgan. Sorry for the rant guys...I just dont know what to do...I want out and not at the same time. What do I do ? I am going crazy and if I am gone more than 2 weeks it starts to implode...even if it delegated. It like when I am there and work the delagted part works well because I am there to check...the delegated tasks..but when I am not the delegated stuff start to go to shit...makes no sense. What do I do ? [link] [comments] |
| How to Build a SaaS Product in 5 Steps Posted: 04 Feb 2022 04:27 AM PST The SaaS industry is now worth over $145B worldwide – which is no surprise, considering 99% of global organisations use at least one SaaS product. With the popularity of SaaS increasing, I wanted to share the exact framework we use at Altar to help the entrepreneurs we work with build SaaS products. Let's get right into it with the first step, finding your SaaS product's value proposition. Step One: Your SaaS Product's Value Proposition There's no point building something nobody wants. Therefore, before writing a line of code you need to define what value your SaaS product will bring to the market. We've developed a structured process to answer this question and ensure you build an innovative, user-centric solution:
The first step is to identify the problem you're trying to solve. After all, how do you know what value you're bringing if you don't first know the problem behind your SaaS product?
Once you've identified what you intend to solve, you need to know who you're solving it for. This may seem obvious, but actively identifying your users is a critical step in ensuring your SaaS product is valuable. You should get to know them in terms of demographics, psychology and observed behaviour. You will eventually have to build UX Personas, so any research you do now will certainly help you down the road.
Without a doubt, there is some kind of solution in your market already, even if the competitor behind that solution is an indirect one. For example, Henry Ford created the world's first mass-produced car – putting the "world on wheels". It would be easy to say that he had no competition. However, people were solving the problem of getting from A to B before the Model T hit the market. They were using horses. So as indirect as it may be, there was still competition in Ford's market. Most likely, your target market already has a way to solve the problem you intend to tackle. It's important to know both how they're solving it and who is solving it for them.
Now you know how the problem you're tackling is being solved, and who is solving it, it's vital to outline how your product is better than those solutions.
You're going to be asking your market to drop their current solution to adopt yours – so you need to be able to give them a reason to do so.
The last stage in preparing your SaaS product for development is to sum up your value proposition in an easy-to-digest elevator pitch. Here's a template to help you get started: [Name of your SaaS product] has been created for [your target stakeholders] who [state the problem they face]. [Name of your SaaS product] is a [statement of its key value]. Unlike current solutions we [explain what differentiates you from the alternatives]. Your elevator pitch should be simple, stupid and crystal clear. The person reading or hearing this elevator pitch should instantly know what your value is and why your SaaS product is worth adopting. Once you have that, you're ready for step two: setting the assumptions you need to validate with your SaaS product. Step Two: Set the Main Assumptions You Need to Validate The next step is to assess the assumptions you're making about your target market and the problems they face. For example, Slack assumed that businesses wanted an all-in-one online platform for workplace communication when they first developed their SaaS product. Create a list of all the assumptions you have surrounding your product. Once you've done this, it's time to validate them. Start by researching the current solutions to find the assumptions that have already been validated. To go back to the Slack example, they already knew that people were looking for a solution to communicate online because of email providers and file transfer solutions such as dropbox. Once you've identified the "pre-validated" assumptions, check them off the list. Next, you need to define which assumptions can only be tested/validated through building a SaaS product. For example, Slack needed to prove that there was a demand for a hub that allowed teams to not just communicate but collaborate online. Once you've defined which assumptions need to be validated with a product, you should also identify the KPIs to measure whether or not your assumptions are true. This could be adoption rates, retention ratio, etc. With this information in hand, you're ready for the next step: build something that validates those assumptions as quickly as possible. Step Three: Validate Your Assumptions As Quickly As Possible With your list of assumptions and elevator pitch in hand, it's time to create the list of features to build into the first version of your SaaS product. Going down your list of assumptions, define what feature(s) are needed to validate them. Then cross-reference this with your elevator pitch to ensure that those features showcase your value proposition. Leave any features that do not validate your assumptions or showcase your value proposition for later iterations. For example, Slack needed to give users the ability to send direct messages, group messages, share links and upload/download files to showcase their value proposition. They didn't, however, need to give users the ability to integrate with other apps such as Trello or Google Drive. While the ability to integrate third-party apps is undoubtedly useful, they don't prove or disprove the key assumptions behind Slack's value proposition. Therefore, Slack built them later, after they'd proven that people wanted their product. This step should leave you with a concise set of features that put solving your users' problems first. Once you have them, you're ready to move on to the first stage of developing your SaaS product: choosing the right tech stack. Step Four: Choosing Your SaaS Product's Tech Stack There are several popular technologies that are used in many SaaS products. For the frontend, modern Javascript frameworks such as React, Angular or Vue.js are commonly used. In terms of backend development, it's normal to see Node.js or Django. These have risen in popularity as they're lightweight, allow for high performance at a lower cost and set the company up to scale with more ease. The next addition to your tech stack will be a database. These hold all the necessary information for your SaaS product. Popular databases include PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, to name but a few. Finally, you will need a SaaS hosting provider. Any reliable cloud provider will do the trick here. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and Microsoft are all popular due to their reliability, flexibility and, critically, security. With these being the most popular stacks for SaaS products, most likely the talent pools within them will be larger. This means, if you choose one of the above stacks, you'll probably have an easier time onboarding talent vs. the less popular stacks. To make a more informed decision on the specific stack you should use, I would first recommend learning the basics of tech before having these conversations to ensure you are able to make the decision from an educated perspective. Remember, technical decisions at this stage are also business decisions. Then, I recommended doing some further research by looking at your competitors. If they're already succeeding in your chosen industry, most likely they're using the correct tech stack for the job. On top of that, ask any technical Jedi contacts you have what stack they would recommend. You can even reach out to a software development company to ask them what they would propose building it in. Most reputable agencies will happily do this free of charge. Just keep in mind that anyone you ask may have their biases (especially if they want to work with you). Once you've identified the tech stack you think is right for you, it's time to find some top talent developers to help you build it. Step Five: Building Your SaaS Product Development Team When it comes to finding the right technical stakeholders to build your SaaS product, you have three options. You can:
In short, my advice here is that: If you're able to find the right CTO/Technical Co-Founder from day one, then you should onboard them and never look back. Having a senior tech stakeholder on your team to deal with both building your SaaS product and growing your technical team is, undoubtedly, invaluable. That being said, the process to find the right person for the job can take a long time. I've seen founders spend months looking for a CTO/Technical Co-Founder only to come up empty-handed. With time-to-market always being a concern, many entrepreneurs will instead choose to build the first version of their product with freelance developers or a software development agency. My Co-Founder recently sat down with CTO & Startup Advisor Nelly Yusupova to discuss this exact problem. With nearly two decades of experience in the tech industry, she shared her thoughts on the topic and the notion of earning a technical co-founder. "What you do is you build the first version of your product and build a community around your idea. This not only shows off your marketing skills, it proves you're not just an idea person but you can actually sell and market the product. To build the product itself, you're going to want to go with an agency or a team of freelance developers. This is the fastest way to actually get your idea into the market so that you can get traction and essentially de-risk the opportunity for a potential technical co-founder. By showing them you're more than just an idea person, it changes the conversation from "I need you!" to "Here's a great opportunity!" If you go down this route, just make sure you know what you're getting yourself into with both options. Should you decide to work with freelancers, just keep in mind that you will be responsible for managing the team. This can be a massive challenge for a non-technical entrepreneur – especially when you have all of the business aspects of your startup to take into account. More than that, it's vital to ensure that the technical stakeholders you onboard follow the best working practices. If the partner you work with doesn't follow the industry standard, you could face problems down the road with user experience, scalability, security and reliability to name a few. This also applies if you choose to work with a software development company. With over 15,000 software agencies listed online, the main challenge here is separating the wheat from the chaff. Choose the wrong partner, and things can go bad very quickly, something I've seen first hand. I've worked with entrepreneurs who worked with bad agencies before coming to us to help them build their products. In the worst cases, we've had to scrap their entire codebase (sometimes months of work) and start again. This is simply due to the fact that the agency they worked with didn't use the best working practices. Our team simply couldn't untangle the spaghetti of code they had written and it had to be trashed. This mistake is costly both in terms of time and money – and not all entrepreneurs have the luxury of affording a second chance. That's not to say you can't build a successful SaaS product with an agency. You just have to make sure you do your due diligence and choose the right partner for the job. Aside from ensuring that the technical stakeholder you choose follows the best working practices, there is one final element to take into account: It's critical that the technical stakeholder you choose aligns with your product and business vision. This applies to CTOs, freelancers and agencies alike. For sure you're never going to agree with your technical stakeholder 100% of the time. However, you need to align on the big picture. There's no point in onboarding someone to help you build your SaaS product if they don't align on it's being built. Once you've found the right technical stakeholders, built and rigorously tested your SaaS product, it's time to move on to the next step – the launch. Originally posted here: https://altar.io/how-to-build-a-saas-product/ Wrapping Up If you're setting out to develop a SaaS product, this guide will give you all the tools you need to get started. I will leave you with the advice I give all the entrepreneurs I work with and advice when they set out to build their startup products. Before writing a line of code, ensure that your product is truly valuable to the market you intend to tackle. Then, once you've defined the blueprint for your SaaS product in a way that puts the user first, ensure you get talented people to build it. Whether you choose a CTO, a team of freelance developers, or an agency, make sure they follow the best working practices. More importantly, ensure they align with your product and business vision and get behind the "why" of your SaaS product. Thanks for reading and good luck!! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2022 10:43 PM PST |
| Where to find the best services to outsource? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:33 AM PST I think many of us are in need of web design, copywriting, marketing, logos and all other things in order to present your product to your future customers. It is the first time that I am looking to get someone to help me with these things, as I am not able to spend the time doing these things myself and if I do, probably do those things mediocre What are your go-to places or people, that help you with these services? I did spend quite some hours now browsing fiverr and twitter, trying to find anything. Most things I have found were upsell tweets to sell a course or fiverrs stealing other artists content or it being the same repetitive content. [link] [comments] |
| Which initial guides to understand how, why and when to acquire businesses? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:50 AM PST I know this is a deep topic, but i do not necessarily want to jump in with an 800 page Oxford textbook. I want to learn how companies, including consulting companies, value potential acquisitions. I have an interview for a position that is tangibly related to this topic and i want to have some insights must a question arrive. I have an MBA, but those classes are from decades ago. Any help on guides or books i could read in a few days would be helpful. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:11 AM PST My boyfriend started an online shop about 6 months ago selling goods and it has been doing fairly well, I would love to get him a book about being an online entrepreneur and how to help grow his business. Does anyone have any book recommendations? Thank you! [link] [comments] |
| AI isn't always a selling point Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:39 AM PST Before I go on, let me be the first to say that I'm making a couple of hundred a month and as such I'm far from being an expert in all things business. I'm here to learn just like everybody else. As an ex freelance copywriter, though, I think I've found some value I can add to the discussion for a change: I'm seeing a trend from a lot of new ventures (particularly SaaS startups) that are using the fact that they rely on AI as a USP. When you've coded your own SaaS, you want to show off to the world how sophisticated the back-end is and how many hours of work went into getting it all running smoothly. Unfortunately, in the case of AI, this can actually be harming the perceived value of your business. Not always, of course; if you're selling a trading bot and point out that the AI is faster at making decisions than any human on the planet then you've got a winner. However, if you've got - for example's sake - a SaaS that reviews the SEO on every blog post on your client's website but uses AI to do so, then it's best not to lean into the AI too much in the marketing. The problem is twofold:
Are you accidentally cheapening your brand? I'm not for one second suggesting that you get rid of the AI - but I personally would hold off from mentioning it unless I was sure it was helping my appeal. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:30 AM PST Can you separate bank accounts with a sole proprietorship? Or do I need a corporation to do that? Is it even necessary to apply to my government for a business license or can I just open a separate business bank account? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:30 AM PST Have worked with two contractors over the last few weeks to get my house fixed up. One contractor was a roofer, one was a painter. The roofer was first. He did a good job but when cleanup time came... he brought zero brooms for his crew. Rather than taking some of the $12K I paid him, going to the Lowes home center two blocks away, and buying a bunch of brooms and dustpans like a professional would do, the company owner asked if he could borrow every single broom I had in my house. The painter was next and he is small-time, working by himself. Charged me $5K to to paint my house and wanted $1K upfront. Paid him that no problem. He's halfway through the project and has, every day so far, asked to borrow some of my simple tools to help his work. Lying to his face that I had no tools to lend was painful because he can clearly see my giant tool boxes which I store in the backyard, right where he is working, but it was a necessary lie. He later "borrowed" a pair of my gardening gloves I had in the backyard without asking. If you're an entrepreneur you've got to be smart. You've got to have the tools for the job, know how to use the tools for the job, and be able to find unexpected tools for unexpected problems. Your tools for success could be a hammer, Excel, a niche hire, a crane, a business dinner, purchasing an entirely different company or product for vertical or horizontal integration, etc. But don't nag your clients -- it doesn't look good. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:23 AM PST Hello, Looking for alternatives to Hootsuite. Although I appreciate the 1 platform connecting to numerous social platforms, the consistency of 1 post across the numerous accounts is frustrating. Any other options? Here are my stress points: -Hootsuite branding across my accts.. -Image/video tagging (can't do it from Hootsuite) -@ tagging (inconsistent between IG, FB and Twitter) I cannot post like this @contentpartner @Contentpartner @contentPartner to cover 1 partner across their socials. -Scheduling (gotta have it for sanity) All of this is relatively easy to fix/overcome for 1 post across all socials individually. The problem is, i have 8 brands and I don't have time everyday to manually 'fix' 1 post across every acct. Especially when I'm paying a 3rd party monthly to avoid it all together. Any assistance or recommendations would be helpful! I do have a social media 'manager' but would like to trim down this process so he can focus more on the actual content scheduled to post rather than a process ripe for automation. [link] [comments] |
| Pitch me your business ideas that make use of feeless micropayments Posted: 03 Feb 2022 08:48 PM PST If you could implement a payment processor for your business that charged 0 fees and allowed you to send and receive microtransactions to/from anyone in the world instantly, what would you build? I want to know the first thoughts that come to your mind. I'll leave my thoughts on the subject in the comments below. The software to build this kind of platform does now exist, and after discovering a video recently on this topic (https://youtu.be/1zcz1aqBaHo) I've been inspired to start thinking of ideas. Feeless micropayments opens up new use cases that haven't been discovered yet. I want to build something in the micropayments space and would love to cofound it with members from this sub. Let's make a success story - and we'll build it all publicly starting from the start. "You/someone is going to steal my idea". No, don't be paranoid. None of us can do it alone but if we work together we can make a company overnight. I got the marketing dept covered 👨✈️ edit: i would like to clarify that we need to look for new use cases that only feeless microtransactions can solve, not taking existing models and converting them [link] [comments] |
| Funding streams for scientific research? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:16 AM PST I'm looking for information on how research stations are paid. I'm sure most of its grants but I'm searching for $ data on research streams from sensitive equipment. For example, boats/ocean structures or Arctic stations collecting temperature, CO2 levels, light, video etc. I think that trash-collecting ocean sweeper thing even has sensor on it that they sell data from. Obviously I'm not plugged into the community so I'm try to find where to start looking [link] [comments] |
| Putting "Made in China" on the same sticker as the barcode. Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:13 AM PST Hi everyone... So I have found myself in a situation where I have to repackage a lot of goods and I'm trying to save time by putting the "Made in China" requirement on the UPC sticker instead of having 2 separate stickers. Does anyone know what the smallest font requirement is for this? Also, can I just put this above or below the barcode and it will be ok? Does it matter if some of the barcode is removed? I can obviously test it with my phone to see if still scans, but I'm wondering if anyone know about this. I have to send the product to Amazon, so it would be based on their requirements I suppose. [link] [comments] |
| What challenges do you face as an entrepreneur daily? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:12 AM PST I am curious about what challenges you face as an entrepreneur daily? [link] [comments] |
| Order Management Software for a Growing Small Business Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:06 AM PST Hey All, My company has started to grow steadily over the past 5 years. We've been in business for over 25 years but didn't increase revenue much until the last 5. We operate as B2B with no online sales, provide onsite service and issue RMAs for in house service and repair on our equipment. We currently use QB desktop for accounting purposes and separate company files for quoting and ordering. All order and PO numbers are generated through separate excel workbooks. Looking for suggestions for software to help integrate our order entry, purchasing, RMA, shipping logs etc that can be accessed on the cloud if possible. Any suggestions will be much appreciated! [link] [comments] |
| How will tax exempt forms from buyer affect me as a seller? Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:48 AM PST I'm from the states and one of my customers want to submit a tax exempt form since the product they are purchasing from me will be for resale. How will this form affect me? Any help is appreciated! [link] [comments] |
| What’s the #1 trait you learned that took a business from 7 to 8 figures Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:45 AM PST As well as, what actions have stifled the business to stagnate when it could have thrived further? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:22 AM PST Hello all! My wife and I have been running a small two person print shop in a smallish town (30k permanent residences), for about 8 years now. As of this week we have bought out the family that owned the business to make it our own. We have been trying to come up with new ideas in order to get more business and or anything we can offer our customers that is easy to run but has a decent mark up percentage. As for some of the printers we have they are as follows: two Oce Plotwaves for large format b&w, a Canon large format color plotter, HP Z9 photo printer, Roland VG-640, and a few small format production based copiers. We have a decent amount of capability, but looking to see what we can do to gain more business over the next few years. Would love to hear other people's stories and how they have made it throughout the years and what has and has not worked for them! [link] [comments] |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Entrepreneur. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment