Time management techniques reduce managerial stress and enable more effective output. In business, time is essential; therefore, it’s critical to utilize it wisely. A strong leader is necessary for managers and administrators, not by doing all the work yourself but by supporting your team and being available when they need you.

Delegation of tasks may seem simple, and those who are good at it often make it seem that way, but successful delegation calls on a lot of trusts, communication, and cooperation. However, your team benefits if you master and execute the delegation process well. This blog post will explore the science of delegation and how you can use it to your advantage!

Why Is It Important to Delegate?

As an effective leader, you can’t and shouldn’t do everything yourself; therefore, delegation is crucial. Your staff will be more empowered by delegation, and it will also foster trust and professional growth.

Additionally, it teaches leaders how to choose the most qualified to take on particular jobs or essential projects. Of course, assigning responsibilities to others can reduce your workload.

One benefit is that those who work for you will be able to learn new skills and expand their knowledge, preparing them for future roles with greater responsibility.

Delegation can also serve as a strong indication of your regard for and confidence in your employees’ judgment. Employee dedication to their work, their organization, and especially their bosses is generally higher when they feel trusted and valued.

Suppose you’re a team leader, an entrepreneur, or in a comparable power position. In that case, delegation will be crucial to maximizing your output and maintaining your sanity when working under pressure or with a heavy workload.

The issue is that many business owners and leaders are unable to delegate effectively or unwilling to do so unless necessary. Like any other talent, a delegation of work can be learned and developed over time.

Delegation can also serve as a strong indication of your regard for and confidence in your employees’ judgment. Employee dedication to their work, their organization, and especially their bosses is generally higher when they feel trusted and valued.

In the workplace, delegation is giving someone else tasks to accomplish to finish a stated job, project, or procedure.

Every company and region of the world uses delegation. Whenever groups of individuals work together on projects, whether in the public or private sector, some delegation will take place to synchronize workloads and streamline timelines.

Why is it crucial to improve your delegation techniques and become a better delegator? It is a must in your professional life to communicate assignments and explain the reasons outlined in the description above.

However, the interpersonal dynamics used when delegating work are not as simple. When done correctly, you enable your staff to operate at peak efficiency and wellbeing. Things aren’t so pretty when they’re done incorrectly.

Honor Everyone’s Time

Effective delegation shortens emails, keeps video and conference calls on schedule, and only includes the necessary parties in loops during meetings. People who use it create communication environments that are far more effective and respect employees’ time.

Today, it would not be easy to find someone who doesn’t value their time as one of their most valuable commodities. Time is respected by the more effective delegation in any setting, communicating with precision, brevity, and purpose.

Reduce Micromanaging

One of the most prevalent inappropriate managerial behaviors that employees encounter is micromanaging. These so-called “helicopter” managers micromanage for a variety of reasons. Some people are firmly convinced that for something to be done correctly, they must do it themselves.

Others might be inexperienced in managerial roles and be completely oblivious that they are micromanaging. Others engage in micromanagement for less altruistic purposes, mistrusting the skills and time managing of their staff members, giving only their ideas a top priority, or looking for opportunities to claim credit for others’ work.

Delegation equips direct subordinates with the knowledge and resources they need to complete their work before letting them operate independently.

Decrease Conflicts

An effective delegation offers all the knowledge and specifics required for a given delegated task or project management. Additionally, it provides project benchmarks and guarantees that expectations are in line from the start, without surprises or misunderstandings.

As a result, teams struggle to fill in the process gaps left by their management with less internal and external disagreement. Everyone is aware of their responsibilities inside a given task and when they must complete them by removing frictional process limbos.

Uphold Employee Engagement

Effective delegation promotes and strengthens employee buy-in. According to research, managers that assign routine, goal-oriented, or value-adding tasks to their staff members improve the likelihood that the job will be of a higher caliber.

Giving direct reports meaningful work is also an essential strategy for mentoring staff members, developing their skill sets, highlighting their inherent abilities, and making them feel indispensable.

Maintain the Organizational Architecture

Delegation done well keeps communication processes compatible with the entire organizational structure. It enables staff members to know who to speak with about issues or queries, where to go, and how to be more productive.

Significant Reasons Why Leaders Won’t Delegate

Most of the time, the causes of the lousy delegation are more complex. Some leaders struggle with delegation because they are control-freaks who can’t let go of the reigns of power.

Lack of Bandwidth

Low bandwidth is a common cause of leadership failure in the delegation. Leaders cannot raise their heads in time to determine what has to be done and who can do it.

When they delegate tasks, they frequently do it at the wrong level or without clear instructions since they don’t have a clear line of sight. Their attempts at delegation are therefore more likely to fail.

They Are Too Scared to Fail

Leaders afraid of failing may cling to their tasks and refuse to delegate tasks effectively. To be sure that the job is completed to the appropriate standard, they believe they must assume leadership and directly deliver the assignment.

Some bosses say, “Do it yourself if you want it done right.” That’s a productivity trap. When managers behave this way, they end up “hoarding” their work and refusing to share it with their workforce.

Lack of Trust in Their Team Members

Many bosses find it difficult to believe in their employees. You’re not necessarily wrong if you don’t believe in your team. But if you want to provide duties to your team members, you must address those trust difficulties.

What you want to prevent is making your team’s lack of trust become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you believe it, and they start to believe it.

Lack of Know-How

The lack of expertise is the actual issue for certain executives. They can perhaps be unpracticed. They could not have learned how to delegate effectively (e.g., never had a good role model demonstrating this capacity).

Fear of Reputation Risk

Some managers refrain from delegating work out of concern about their reputation. Some executives worry that assigning tasks to team members would be interpreted as a sign of laziness or downloading work. Some team leaders fear that team members’ efforts won’t meet their standards.

When They Love the Detail

Some folks adore working on the details. Many managers or senior executives enjoy obsessing over minor details rather than considering the strategic aspects of their positions.

Being constantly preoccupied with the details has the drawback of making it very tough to let go. You’ll find it harder to delegate responsibility once you start obsessing over the little things someone else should be thinking.

Not Getting Credit

Everyone relishes occasionally basking in well-deserved acclaim. In fact, for some people, receiving praise is what keeps them going and motivates them. A great leader, however, is prepared to share the glory.

It exhibits humility, a sense of teamwork, and a servant-leadership style of leadership. You are genuinely communicating that you are more important than the potential team you have gathered around yourself when you cease releasing others to lead, manage, or “do” because you desire the pack on the back.

Delegated Out of a Job

Now and again, leaders could worry that they might lose their jobs if they delegate their responsibilities. First, perhaps that is accurate.

You can only presume that it’s for the best if that is the case. It may be time to follow the Lord’s guidance for you and the organization if others can perform your task more effectively.

Second, and this is more likely to be the case, you frequently demonstrate your value to your bosses if you can successfully delegate work and leadership to others. Delegators are leaders that excellent organizational leaders never want to lose.

Losing The Tasks I Love

This is a trickier justification for not delegating work. On the one hand, it may be selfish for leaders to reserve their essential tasks.

Often, for themselves and the team to advance, leaders must give up.

On the other hand, they may enjoy performing certain activities since they do them naturally. A person is not automatically called to lead the team or run the department just because they are a good sales representative, assistant pastor, or secretary.

Inability to Mentor and Train Team

Finally, some leaders don’t do an excellent job with training. Despite being incredibly talented, they have trouble helping their team members become competent.

How to Determine When to Delegate

The fact that leaders are unsure of which specific tasks they should and shouldn’t be delegating is another major obstacle to delegation. There are probably particular tasks you should handle yourself and tasks you should delegate in every manager’s job, especially for novice managers.

Performing an audit of your tasks using the guidelines below will help you determine which of them can be assigned to someone else:

• Tiny: Tiny jobs are minute tasks that can be finished quickly but accumulate over time. An assistant may arrange meetings, reserve flights for professional travel, or clear your inbox of spam and marketing communications.
• Tedious: Mindless chores, like uploading lead information from your marketing automation program to your CRM, are considered tedious tasks. Tedious chores are simple to delegate and don’t require much talent.
• Time-consuming: Time-consuming tasks allow dividing the work into smaller segments and assigning parts to other members. If you frequently complete time-consuming work, look for chances to delegate aspects of it to others.

• Teachable: Do you have any tackle tasks you could teach someone else to accomplish without much difficulty? A task is a good candidate for delegation if it is teachable and does not require knowledge you possess alone.
• Terrible: You may lack design abilities, and it takes you six times as long as a professional designer to make the visuals for your blog entries. Assigning that duty to someone with the necessary skills to complete it efficiently is preferable.
• Time-sensitive: Perhaps it would be best to handle every duty associated with a time-sensitive project, but if you won’t have enough time to do it that way, it’s time to find ways to assign some of that task to other team members.

You might also want to consider passing down things that you enjoy performing but are no longer required to undertake for your job.

It’s time to delegate and train the person who will carry out those responsibilities for you if you recently assumed a leadership position and have pet projects from your time as an individual contributor.

How to Delegate Tasks Effectively

1. Learn to Let Go

Inability to let go of their work is the main issue that most new bosses and leaders encounter. Sometimes they are so committed to doing their work that they won’t accept assistance from any team member.

Other times, they worry that no one else possesses the knowledge or skills required to complete the task successfully. Whatever the situation, learning to let go should be your top goal. Delegate only the most minor responsibilities first, then gradually work your way up.

Improve trust between you and your coworkers by getting to know your team better. If you want your team to succeed, start small and realize that eventually, you will have to let go of your task.

2. Establish a Firm Priority System

Start creating a task prioritizing system as part of the letting process. Create at least five categories based on the amount of effort and skill required for a job, understanding that this system will change depending on your experience, industry, and the tasks you often manage.

Tasks in the lowest skill categories can be delegated to others, while those in the highest ones should be kept on your plate.

Inability to let go of their work is the main issue that most new bosses and leaders encounter. Sometimes they are so committed to doing their work that they won’t accept assistance from any team member.

You should be able to choose which activities to delegate based on their level of work. For instance, assigning someone else the responsibility for a task that requires a lot of effort but little expertise will free up your time.

You can better comprehend the nature of your responsibilities and assign them to others if you establish a strict prioritization system.

3. Play to Your Workers’ Strengths

It would be best to become an adept leader by getting to know your team members’ quirks. Every person has strengths and limitations, as well as a current and potential variety of talents that you should be aware of.

Consider your team while delegating, and provide the assignment to the person with the most applicable talents. It might sound like a no-brainer, but far too often, bosses assign tasks to whoever is most accessible or has the least workload.

Also crucial is maintaining consistency. For instance, giving the same person the same kind of work over time will improve that person’s aptitude for that work.

4. Always Include Instructions

Even if the procedure for the task seems apparent to you, be sure to send instructions with every assignment. Include any particular instructions you have for how the work should be completed. Make sure everyone knows about any deadlines or milestones you have to meet.

You can avoid most communication breakdowns by providing clear directions up front, enabling your responsibilities to be completed successfully. It’s a proactive approach that you and your staff will value.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Teach New Skills

A task on your to-do list can still be delegated even if someone on your team lacks the skills to do it. Don’t be hesitant to teach as part of the delegating process because most abilities can be learned, though some more readily than others.

Consider it an investment even if assigning your first few duties will take longer than it would save you (as you’ll need to train your chosen employee). By imparting those skills, you’ll pave the way for future delegation of all comparable tasks to that person, ultimately saving more time than you did during instruction.

6. Trust, but Verify

Once a task has been assigned, put your teammate’s execution of it in their capable hands. It will enable the individual to approach the work however they feel is most effective.

Nevertheless, don’t be reluctant to intervene to ensure that the task proceeds as intended. For instance, if you gave a student an assignment a week ago that is due tomorrow, you can trust that they are on top of things, but you should still send a quick confirmation email to ensure they aren’t having any problems.

Doing this may increase respect and trust among your team members and eliminate communication or comprehension gaps.

Conclusion: How Delegation May Help You Get More Done in Less Time

Consider attempting a relay race all by yourself. That wouldn’t be very effective. Because it’s a team event, everyone gets to pass the baton and shoulder the load. Even the team leader knows how crucial it is to ensure everyone does their job. Without delegation of tasks, a relay race is just a losing endeavor.

Effectively Delegating requires a delicate balance, which is no easy task. Many professionals struggle to manage team ownership throughout their career phases without taking control of the teams or projects. Although there is an understandable tug-of-war, time may resolve it, effort, and the patient’s desire to try some new things.

These best practices for delegation use organizational and social psychology to help you divide work among your team more efficiently while also introducing more critical project management and process changes.

The post The Science of Task Delegation: How to Get More Done in Less Time appeared first on Startup Oasis.

When these companies began building, they would have raised money from their network – close friends and family and a small number of investors willing to give these pioneering tech companies money to build their companies from their garages.

Imagine being one of those early-stage investors, giving Steve Jobs or Bill Gates as little as $100, $1000, or $20,000 to build their respective companies. The return of such an investment would be extraordinary.

But are the Microsofts and Apples of next year still out there today? Is it possible to still find such unicorns in today’s saturated marketplace, and if so, should you invest in them?

As an entrepreneur, do you know how to find investors? Or how to pitch to others for them to break out the checkbook and support your venture?

This article aims to answer these questions and guide you down the path of what it takes to invest in startups in 2021 and why the next trillion-dollar company may still be out there.

While it may be part of your strategy to diversify your portfolio by increasing the amount of equity you hold in multiple businesses, investing involves some risks.

The Basics of Investing in Startups

When discussing the true basics of investing in startups, it’s important to understand that when you invest in a startup, you essential agree to be bound to the company for the long term, whether that business succeeds or not.

While it may be part of your strategy to diversify your portfolio by increasing the amount of equity you hold in multiple businesses, investing involves some risks.

Research into the startups your planning on investing in is key, while building a network of accredited investors can help you identify companies worth putting your money into and those that are not.

Early Stage Startup Investing

When startups raise money, they traditionally go through rounds of funding. Series A, B, C, D, and so on.

Often, when a startup moves through the rounds, the amount of capital raised increases as the company grows along with its value.

As an accredited investor, you will have to wait for startups to open these seed rounds before you can invest your hard-earned cash. However, it may still be possible to invest in startups before seed rounds.

If you directly know the founder, friend, or family member, you can invest in startups initially. Just make sure you draw up a term sheet and go through the proper channels with the securities and exchange commission before investing.

You can also contact a registered broker-dealer before investing. These brokers may give you early access to startups in their network but are likely to take a cut of any deal they help to make.

Is It Only Limited To Venture Capital?

No way, Jose.

While venture capital is the money-burning machine behind all of silicon valley’s most successful businesses, individual investors can also invest in a business they feel is worth trading cash for equity.

The internet has also made it much easier for the average investor to invest in startups all across the globe. Crowdfunding sites such as Indigogo and Kickstarter have made it possible for companies to raise capital from the public.

While most of these investments don’t trade money for equity, they often give perks to their earlier investors by offering future discounts on products or first refusal to invest for equity later.

Invest In Founders Building The Future

One of the major trends in startup investing is to bet on the future. Electric cars, AI technology, Clean Energy, and Fintech are hot topics in the venture capital and funding space.

Subscribe to newsletters like “The Hustle” and “Morning Brew” to keep on top of trends in the finance and investment world. You can even sign up to “WeFunder,” whose opening salvo on their website is “Invest in founders building the future.”

There are also a whole host of blogs available on the net. Ones that profile founders, companies, and offer investment opportunities that could provide offerings.

These can also help keep you on top of exciting fundraising opportunities for you to join and get involved in the early stages of a company.

Easier Diversification

A common trait of most Angel investors is that they like to diversify. Diversification is necessary for spreading your risk throughout an investment portfolio. Investors like to be risk-averse, and investments that prove too risky can force investors to pull out or not invest at all.

However, even if an investment looks like a home run, things can easily turn south – look what happened to businesses and startups during the pandemic.

Startups provide an easy way for investors to diversify their portfolios. Using the sites listed below, which require minimum investment amounts of between $100-$1000, investors can easily spread the risk of their portfolios across various startups.

With the general rule that 4 out of 5 startups are likely to fail, investors should consider investing in several companies while only putting up money they can afford to lose.

How Much Can You Invest?

All non-accredited investors are limited to how much they can actually invest in a startup. These guidelines are in place to protect people from investing money they can’t afford to lose into risky investments.

According to the securities and exchange commission (SEC) guidelines, there is a maximum amount you can invest into crowdfunding ventures during a 12 month period:

• If your annual income or net worth is less than $107,000, you can invest up to $2,200 or 5% of your annual income or net worth.
• If your annual income and your net worth are equal to or more than $107,000, you can invest up to 10% of your annual income or net worth, whichever is less. This amount, however, cannot exceed $107,000.

Some investors may think this is unfair; however, just because they have the money does not mean they should go all-in on any startup investment.

In fact, when it comes to investing in anything when building an investment portfolio – stocks, bonds, an IPO, startups, real estate – the golden rule is not to invest what you aren’t comfortable losing.

Startups are a risky business, with many not achieving the success investors believe they can. If the startup you invest in goes bankrupt, you don’t want your life savings tied up in it.

When investing in startups, it’s recommended to first, of course, do your due diligence on any investment.

Generally speaking, you should look to diversify and spread your risk. Experts recommend making several small investments first, rather than just making one big investment in one startup.

Don’t put all your eggs in one startup basket.

Before you invest, if you’re unsure about which companies to give your capital to, seek out investment advice first.

This can come on an investment platform -listed below – where you can communicate with other angel investors first and work out what investment opportunities are worth exploring.

There really is no earning ceiling for any startup for what you can return; it really depends on whether you have the stomach for it or not.

How To Make Money In Startup Investing

When investing in a startup using a crowdfunding platform such as AngelList or WeFunder, you enter into an investment contract with the company you intend to fund.

Before doing this, it’s necessary to understand the 4 different types of contracts, all of which offer different ways to make money from the capital you invested.

1. Debt – When startups take your capital in the form of a loan, you can earn interest on that loan. Depending on the contract, the investment may pay out a fixed or a variable return. However, interest payments are only paid depending on the performance of the startup.
2. Stock – Similar to how you would buy shares of a company during an IPO, a stock contract lets you buy shares of stock in a startup. However, unlike when you buy from an IPO or on a stock exchange, you cannot sell your shares of stock. With this kind of contract, you only make money when the company goes public with its IPO or until it is acquired.
3. Dividends – A successful later-stage startup may offer investors to buy a stock that pays annual dividends – a distribution of the company’s earnings. Dividends offer an attractive option for investors since, especially for reliable companies or startups that are in their Series D or later, the prospect of receiving regular financial offerings in the form of dividends provides consistent value to a diversified portfolio.
4. Convertible Note – Similar to the debt – see above – instead of paying out in a fixed or variable return along with interest, a convertible note converts into shares of stock only after the company reaches a certain goal. The return on investment here occurs once the company is acquired or goes public.

The Pros & Cons

Investments made in a startup that operates in any industry can have both pros and cons. Before investing, it’s important to understand each since you’re likely to be in it for the long term.

Pros

Earning Potential – While it’s much less risky to invest your money into a stock that’s listed on the NYSE, the growth potential of your investment is limited. A $1000 investment in Amazon isn’t going to offer the same returns as a $1000 investment in an early-stage startup. There really is no earning ceiling for any startup for what you can return; it really depends on whether you have the stomach for it or not.

Investing in the future – Not all investors are money-hungry capitalists that watch their balance sheets like a hawk. And, while there is nothing wrong with that, many investors also want to create a legacy and invest in companies that are striving to have a positive impact on the future. Some would rather invest in a company that creates clean energy than another sugar-filled soft drink company, for example. This sense of fulfillment is part of the fun of investing and knowing that your money is going toward something positive.

Creating lasting connections – Investing in a private company not only puts your money to work but also opens you up to forging new connections. Connections that could help other companies you invested in. Your network can often be as valuable as the investments you make, so paying a couple of thousands of dollars to work with an exciting new founder or to gain access to a range of influential people in a new industry could be worth it.

To help a friend in need – You may have a friend or family member trying to escape the rat race and join the business world but need a little funding to get on their way. You believe their product is great and has the potential for success. Many fundraising in startups occurs because the founders and investors are in a network that promotes such connections.

Cons

Risk – Let’s start with the obvious one here. Most startups fail, and they can fail for any number of reasons. Often it doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of money invested. For any investor thinking about investing in a startup, even if you’ve done your research and due diligence, be prepared to lose all that you put in. If you’re not willing to do so, don’t invest.

You’ve got to be in for the long haul – It takes a long time to see the investment results in a startup, regardless of what industry they are in. They may have the most amazing social media page with fantastic marketing and a platform you are certain will be successful. However, it could still take years for you to see a return on what you invested. Patience is a virtue, and if you don’t have it, don’t invest.

Cash is rare – If you invest in a startup and change your mind, it’s not easy to get your money out. Startups are extremely illiquid, which means that anything you invested is likely to be tied up in the company for years. Maybe avoid punting a million dollars on a startup until you fully understand the risks.

Where to Find Investment Opportunities

So you understand the risks associated with startup investing, and you want to give it a go anyway? Start by browsing the sites below; while some require you to be an accredited investor, others don’t.

There may be a minimum amount you need to invest, depending on which site you use, but it’s worth looking to see what works for you.

• WeFunder
• AngelList
• SeedInvest
• StartEngine

Final Word

Investments made in any industry or potential asset have the ability to turn into a liability very quickly. The risks associated with startup investing are clear, and whether you believe there is a market for the company you are investing in or not is often not the real reason startups fail or succeed.

Startups offer a fantastic way to send your investments to the moon, but those valued at $1B or more are called Unicorns for a reason.

If you choose to invest in a company that you believe can increase in value, then do your research, speak to accredited investors, and put together an investment process that protects your portfolio in the long run.

Just make sure you manage your expectations and don’t go into startup investing, believing that whatever you invest in will make you a millionaire overnight.

Unicorns don’t come along that often. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

The post The Essential Guide To Investing In Startups In 2021 appeared first on Startup Oasis.

Digital media has completely changed the game when it comes to marketing your business to potential customers.

Now, while social media and tech giants have made it easier and more cost-effective than ever to market to your ideal market, some skills are still needed to make sure you’re spending your budget wisely.

With options to market your business flying from everywhere and blogs and articles on the net claiming that SEO or PPC or Facebook ads are the keys to unlock a “flood” of customers to your business, it can be extremely overwhelming as to where to begin.

This guide attempts to explain all of the major areas of digital marketing for startups, so you have the tools necessary to make an informed decision for your business.

This is the crucial point since your business and your audience are unique.

You need to choose which marketing strategy will work for you and not just copy someone else’s because it worked for them.

So let’s begin by defining what digital marketing is and break it down from there.

Marketing is more than just getting your company’s name in front of potential customers; it’s about creating a solid brand that customers can resonate with.

Digital Marketing In a Nutshell

Digital marketing can be defined as any marketing you do for your business on the internet.

This can be from social media to writing blog posts, from asking for shout-outs from influencers to paying per click on search engines.

But marketing is more than just getting your company’s name in front of potential customers; it’s about creating a solid brand that customers can resonate with.

That’s why, when developing any digital marketing strategy, it’s essential to not only understand what platform to begin on but also necessary to understand your brand and what message you want to portray.

Your message and branding must remain consistent throughout all of your marketing and customer service efforts. A lack of consistency can damage your product or service and limit word of mouth.

Therefore, a robust marketing strategy is more than just setting up an array of social media accounts.

It’s about creating brand awareness to ensure that you’re maximizing your return on investment and creating effective marketing content that brings in a consistent stream of ideal traffic on a limited budget.

So let’s look at some of the most common digital marketing strategies used by brands today.

Given the power of technology, failing to engage in at least one of these will cause you to lag behind your competitors instantly and limit your chances of success.

This won’t be a guide to discussing a single strategy that works on each platform, but evergreen activities that, when applied consistently, bring results.

Common Marketing Strategies

Social Media Marketing

Social Media is any form of media where customers can connect instantly to a company.

Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest have a combined user base of over 4 billion people.

Never before have companies had instant access to such massive amounts of potential customers.

Social Media provides a – never before seen – opportunity for companies to market their products or services to a massive range of customers at a low cost.

While most social media platforms now offer powerful advertising tools to market your brands to your target audience, the key to unlocking the real power in social media comes with creating quality content and engaging with your target audience.

Creating quality content allows customers to be more attuned with your brand and your brand’s message, making them loyal fans.

Although it is possible to promote your business on social media, it’s essential to understand WHY people use social media.

The Why

People use Social Media to connect with friends, to share experiences, and as a form of escapism.

They do not come there to shop.

While platforms like Facebook and Instagram are now making it easier for its users to buy things on their software, the core concept of social media has not changed.

When setting up a startup marketing strategy with social media in mind, remember that your goal is to get users to engage with your content and create informative, educational, and content worth-sharing.

If you go in with the attitude to sell, sell, sell, you’ll be found out very quickly.

Tech Slaps

Social media platforms are constantly changing their algorithms.

This makes it almost impossible to truly define what the best strategy is on any one platform.

After each update, the internet will be flooded with people telling you they have “Gamed” the system.

Or that “This one easy trick is the key to thousands of followers,” when the reality is, it’s not true.

That’s why this won’t be a guide to discussing a single strategy that works on each platform, but evergreen activities that, when applied consistently, bring results.

With social media, the clue is in the name “Social.” The more social you are and contributing to the positive experience of the platform’s users, the more likely you are to be rewarded by the platform’s algorithm.

Create good content, talk to your users, inform, educate and assist. Comment and share other’s content and focus on providing free content that your ideal traffic can relate to.

You’re more likely to go viral with content that the customer likes than content intended to sell your product or service.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation is the practice of optimizing your website with specific content or keywords so that Google and other search engines rank your page high on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Take this article, for example. This article’s aim is to be shown to people who searched “marketing for startups” (if that’s you, then we’ve achieved our goal).

SEO is an extremely popular route for companies because it offers one of the only FREE ways to get your webpage ranked highly on Google.

Did you know that 75% of people will never scroll past the first page on a Google search?

So if you’re a digital marketing agency and you’re on any page other than the 1st, it’s likely you’re going to have to invest in some marketing to get on the front page.

Search engine optimization is complex.

Let’s say you own an app that translates foreign menus, and you want your landing page that people use to download the app to come up on the first page of search results when someone searches “Translation app”.

You can’t simply create a landing page with the phrase “Translation app” copied and pasted 1000 times.

Google sees past these tricks and rewards those who have created enough content on their page with specific keywords but with content that is relevant and informative to the searcher.

The Why

Why do people use Google? To find things.

Why do people keep returning to Google?

Because whenever people search for things, Google does a great job of sending them websites with the right answer.

If Google sent its users to sites that just had “Translation App” written 1000 times, the user would leave the site without getting what they were looking for.

That’s why to rank high on Google, it’s important to optimize your SEO to create content that a user wants to read and will get their answer from.

To succeed online, you want to create solid content that benefits both the user and the platform.

Try and cheat or “game” the system, and you will be found out and very swiftly be punished.

When it comes to startup marketing, SEO can be a good route to start down.

Writing informative blog posts helps to solidify your brand’s authority and shows you have specific knowledge in your industry.

However, creating good content is only a small percentage of the game.

You’ve got to create authority.

Backlinks show that others value your website and tell Google that if they sent people your website, Google could assure them of getting the answer their looking for.

In Short

1. Create good, relevant content
2. Get your website authenticated through backlinks.
3. Make sure your pages load quickly
4. Don’t try and cheat the system

Email Marketing

Many marketing purists will tell you that Email marketing is the number one tool in every startup marketing strategy.

The main reason why is, unlike the followers you have on Social Media, you own the email subscribers that you collect.

If Instagram or Twitter went down tomorrow, all big brands and influencers would lose all their followers overnight. That means years of painstaking work disappearing in a flash.

However, the same cannot be said for email subscribers.

By collecting subscribers and saving them locally, you have access to that email until that subscriber physically unsubscribes from your mailing list.

Email marketing also allows you to send targeted messages to your subscribers based on their past behavior or their reaction to some of your content.

Going back to the translation app example, let’s say the company has 1000 subscribers.

Every time the company sends out a weekly newsletter, they get a 20% open rate, but they get a 40% open rate when they send a discount code.

The company can then split their campaigns to send newsletters to those that open them to increase their authority while improving their numbers on the discount code.

Email marketing also allows you to create automated welcome campaigns for anyone that joins your list.

This is a fantastic way to showcase your brand to your ideal customer and broadcast curated messages that you can iterate and improve based on open rates and user behavior figures.

The Why

Like all of our other marketing strategies, it’s essential to understand why people sign up to your mailing list.

This is often for a number of reasons, but one reason beats them all.

For something free.

Known as a lead magnet, lead magnets are a fantastic and extremely cheap way to build up your mailing list with your target audience.

Lead magnets can come in all shapes and sizes, but usually offer something that your ideal customers want in exchange for their email address.

This could be a free PDF guide, checklist, resource list, e-book, or video playlist.

Making a lead magnet as part of your startup marketing plan is a cost-effective way to create content that a customer wants and introduces them easily and simply to your brand, products, and services.

Offering a lead magnet turns a cold lead into a warm one and helps your business focus on brand awareness and customers aware of your company already.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

This marketing strategy requires some investment but is a great way to guarantee visitors to your landing pages or website. An initiative run by Google Ads, PPC refers to paying a nominal amount every time someone clicks on your ads online.

This is most commonly seen in standard search pages. When you search the keyword “Translation App”, the first results you will see are the ads.

These companies have created these by paying Google for the chance to be on the 1st page for that search term.

Depending on how popular that keyword is, will determine how much the company will pay when someone clicks on their ad.

While this does require some upfront investment initially, with sophisticated reporting and audience tools, Google makes it easy for startups and businesses to optimize their ads for performance and return on investment.

When we talk about marketing, we’re essentially talking about the process of warming up a lead.

Leads come in 3 temperatures; Cold -> Warm -> Hot.

• Cold Leads are those that are unaware they have a problem and are unaware of your business.
• Warm leads know they have a particular problem they want solving but don’t know your business.
• Hot leads know their problem and understand your business can solve that problem.

Your job as a digital marketer is to create a system or strategy that identifies Cold & Warm leads and turns them into Smoking Hot ones who will eventually become customers.

Cold leads are the hardest to convert. This is where PPC comes in.

With PPC, you are only targeting people who know they have a problem that needs solving (Warm) and then putting your business right in front of them as the people who can solve it.

PPC helps to skip the struggle in identifying and converting cold leads and focuses your efforts on converting warm leads, which is significantly easier.

Influencer Marketing

When it comes to Social media marketing, apart from running ads and creating good content, influencers also provide an excellent way for putting your brand in front of your ideal customers.

Influencers are users on Social Media platforms that have a significant following (+10,000), with an audience that engages with their content regularly.

Everything we’ve talked about so far has been about finding your ideal audience and marketing to them.

But here, influencers have already done your job for you.

They’ve collected thousands of your target audience all in one place and can prove that their followers respond to their content.

As far as marketing for startups goes, using influencers to promote your products is an excellent strategy for putting your brand in front of thousands of your ideal customers immediately.

This marketing strategy is effective for several reasons

• It presents a low barrier to entry (no need to learn how to create and optimize ads)
• It puts your brand in front of thousands of your target audience
• Influencers will generate the content for you, so it aligns with their brand as well
• It’s a growing industry with more and more people willing to promote on their platforms

The Why

Remember why we said people use social media? Not to buy things, but to connect with others.

This can be frustrating for brands since they have access to incredibly vast pools of their ideal customers but cannot directly sell to them without coming across as pushy.

Influencer marketing, on the other hand, allows brands to skirt around this.

By building relationships with people who have already built a following and loyal fanbase, companies can buy this loyalty and showcase their brands in a unique way to increase sales without looking pushy.

For any startup business, this strategy allows them to target customers without creating and tracking ads and creating a marketing campaign with their customers in mind.

Content Marketing

Content marketing can be grouped into numerous marketing strategies to consistently create and distribute valuable content to attract and retain an engaged audience.

One of the most famous digital marketing gurus – Neil Patel – does content marketing better than anyone I know.

Patel has a fantastic Instagram and social media presence where a lot of his content frequently goes viral.

He also consistently posts on his blog and uploads incredibly resourceful and valuable material to his YouTube channel and website.

This method drives a lot of free traffic to Neil Patel’s business, generating millions of dollars in business revenue without the need to rely on traditional advertising methods.

The downside with content marketing is the time it takes to create content and ensure that it meets a certain quality standard to satisfy a demanding audience.

However, get it right, and content marketing can show your ideal customer base that you are knowledgeable and qualified to speak on the subject and show a warm lead that you’d be able to solve their problem for them.

As a startup marketing plan, content marketing should be considered a more long-term goal than a short-term one.

It requires a lot of planning and posting regularly to a blog, Facebook page, or other platforms and requires significant upkeep to save your content from going stale.

Growth Hacking

In the digital era, growth hacking has allowed companies to achieve more sustained success online by providing organizations information on where to focus their advertising campaigns.

Growth hacking is the art of slowly making small iterations to marketing strategies to improve results and a return on investment.

In an attempt to growth hack, a startup business can start by initially identifying their potential customers and devising a marketing plan that includes a social media marketing campaign that showcases their products or services.

By growth hacking, the startup business runs 2 ads on Instagram and changes only one feature, such as the headline.

The company then runs the ads for the same length of time on the same budget and analyses the results after the campaign has finished.

The campaign that returned the best results is then used in another test, changing the description – but keeping the headline the same.

This method is repeated over and over, making small changes each time to find the combination that has performed the best overall.

This is known as A/B testing and is the backbone for most headlines, colors, and features of online products we see today.

The internet has given rise to marketing ideas and strategies that have used internet users as a kind of global testing ring, testing what does and doesn’t get clicked on and then refining for optimization.

The good news is, when it comes to marketing strategies for startups, you’re not just limited to social media marketing when attempting to A/B test.

A/B marketers can use A/B testing and growth hacking all types of marketing strategies to increase traffic to their blog, website, Facebook page, or business.

Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is an initiative designed by an organization to incentivize word-of-mouth referrals to a customer’s family and friends.

Such a marketing method can be extremely powerful, especially for a startup, given the usual lack of capital available for marketing. Developing a referral program is a great free way to boost traffic without the need for expensive advertising.

A referral program doesn’t necessarily require a big expensive marketing budget either. For example, Hotmail achieved viral online success by adding a small referral call to action at the end of each email.

Whenever one of its users sent an email, Hotmail added “Get Your Free Email at Hotmail” to the email footer. Intentionally making each one of its users refer the company to a friend. This is an excellent example of a startup marketing plan that helped grow a new company; one went from 20,000 users to over a million only 6 months after adding the tagline.

Where You Can Begin

Now that you’ve learned about the most common marketing strategies for a new business or startup, it’s time to learn how you can put it all together to start attracting customers to your website or just generally increasing traffic without the need for big advertising budget.

1. Set Goals & Develop a Marketing Plan

When starting a new business, you need to understand what the marketing goals are for your startup.

This will allow you to build a solid strategy and implement it more efficiently.

Do you want to drive more traffic to your website quickly, or do you want to build authority over the longer term?

How many email subscribers will you need to generate a consistent revenue stream, and how do you intend to secure them?

Do you want to develop a lead magnet, offer a course, or tap influencers to establish exposure quickly?

Set your goals first, so you know what you’re looking towards, and then your marketing plan will follow.

2. Document Who Your Ideal Customer Is And Where They Are

Identifying your target audience is one of the most important things a startup can do to develop a quality marketing plan.

Casting a wide net out online is the wrong way to attract a large number of people.

You need to find out exactly where your customer is located, what platform they are on and what content they engage with.

The more you can niche down and identify your ideal customer’s behaviors online, the better placed you will be to target them with ads they are more likely to engage with.

3. Develop A Clear Brand Message

What is the value proposition of your startup?

Do your customers know exactly what you do and more importantly, why you do it?

This is one of the most common strategies that startups fail to employ in their marketing efforts.

It’s all well and good spending a lot on advertising, but if your customers don’t relate to your brand or understand what you do, then your marketing plan could end up in the trash can.

Ensure that your brand message is clear, that your core values are displayed visibly on your website, and that customers get a chance to interact with your brand’s personality and character.

Social media provides a fantastic platform that allows startups to showcase their personality, making them more relatable to potential customers. Use it wisely.

4. Create A Marketing Funnel To Warm Up Leads

We’ve already spoken about how important it is to identify leads at a particular temperature, now we need to devise a system that essentially warms them up.

For each type of lead, you need a different marketing strategy.

Cold leads require you to notify them about their problem, whereas you need to show warm leads that you have the solution to their problems.

A marketing funnel can help you do just that. A funnel allows you to capture a large number of cold leads at the top, and then as they move through different marketing strategies – email campaigns, retargeting, etc. – you begin to warm them up right to the point where they are ready to buy.

5. Distribute The Content You Create Consistently

One of the key drivers of successful digital marketing campaigns is distributing and sharing your content consistently.

Consistency helps to prove your commitment to algorithms.

It also helps to build authority with your followers.

One way to think about consistency is that your ideal customer missed your last post, but they may see your next one.

Look at the growth rate of most social media influencers or successful content marketers, and they will show you that progress occurs with consistency.

Viral posts are extremely rare; consistency is your friend.

6. Run Ads for Short-term Results & A/B Test

You should only run ads for the long-term once you know they convert.

How do you get to that point?

By A/B testing. You’re much better off running lots of small ads over the short term (min 4 days) and collecting results so you can optimize than running a long-term ad that you’re not sure is going to work.

The keyword here is TEST.

Test everything.

Every landing page, color, headline, image, description, CTA, and video.

The more you can test, the more you find what to focus your marketing and advertising efforts on. This is one strategy that every startup or new business would do well to implement.

Never assume what your customers will respond to.

Get the raw data instead and find out for sure instead.

7. Outsource

Head to any freelancing website (Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer) and you’ll find thousands of capable digital marketers, content marketers, and SEO experts.

When building a startup, surround yourself with people smarter than you.

It can be very tempting to do it all by yourself, but bringing in someone who has more knowledge of specific areas can be a great strategy for optimizing your startup marketing.

For example, by outsourcing your content marketing, you can get someone to write your blog posts and post on social media for you.

At the same time, you concentrate on building the business infrastructure or iterating your MVP.

Make sure you apply your focus on where your skills are.

8. Measure and Improve Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

What gets measured gets managed.

Customer Lifetime Value essentially refers to how much repeat custom your customers give you.

It’s much easier to get existing customers to continue buying from you than to find new ones.

Make sure you treat your customers right and develop a value ladder that gives them something to buy after they’ve received what they initially wanted from you.

Keep them in your business as long as possible.

9. Establish a Marketing Budget

The less you can spend on marketing, the better.

That’s why a lot of businesses focus on developing free traffic in the form of content marketing and SEO.

However, spending on marketing is often a necessary evil.

However, if you manage your budget correctly and growth hack your way to success, you’ll be able to monitor how much you spend on your marketing compared to how much you get out.

Marketing is the best way to bring customers to your business or startup.

However, establishing a robust marketing budget allows you to visually see where your money is best spent. Don’t skip the budget.

10. Build a Referral Engine

As we mentioned earlier, developing a referral scheme is one of the best ways to showcase and deliver your product or service.

A great way to improve the chances of your customers referring your business to a friend or family member is to build in a 2 sided referral incentive.

If someone refers your business, they and the person to referred get something in return. A win-win for every party involved.

Marketing For Startups

Throughout this article, we’ve discussed how startups can develop a marketing strategy to bring more customers to their product or service.

Marketing can be extremely daunting, so it’s best to start with one area first and only expand once you begin to gain traction.

Pick what is most relevant to your business and where you’re likely to engage with your ideal customers more.

Marketing is all about sending the right message to the right people at the right time while pushing people down a funnel to warm them up.

Where will you begin?

The post Marketing For Startups: The Definitive Guide appeared first on Startup Oasis.

So you want to build a remote agency? I’m not surprised. The popularity of remote agencies has been rising steadily. Infrastructure has improved, allowing individuals to pack up and work from anywhere globally with a steady internet connection.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that working from home or working remotely is a genuine possibility for those that want to do it.

And with flexible benefits, no office politics, or commute to worry about, it’s no wonder that more and more people are embracing the luxuries of remote work.

How can you get started building your remote agency today? Luckily for you, we’ve put together this handy (short) guide to teach you about the process. Let’s dive in.

What Is a Digital Agency?

A digital (remote) agency can be described as a service business that does not have a physical location/office to house its employees.

Remote agency team members can be from different corners of the globe, operating in different time zones, but using company tools to connect and collaborate on projects.

However, while it sounds like all sunshine and roses, some significant drawbacks are involved, such as isolation, communication, and productivity concerns.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at what you came here to see, the benefits.

With a remote digital agency, the only startup costs you have are buying your laptop.

The Good Stuff

Low Start-up Costs

Setting up a physical business is costly.

It wasn’t uncommon for people to head to their local bank and gamble their lives on their business working for a loan to begin.

Physical businesses need to pay rent for office space, and they need to buy materials – computers, furniture, lighting. However, with a remote digital agency, the only startup costs you have are buying your laptop (you likely have that already) and a fee to build a website or MVP.

With such lower costs, the risks are reduced. Something I’m sure we all agree is a net positive!

Larger Talent Pool

Finding creative teams or quality employees when you have a physical business means you are limited to people that live in the local vicinity.

A remote agency, however, has access to potential employees spanning the entire globe.

This significant increase in reach for finding employees is not only beneficial since it increases your chances of finding a quality employee, but it can also, again, reduce your overheads.

Hiring talent in developing countries is often much cheaper than in developed nations.

A software engineer in the Philippines, for example, is going save you more money than hiring one based in the US. If you want to find out more, we did a whole post on it here.

24/7 Working Hours

Don’t freak out. This doesn’t mean you have to work 24/7, but with employees on your team spanning the globe, you can effectively keep your doors open all the time.

Not only that, but by introducing automation tools into your customer service workflow, you can communicate and interact with customers whatever the time of day.

Flexibility

When working in remote agencies, a team member often works on a per-project basis.

Those that have made the shift to remote work often understand when they are most productive. It could be through the night or in the early hours of the morning.

Removing the traditional 9-5 expectations frees up team members to be at their creative best to meet deadlines and increases their productivity.

They can take breaks whenever they need to and come back to their work refreshed and ready to finish the job.

This added flexibility is a crucial benefit for building and working in a remote agency for many people.

Clients Across The Globe

If you can hire people from other countries, you can be hired from clients worldwide. Scaling a business is all about putting your product or service in front of more people.

Going online and remote, with the added flexibility of having employees in different corners of the globe, allows your business to be accessed by anyone with an internet connection.

Showing your face to your employees often is a great way to build rapport.

How To Manage Remote Team Members

One of the most challenging aspects of building a digital agency is making sure you can manage your team members effectively.

One of the biggest things we take for granted when working in an office is free-flowing communication.

When working remotely, you cannot walk over to an employee’s desk and talk to them about a project. So how can digital agencies ensure that the productivity of a team does not slip?

Use the Right Tools

Using the right tools is vital so that you can track the progress of essential tasks.

Cloud-based project management tools offer an excellent resource for collaborating with remote workers and ensuring that everyone is on target with their responsibilities.

Tools such as Monday.com and Asana allow you to prioritize certain activities and make it clear which job or project your employees should be working on

Make Sure You Can Track Employee’s Work

The jury is still out on this one. Go too hard, and you end up doing the digital equivalent of looking over someone’s shoulder when they work. Go too soft, and you could be at risk of being taken advantage of.

Time tracking tools allow remote employees to log their time worked. With projects commonly paid by the hour, you will need your employees to submit hourly reports to ensure they are putting in the hours or not going above what is agreed.

Tools like Clockify and TimeDoctor can offer an easy and straightforward solution.

Jump On Regular Zoom/Video Calls

Showing your face to your employees often is a great way to build rapport. A free tool like Zoom can help bring your team closer together, something that remote agencies can significantly benefit from.

Video calls improve the communication between team members exponentially since we can see people’s facial expressions and body language and hear their tone of voice.

Video calls are also a great way to deliver important feedback.

Set The Communication Expectations Before Starting

Identify standardized communication rules within your team.

Communication can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful remote team. Do you expect your team to respond to messages immediately? Should there be a set time when everyone is online? Do you need to have a team conference call once a week? Set boundaries to begin with so everyone can manage their expectations and know their place.

The Best Project Management Tools

Having the right tools at your disposal is imperative for building a successful and communicative remote agency.

From project management to creative tools, these software help to create a remote agency’s culture and allow teams to share jobs they are involved in.

Asana

My favorite project management software. Create project boards, assign tasks, and develop workflows. With Asana, you can assign roles and responsibilities to ensure that employees know what projects they are working on and for which client.

Clockify

If you want employees to track their time spent on tasks, then Clockify has you covered. With billing options, the ability to add and split clients and identify projects, Clockify is a great free all-rounder for tracking time spent on a job.

Zoom

Where was Zoom 24 months ago? The world’s favorite video-conferencing tool, allows you to set scheduled meetings and integrates with your Calendar. With the ability to set meeting times that change based on participants’ location, it’s an excellent tool for staying in touch with clients and teams.

Canva

Does your agency need some creative work? In the digital marketing niche? Or want to design some eye-catching internal docs? Canva has you covered. With stunning and powerful innovative capabilities to make everything from logos to documents, Canva is a great tool to cover all your creative needs.

Slack

Slack is a beast when it comes to internal comms. With a simple setup process and the ability to create as many “rooms” on the platform as you like, Slack makes it easy to stay up to date with your team across the globe.

Is It Only For Digital Marketing?

Nope. A remote agency can cover a wide variety of industries. As the pandemic has shown us, most businesses can operate effectively while their workers remain at home. Some examples of potential remote agencies are;

• Software Development
• A Real Estate Agency
• Social Media Management
• Management Consulting
• Life Coaching/Health & Wellness Coaching
• Legal Consultations
• Travel Agency
• Media Buying/Advertising
• eCommerce

So long as you develop a robust workflow that shows how your processes work step by step, you can manage any client-based anywhere in the world, in any industry.

If you’re looking to build a remote agency, think about your current role now and how you could develop it into one that can operate remotely.

Where to Begin

So, how can you begin building a digital agency?

1. Choose your niche: A niche is an area or industry you want to operate in. Are you going to develop a software company that shows dinner recipes that can be cooked in under 30 minutes or a Real Estate agency that only focuses on short-term rentals in Houston?
2. Choose your country: This is important for several reasons. Firstly, it will determine where you will incorporate your business and therefore pay tax to. Secondly, your startup costs may alter as some software tools are more expensive if your business is located in developed countries.
3. Choose your pricing structure: Are you going to charge clients per hour or per package? What about a subscription-based model? Do some research into your competitors and see how you can develop a competitive pricing model based on what services you offer.
4. Start putting together a team: Bringing in the right people is arguably one of the most challenging parts of building a successful digital agency. Since most agencies are service-based, you need to make sure that new employees can handle individual tasks or jobs. During your onboarding process, one of the best ways to ensure that someone up to the job is to set them a task. This removes the need for an interview process, and you can evaluate someone’s skill level objectively.
5. Maintain productivity/communicate with your team: Using the tools described above, ensure that your team is aware of how you will assign jobs and how they can update you on their progress. Maintaining productivity and communication is integral to starting on the front foot.
6. Implement systems: Workflows and building out standard operating procedures is the secret sauce to growing a successful remote agency. Once you build out a solid workflow, you’ll notice how most things can be automated – Client communication, invoicing, assigning jobs, and updates. Give your team the tools and workflows they need to be efficient and understand how to work best in your agency from the very start.

Summary

Setting up a remote agency has never been easier. With an ever-expanding pool of talent that expands the globe, entrepreneurs today can take advantage of fast internet speeds and improved online infrastructure that allows them to take their business online without the expensive overheads.

Do some research, identify your niche, invest in some quality software, and develop processes to onboard skilled people and take advantage of a customer base that stretches every corner of the globe.

The post How To Build A Remote Agency In 2021 appeared first on Startup Oasis.

While building a startup, capital can sometimes be tight, so it can be tough to bring in a team to work with.

However, working with a team is extremely beneficial. It will allow you to share ideas, surround yourself with experts and delegate your work, freeing you up to do other important, value-producing tasks.

However, when you don’t have a team to help fuel your growth, startup blogs can be a great resource to provide information that can help you grow your business.

In this post, we’ve outlined 50 of the best startup blogs to follow.

You can start reading these today to help you navigate entrepreneurship and help grow your business online or in person.

We’ve split these resources into five sections;

• Blogs for Startups
• Venture Capital
• Digital Marketing
• Entrepreneurship
• Startup Founders

Blogs For Startups

Groove Blog

The Groove blog is an excellent resource for entrepreneurs and startup founders.

This blog offers fantastic advice ranging from customer service, building a fully remote team, and using content marketing. Geared more towards the tech industry, Groove can provide core information about building a business and posts frequent updates on their SaaS products.

Quick Sprout

Run by Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, UberSuggesst & the Neil Patel Digital Marketing agency, Quick Sprout is the go-to place for discussing common problems encountered by startups and their online presence.

Given Patel’s interest and knowledge base in acquiring customers and converting them, Quick Sprout is a brilliant library for providing engaging and helpful content for those looking to convert leads and followers.

forEntrepreneurs

Started by David Skok, a five-time co-founder, and current venture capitalist, Skok uses this blog to share what he has learned in the startup industry with other startup founders.

It is recommended for those that like to follow industry trends and learn from key figures in the industry.

forEntrepreneurs has also been voted the number 1 website for entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine and ranked 2nd on the list of 100 Best Websites for Entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine.

Startup Stockpile

With a tag line like “Tools, Templates, & Tactics You Can Use To Start, Run, & Grow Your Business,” as an entrepreneur or startup founder looking for a one-stop-shop for advice, you cannot go wrong with Startup Stockpile.

With a name like a “Stockpile,” expect to find a vast arsenal of brilliant insights into the startup industry.

Startup Nation

With a frequently updated blog, podcast, and e-book all available, it’s safe to say that Startup Nation covers a wide range of topics.

With multiple posts per day, Startup Nation provides a whole host of reading material, frequently updated, and is one of the best blogs to follow for startup founders.

Startups.com

Startups.com offers in-depth online courses for entrepreneurs and startup founders.

With speakers and teachers like Neil Patel (see above), they also provide a library of video and article content on categories such as; funding, design, ideas, marketing, teams, and leadership.

With Startups.com, you can expect quality advice from startup founders on all aspects of building and starting a company.

HBR

The Harvard Business Review blog has some excellent articles on entrepreneurship. They’re a more traditional publication and publish a lot (so there’s more to sort through), but the gems make it time well spent.

Small Business Trends

Covering Marketing, Finance, Technology & Management, Small Business Trends is built for small businesses. Offering the latest news & articles on various topics for small businesses to take advantage of, this is a great platform to get your daily business tips.

StartechUp

The “mothership” of Startup Oasis, StartTechUp is a goldmine for quality articles on building remote teams, SaaS product development, and outsourcing. With articles published weekly, Startech Up is a blog worth bookmarking for quality resources and tech advice alone.

Mixergy

Opening with the tagline “What do the top startup founders know that you don’t?”, Mixergy – outside of the bad name – showcases top startup founders, asking them to share their worldly advice. With a hit podcast in tow, Mixergy is a great online resource to read and listen to on the go for (aspiring) entrepreneurs.

Andrew Chen’s blog as “one of the best startup entrepreneurship blogs of all time.”

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

Essential reading for anyone interest in or looking to obtain Venture Capital (VC).

Mark Suster founded both sides of the table – an active Venture Capitalist – Suster is arguably one of the most influential voices in the industry. His blog is always on the recommended reading list for more information on the startup business.

VatorNews | Voice of the Entrepreneur

VatorNews combines interviews and guest blogs from influential figures in the Venture Capitalist industry with several blog series covering; making money online, thought leadership, and digital health.

While this blog is a bit more unique than others in the category, that doesn’t mean that the information it offers is any less helpful.

Andrew Chen

The modern godfather of product development – Eric Ries, author of the Lean Startup – described Andrew Chen’s blog as “one of the best startup entrepreneurship blogs of all time.”

Without all the flashy CSS style integration, Chen manages to distill quality information about high-growth startups, technology, and more into what resembles more like an RSS feed.

With an endorsement like that from Eric Ries, it’s hard to pass this one by.

AVC

With VC in the title, any blog listing the top VC blogs available must have this one included in the list. Taking a leaf out of Seth Godin’s book, Fred Wilson – founder of AVC, has posted every day since 2003.

While this blog centers around VC, it also contains practical knowledge on building a (tech) startup.

A growing list of readers comes with an insightful and helpful comment section, something you’ll be hard-pressed to find on any social media site these days.

A Smart Bear

The home of a software startup founder, bootstrapper, investor, and mentor, Jason Cohen.

A smart bear offers blogs explaining complex subscription business models while also covering marketing and company culture topics. A must-read for anyone who is looking for help with their subscription-based business.

Benedict Evans

Ben Evans is a Venture Capitalist at Mosaic Ventures and Entrepreneur First, but in his spare time, he likes to cover topics on what matters in tech and where the industry is going. As an independent analyst, Evans writes weekly essays and blogs on things he’s mulling over while also dispensing good information about the VC world. With a 160,000 strong email subscription list, he must be doing something right.

Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon has a very impressive résumé. As an early investor in  Kickstarter, Stripe, Flatiron Health, Warby Parker, Zipline, Pinterest, and Stack Overflow, it’s clear Chris knows what he’s doing when it comes to investing.

He’s now focusing on Cryptocurrencies and blockchain, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped blogging about VC topics. With over half a million followers on Twitter, Chris is one to watch for any startup entrepreneur looking to learn from others.

The Twenty Minute VC

Run by Harry Stebbings, a 24-year-old London-based creator, this blog turned podcast interviews some hugely influential figures in the tech world.

Covering topics like how to scale your business into a unicorn, raise investment, and interview pioneering young CEOs looking to shake up multiple industries.

This is a blog you can listen to on the go, with new episodes dropping every couple of days.

Venture Hacks

Venture Hacks, run by Naval Ravikant, the co-founder of Angel list and silicon valley entrepreneur turn philosopher, and his Angel list co-founder, Babak Nivi.

Venture Hacks promises to deliver “good advice for startups.” As the blogging arm of the Ravikant’s & Nivi’s AngelList, Venture Hacks covers topics like writing for entrepreneurs, making cap tables, and picking co-founders.

Coupled with complementary videos, Venture Hacks is a great place to get daily business and venture capital motivation from one of the most influential speakers in the industry.

This Is Going To Be BIG…

Based in New York City? If so, this blog is for you. Run by a native New Yorker, Charlie O’Donnell, who invests in seed and pre-seed NYC startups at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, talks about navigating the VC world in the big apple.

Recommended reading for anyone starting a business in NYC, O’Donnel includes resources in his niche that you’d struggle to find anywhere else. Follow for tips on how to start a business in NYC and scale for growth.

Digital Marketing Startup Blogs

The Moz Startup Blog

The Moz blog is one of the leading Digital Marketing blogs available online today. With articles aplenty on topics such as how to improve websites and to improve your social, search & content marketing, Moz leads readers along the way to better marketing experiences.

Not only that, but Moz continues to bring in industry experts to provide hints, tips, and insights for those looking to learn more about marketing success. With free SEO guides and other helpful resources, this blog gives those interested in marketing a roadmap for success. One of the best startup blogs out there with a quality Twitter feed & Facebook page as well.

Social Media Examiner

Covering all things social media marketing, Social media examiner is a quality blog covering topics from improving your Facebook retargeting ads to posting better TikTok videos.

Want to know how to structure the perfect ad video or achieve organic growth using Instagram Reels? Social Media examiner covers it all.

Most posts are accompanied by highly produced and quality videos, helping those fall into the TL/DR category. For entrepreneurs who want to increase their sales using social media, following and reading this blog daily is a no-brainer.

They also have a great daily email blast that links to their best and most recent articles and a podcast interviewing industry leaders. It’s fair to say that Social Media examiner does have it all.

Unbounce Conversion Intelligence

Publishing all things related to marketing since 2009, from A/B testing & landing pages to conversion rate optimization & email marketing. If you’re looking for hot tips in copywriting or the essential elements of landing pages to improve your conversion rankings, Unbounce has you covered.

Econsultancy

Covering the latest marketing and digital insights news, using knowledge gleaned from Econsultancy’s world-class analysts and experts. Well worth the read if you’re interested in direction on how to market yourself online using the latest trends.

Econsultancy covers various topics with investigative dives into unique industries and sharing practical marketing advice that businesses can implement straight away.

This blog is well worth the follow for those looking for unique opportunities and startup-focused resources with a focus on upcoming marketing and business trends.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is dedicated to helping you make the most of every visitor for startups that want to learn how to optimize their funnels and customer conversions.

Crazy egg is one of those startup blogs that every new marketer or solopreneur should bookmark for future and continued reading.

With resources covering how to improve your online sales methods and the latest tech platforms for CRM, webinars, and email marketing, this blog is a one-stop-shop for improving your customer’s & website traffic value and a great continued read for any small business for you and your team.

MailMunch Blog

This blog covers thoughts on web marketing and email content marketing for small to medium-sized businesses. Learn how to become a conversion pro through creating and adopting opt-in forms and everything you could imagine when it comes to email.

Given that marketers continue to tell us how vital email is to businesses, it would be worth your time to understand how to make email work for you to increase your conversions, something MailMunch’s blog can help with.

Duct Tape Marketing

Founded by John Jantsch, sometimes known as the World’s Most Practical Small Business Expert for marketing ideas and strategies, Duct Tape Marketing set out a mission to provide simple, effective & affordable small business marketing.

This blog is a brilliant all-in-one resource for startups with limited marketing budgets & is recommended for those looking to understand unique and practical strategies that work.

With blogs, podcasts, and books available, there is something for everyone at Duct Tape.

ConvertKit

Apart from offering one of the most popular email marketing platforms on the web, Convertkit also provides a highly detailed and robust blog on digital marketing.

Convertkit is one of the best startup havens for regular posts and helpful tips with a handy and user-friendly platform.

Could this platform provide any more value!?

Well, with an active Facebook community and growing customer base, we expect Convertkit to continue to go from strength to strength, while continuing to offer teachings on startup growth.

Single Grain

Originally a failing SEO startup, the company was purchased by the marketing guru Eric Giu, for, drumroll please…$2!

Since doing so, Giu has transformed the company and used his marketing and business development experience to turn it into one of the leading digital marketing agencies around today.

While offering full-scale digital marketing services, the company also has a stunning blog showcasing new and exciting articles on digital marketing (of course) and contemporary topics such as NFTs, affiliate marketing, and software development upgrades.

With a loyal following on Twitter to boot, the Single Grain blog is worth checking out for all your digital marketing needs.

Social Triggers

Founded by Derek Halpern, Social triggers was born out of Halpern’s passion for building and marketing businesses and websites.

Halpern has built & marketed websites that have attracted up to 1,000,000 visitors in a day!

Like the others in this section, Social Triggers is primarily a digital marketing agency. Still, the site’s blog contains some brilliant hints and tips on marketing online and life advice, how to improve content marketing, and bootstrapping businesses.

Halpern’s rise to the top in the digital entrepreneur’s equivalent of the American Dream and a blog that your startup should be using to accelerate your growth.

Entrepreneurship

Forbes for Entrepreneurs

Isn’t Forbes the magazine that publishes the annual report on the wealthiest people in the world? Yes. Then why is it on a list for Startup Blogs to read?

Because, along with their quality articles on business and management, the company also has branches for other areas, including startups, entrepreneurship & leadership.

These other magazine areas are havens for quality articles and posts written by industry experts and provide essential reading for startups.

Blogtrepeneur

With a host of tools and resources for startups and entrepreneurs, Blogtrepeneur was started to help make the journey for entrepreneurs a little less complicated.

With articles focusing on growth and personal development along with entrepreneurship, this blog provides a range of posts worth getting your teeth stuck in to.

Entrepreneurs Journey

Entrepreneurs journey provides recommended reading for marketing, blogging, personal development, and more for anyone interested in entrepreneurship or startups.

Founded by Yaro Starak, Entrepreneur’s Journey shares stories on starting a business, selling education or in-demand digital services, buying and selling websites as a side hustle, and how to scale and automate your business.

Gary Vaynerchuk

One of the most recognizable faces in the entrepreneurship industry as a whole. Gary Vaynerchuk is an investor, serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and more.

While his opinion and delivery have a way to divide opinion, you cannot knock his advice and drive to help others realize the joys of entrepreneurship and creating your own business. As startup blogs go, this one is right up there.

GoDaddy’s Startup Blog

A leading domain seller and website builder, GoDaddy’s website has an extensive library of articles startups. Given the nature of GoDaddy’s business model, expect a lot of information on online business and tech startups.

Be warned, however, once you head to GoDaddy, you may receive retargeted ads for a very long time – as I personally found out.

Hot Sauce! Secret Sauce for Entrepreneurs

Hot Sauce is a blog run by Cayenne Consulting. Updated every weekday, there are hundreds of posts here for every type of reader, from those looking to start a food truck business to choosing the best marketing plans. Hot Sauce covers it all. You can even subscribe to this blog via an RSS feed, so you’re daily entrepreneurial news and information gets delivered directly to you.

With categories including business planning, consulting, finance, accounting, innovation, leadership, marketing, raising capital, and more, Hot Sauce has everything you need as an entrepreneur to make your business a success.

How To Change The World

By Guy Kawasaki, a former venture capitalist, he chronicles how he launched multiple online ventures and funded even more through his firm.

With a podcast that interviews leading figures in entrepreneurship and offers recommended reading lists for entrepreneurs, this is one blog you’re sure to learn a lot from.

The Entrepreneurial Mind

Written by Dr. Jeff Cornwall, co-founder of The Entrepreneurial Mind, a serial entrepreneur, and a professor of entrepreneurship.

Cornwall credits his interest in entrepreneurship early in life, growing up in an entrepreneurial family, and feeding off community spirit.

Offering coaching lessons, a podcast, and a frequently updated blog, with a website called “the entrepreneurial mind,” the resources here are recommended for entrepreneurs looking for unique posts about the latest news on sales, success, customer retention, and more.

Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist

Penelope Trunk is a serial entrepreneur. Founding at least three companies, she takes her experience and mixes it with engaging and fun writing with a sprinkle of personal anecdotes to develop a hugely rewarding and enjoyable blog.

With priceless insights and laugh-out-loud observations, Trunk provides timely and helpful advice for entrepreneurs in a way that others cannot. As one of the only women on our list, if you’re looking for a different perspective on entrepreneurship, there are worse places to start.

Steve Blank

While Blank’s blog isn’t the most aesthetically appealing, don’t let that put you off the valuable advice that you can find on these pages.

Covering a whole host of topics using his experience as a founding CEO, Blank takes readers, hand in hand through insightful business theory.

Most posts come with a helpful summary section found at the end of the blog, which is always a nice touch.

As a startup founder, it’s crucial to always be learning, feeding your mind the information it needs to grow a business to success.

Startup Founders

Pat Flynn

Founder and chief content creator Pat Flynn is one of the world’s most respected podcast hosts.

When it comes to developing and building your own online business, launching a podcast, or just trying to earn some extra side income, then Pat Flynn has you covered.

His journey started by chronicling his experiments in the pursuit of earning extra income as a side-hustle and has slowly blown up into an empire.

Neil Patel

Marketing expert and all-around nice-guy Neil Patel is your personal digital marketing guru. The guy churns out so much quality content you’d be a fool not to check him out.

Patel opens the lid on the strategies that made his business successful and gives you the toolkit to follow in his footsteps.

With a website full of free online courses from SEO, Instagram marketing, and Growth Hacking, Neil Patel’s blog is a dream for a startup founder.

Spencer Fry

Founder & CEO of Podia, Fry has been an entrepreneur his entire life, claiming that he’s never earned a paycheck from anyone other than himself.

For a man who bootstrapped three startups, his mission is to help entrepreneurs whenever and however he can.

As an active Twitter enthusiast, he helps startups understand what to expect when growing a business, why competitors matter less than you think, and the benefits of bootstrapping a company compared to raising capital.

An excellent blog for startups to follow when starting out.

Seth Godin

As a startup founder, if you haven’t heard of Seth Godin, then you must have been living under a rock. The father of modern Marketing, this man is the picture definition of discipline. Writing a blog post every day for the last decade, Godin has produced thousands of articles with legendary advice.

His books have understandably won acclaim all over the world for their timely insights. Seth Godin is known for giving his out-of-the-box views without apologizing.

As blogs go, this is a brilliant online resource recommended for a startup or entrepreneurs in need of marketing help.

Eric Ries

What to say about Eric Ries that hasn’t already been said in our other blog posts? We love Eric Ries here at Startup Oasis, and why not?

The guy is the godfather of MVP development, changing the face of software development for entrepreneurs and startups in the last decade.

His book “The Lean Startup” is a triumphant resource and recommended reading for startups to learn how to bring products to market quickly and effectively.

His blog can be seen as a continuation of his book, with blog posts covering topics such as conversion optimization, how to bring more value to your startup, and the latest need-to-know news in the tech industry.

Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins is one of the most prominent self-help gurus on the planet. With an impressive CV that shows him helping millions of people battle anxiety, depression, and stress.

But Tony Robbins is more than that; he’s built a million-dollar business empire that ranges from books, TV shows, retreats, and conferences, and his blog cover business-related concepts from psychology to managing your finances.

An excellent blog for those interested in understanding how to use your mind effectively in the pursuit of success.

Russell Brunson

Russell Brunson is the pioneering founder of Click-funnels, the website builder that helps startups create funnels that convert leads into sales using a formula that Brunson has refined over the years.

In his blog, Russell shows that he is dedicated to helping startups succeed, giving followers the tools and resources that they need to increase sales and value in their business.

Brunson’s on-the-nose style of writing and content delivery may annoy some people. Still, you cannot knock the guy for expertly delivering on his promise to ensure entrepreneurs learn the ins and outs of creating effective sales funnels.

Derek Sivers

Sivers’ blog takes you back to the time when HTML ruled the web. This refreshingly simple blog focuses on the content rather than the style.

Having founded CD baby in 1997 and then selling it for $22 million, Sivers is a profoundly insightful entrepreneur that comes with a deep level of knowledge perfect for startups.

A richly engaging and intelligent blog for startups and entrepreneurs alike.

Joel Gascoigne

As the co-founder of Buffer, Gascoigne is known for taking a non-traditional approach to growing his business.

With a refreshingly transparent writing style, Gascoigne is recommended for entrepreneurs that like following in the footsteps of those that have gone before them.

A uniquely and brilliant blog for startups, Gascoigne tells it like it is, with wide-ranging interviews, a large Twitter and Facebook following, and a vast array of blog posts that is sure to keep you reading well into the night.

Noah Kagan

As the founder of AppSumo and with time at Facebook as a marketer, Kagan has a penchant for data-driven marketing.

With an impressive list of guest bloggers and great insights into the world of digital marketing, Noah Kagan’s blog should be on every startup recommended reading list.

With recent posts covering topics from How Youtube is Changing the World and the rise of the Bitcoin influencer, digital entrepreneurs can delight in the content on offer in a brilliant blog from a startup founder we can all rely on to provide consistent value and the latest tech news.

What’s Next For Startups?

As a startup founder, it’s crucial to always be learning, feeding your mind the information it needs to grow a business to success. However, it takes a team to build a startup, and while some entrepreneurs prefer to bootstrap their business and do everything themselves, a good blog, can provide the answers to questions you may be looking for.

Blogs are moving away from the shouty opinion pieces we were used to seeing in the early stages of the internet and now provide a high amount of value to their readers.

Which blog will you get started with today?

The post 50 Startup Blogs Every Entrepreneur Should Read In 2021 appeared first on Startup Oasis.

The ability to automate your business also allows business owners to focus on value-generating projects rather than getting bogged down with admin or other jobs that you can automate.

With the ever-increasing availability of high-quality freemium automation software available, the barrier to entry to improving your business through automation has never been lower.

Now small businesses can, in no short terms, manage their social media, track customers, pay invoices, send email broadcasts, receive key business data insights, arrange sales, manage inventory, and more with the help of business automation tools.

As a business owner, one of the keys to success is working smarter, not harder, and the more mundane but necessary jobs you can automate, the better.

So what is business automation, and how can you get started today? This is the part where we begin by breaking down the topic and showing you the automation tools you can use to get started automating your business today.

Business owners today can improve their business efficiency and reduce costly mistakes through business process automation and using automation tools.

What Is Business Process Automation?

Business Process Automation (BPA), or Business Automation for short, is the act of turning mundane, complex business processes into automated routines using software as a service (Saas).

The benefits of business automation are that it can massively streamline and increase the value of a business while improving customer service and letting you and your team focus on high-income activities rather than routine tasks.

While improving service delivery, business process automation (BPA) can save on costs as well. Apart from the odd bug or server going down, automation tools rarely fail or make mistakes.

All it takes is to spend some time setting up and integrating into the business, and then all you have to do is sit back and let it run. While a good SaaS may cost your company anywhere between $30-$1000/month, compare that to a team of employees, and the cost savings are still significant.

In the case of manufacturing, business automation has changed the face of the global supply chain. When Henry Ford pioneered the scientific method of the assembly line, he showed the impact that automating certain jobs can lead to a bigger cost-saving through mass production and efficiency.

Scale this down, and business owners today can improve their business efficiency and reduce costly mistakes through business process automation and using automation tools.

Types of Business Automation

A business is more than the product or service that is sold. It is more than the revenue, the expenses, the employees, or the customers. Ask 10 different people to define a business, and you’ll get 10 different answers.

While we are surrounded by businesses every day – from the car you drive to the phone in your pocket, to the food you eat to the bed you sleep in – a business is a massive amalgamation of different departments working together to make a profit through the selling of a product or service.

With that being the case, the more business processes that entrepreneurs can break down and automated, the easier and more efficient a business will be, so you can focus on the things that cannot be automated – employee communication, research, development & innovation, design – you know, the things that make us human.

Below are six areas you can start automating today.

Sales & Marketing Automation

Marketing is effectively anything your business does to generate leads for your business. Whether this is buying ads on Facebook or appearing on a podcast. If you are putting your business out there in the big wide world, you are marketing it.

When it comes to automation, digital marketing has opened up a new era of relatively easy-to-use marketing automation software that includes rules that you can apply to your ads so that they perform how you want them.

If you want to increase your budget on high-performing ads or lower it on poor-performing ones, you can.

When it comes to sales, moving leads along the funnel through your sales journey has shown time and time again to be the best way to generate revenue.

Whether through automated email campaigns, ad retargeting for those abandoned carts, or arranging sales calls through scheduling software, automating your sales and marketing reduces time-consuming tasks and helps you convert a lead into a customer.

Your team can work autonomously while giving simple updates without the need for countless emails going back and forth.

CRM & Process Management

The ability to automate CRM and BPA through automation tools is probably the biggest value-generating activity on this list. CRM, or the concept of managing your customers/leads and nurturing them through a sales process, has become extraordinarily easier and more efficient with the power of technology.

No longer do businesses have to keep reams of data on customers tucked away in filing cabinets. Gone are the days of not knowing whether an invoice has been sent or if a customer has been followed up after an inquiry.

CRM manages to provide automated processes for management that allow companies to contact, track and focus on (potential) customers and leading them through a system that is engineered to encourage them to purchase something.

A game-changer for a business as it provides key data & tools that shows an employee what tasks need performing or which customers to contact to hit revenue targets and/or key performing indicators.

Social Media

Ah, the wonders of Social Media never cease to amaze me. Despite that most people use social media to look at cat videos or to stalk ex-partners connect with friends, Social Media has become a necessary part of any business today.

If you have a business and do not have a social media account, you are not only putting yourself behind all your competitors, but you are missing out on billions of potential customers.

Being successful on Social Media takes a massive amount of effort. From posting unique and engaging content at least once a day to communicating with customers, it can take a team of experts to take a social media account and make it successful.

For emerging and growing businesses, sometimes you don’t have the time to manage multiple social media accounts. This is where scheduling software can help.

Social Media scheduling software can not only help you post across multiple accounts at once at the times when your ideal customers are most active, but they can also give you a snapshot of your accounts, mentions, comments, direct messages, and more.

Ask any growing or large company, and they’ll all tell you how automating social media marketing is a key cornerstone of their business marketing efforts.

Project Management

Automating your projects and tasks in advance is going to save you hours of time in the future.

With an automation platform that is designed to help you with project management, business owners can easily streamline certain business processes, and your team can work autonomously while giving simple updates without the need for countless emails going back and forth.

The keyword here is “integration.”

Getting your team on board with an automated project management solution is likely to receive some initial resistance.

But once a system has been in place, management of tasks and employee projects will be much easier.

With a project management automation tool, you can;

• Assign tasks
• Get updates on each task
• Create automated deadlines
• Share documents
• Get notifications
• Automate sending emails and invoices
• And much more

Finance & Accounting Automation

While finance and accounting aren’t exactly sexy when it comes to business, automating your invoices, balance sheets, and taxes certainly is.

With automation tools, you can throw out the paper ledger and binders full of invoices and move forward with a cloud-based system that will save numerous trees.

With features galore and multiple platforms to choose from, you don’t need to have an accounting degree to use an accounting automation tool.

Save costs on a fancy accountant or finance department and automate your business finances instead.

HR Automation

If the concept of employee onboarding gives you the jeepers, say hello to HR automation.

Getting new employees up to speed with complex business rules, a sales & marketing workflow, or tracking and nurturing clients, HR automation allows businesses to upload training materials and drip feed them to new employees.

The era of online courses has shown us how easy it is to train people and lead them through a step-by-step video and document guide.

Automating this process for the workplace is now a reality with automation tools that simplify core business processes.

Essential Business Automation Tools

While all business automation tools come with a fee to pay per month, there is one free one and two cheap(ish) that are absolutely essential.

Most SaaS come with a freemium model, where some of the features are free with more powerful tools lurking behind a paywall.

For start-up owners, these free features are more than enough to get you started.

Google Drive

Something I believe every entrepreneur or start-up owner should be familiar with.

I know of no other platform out there that offers similar features or storage for free that Google drives offers.

With Google Drive, not only can you effectively completely replace MS Office with a free online version, but you can share and collaborate online, generate leads, prepare pitch-perfect presentations, send emails, and store files (Up to 15Gb on the free version).

This website/app is the perfect solution for any startup entrepreneur and the best place to get started.

Zapier

Are your website, email, and CRM hosted on different platforms?

Do you want to link a Facebook inquiry to a project management platform that notifies a sales agent? Zapier can do all of that and more.

With Zapier, you can link multiple business automation tools with marketing, management, and scheduling software, and more without the need for a manual transfer of important customer/user information.

Zapier is critical for anyone keen to get into the business automation game.

CRM

As we’ve spoken about above, CRM is at the core of business process automation.

If you’re looking to level up your business and develop processes and business rules that help you and your team to engage with the customer, improve your lead workflow and provide analytics that helps your team manage value-generating tasks, then sign up to a CRM.

Do this early and integrate it into your business in the beginning.

Doing so retrospectively can make integrating existing business processes more difficult and lead to employee resistance.

The earlier you can set up tags and a business automation system within your CRM, the easier it will be to manage in the long run.

Automation Software

So far, we’ve learned all about the brilliant advantages that business automation tools can provide a growing business.

Now it’s time to look at specific software that you can use today.

First, analyze your business and see what you want to automate.

Do you want to improve your CRM or set up a scheduling system where customers can choose call times and receive automated confirmation emails?

Start with one software integration first and then build it out from there.

For Tracking Customer Communication

HubSpot

One of the biggest and best CRM software companies out there.

With its easy-to-use interface and “build your own” subscription model, Hubspot is a great option for those just getting started.

You can use Hubspot for free through its freemium model, but if you want to access its more powerful premium features, you’re going to have to shell out some dollar.

Salesforce

HubSpot’s biggest competitor, Salesforce, made Marc Benioff (the company’s founder and CEO) a very, very rich man. Designed enterprise with more complex requirements, Salesforce is an incredibly powerful business automation software, but it comes with a hefty price tag.

For Managing Your Social Media

Hootsuite

When it comes to marketing automation, Hootsuite is a class act. With a simple dashboard feature and a powerful freemium model, it is a great place to start out for anyone planning on automating their social media.

Later

Later stands up as a very capable rival to Hootsuite in the marketing automation space. The two are so similar that it’s hard to distinguish any advantage of going with one over the other.

With both offering free features, why not try both and see which you prefer?

For Sending Your Customer’s Emails

MailChimp

Old school but reliable. Mailchimp has been around for a long time, which means it has learned what its users are looking for in an email platform.

Offering landing page templates, automated workflows, and auto resenders, Mailchimp is a great option to ply your trade in email marketing

For Managing Your Team’s Projects

Asana

2 companies stand out for me in this space, and one of them is Asana. I’ve been using Asana for a number of years now and have zero gripes with it.

Its freemium model is powerful, and its interface is easy to use, providing an incredibly low barrier to entry.

Trello

As a competitor, Trello is arguably more successful than Asana and proves very popular with teams across the globe.

While the freemium model offers fewer features than Asana, Trello’s owner, Atlassian, is a powerhouse in the space of productivity tools, so it’s fair to say they know what they are doing.

For Taking Calls From Customers

Calendly

Is there any other?

Calendly is a fantastic piece of software that is crucial for effective business automation for those that take sales calls.

It can also be used for freelancers, consultants, or anyone that does business over video conferencing.

With the ability to add your own hours, email appointment confirmation, and with Zoom integration coming as standard, Calendly stands out as a quality appointment scheduling automation tool.

For Managing Your Accounts

QuickBooks

Quickbooks is an accounting automation software developed by Intuit – the giants of U.S tax software. For entrepreneurs that don’t have accounting degrees or a head for numbers, Quickbooks can help out.

It allows users to track expenses and invoices and shows key data for making important business financial decisions.

For Finding Information About Your Business

Google Analytics

While there are others out there, Google Analytics is by far and away the most popular analytics software on the web today.

You can easily integrate the software into any site on the web and find information about your business I bet you didn’t think was possible.

With easy-to-build dashboards, key business data, and did I mention it is completely free?

Google Analytics is up there with essential tools that every business owner needs.

For Connecting It All Together

Zapier

Ah, my one and only. I love Zapier (something you probably guessed since this is the second time I’m talking about it).

While there are other apps out there that can help you link SaaS, Zapier is the top dog.

With 100 free zaps per month and a seemingly endless number of uses, if you want to improve your business automation, it starts with Zapier.

If Businesses Automate Everything, What’s Left?

Well, check out our blog on becoming a digital entrepreneur to find out.

In the age of remote work and dreams of lying on the beach while robots do all your work for you, business automation is an exciting concept to get on board with.

For a startup entrepreneur, automating business processes is your key to scaling up your business at cost and allowing you and your team to innovate, ideate and grow in exciting ways, something that business is all about.

Business processes should not be boring or daunting; they should be looked at as the roadmap to improving your business. Without business processes, it’s so easy to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty while your business losses value.

Automate as much as you can and let robots do all the work for you. Isn’t that what the future is about?

The post Business Automation: Improve Your Business & Save Time With These Tools appeared first on Startup Oasis.

Yes, remote work can allow you to choose when and where you want to sit down and do your job. As the access to high-speed internet is becoming more accessible today, working remotely and maintaining a dream work-life balance is possible. Fully remote teams use collaboration tools and video conferencing to find the best practices to make remote work possible.

In this guide to remote work, we’ll show you what it’s all about and how you can achieve your dream of becoming a remote worker.

The same productivity can be achieved lying on a beach with a home office.

What is Remote Work?

Remote work is the concept of working anywhere in the world, from your local cafe on the corner to sitting in an office at home. Or it could be from a hammock on a remote beach in Sri Lanka to a misty mountaintop in the northern hills of India.

The world has never been smaller with access to high-speed internet in most developed areas worldwide and the incoming SpaceX/Amazon race to provide high-speed internet to every corner of the globe via satellites.

Remote work has been thrust into the spotlight this year, thanks mainly to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the concept of being stuffed into a crowded space with your office workers a big no-no for social distancing rules, many companies allow their employees to work from home and get a taste of what is possible.

With cloud-based tools like Zoom, Slack & Gmail/Outlook, many employees are now considering whether moving back to the office is necessary or whether the same productivity can be achieved lying on a beach with a home office.

However, remote work is not only limited to full-time employees; it can also be a term used for freelancers or the self-employed who choose to avoid the nature of an office and go full time into remote working.

Aside from the apparent work-life balance benefits, many millennials find more joy in this type of work. Happily avoiding the micro-manager or the Karen in HR.

10 or 20 years ago, remote work seemed like a distant dream for many. Tim Ferris’s seminal 2007 book “The 4 Hour Work Week” showed what could be achieved; it’s only now, 14 years later, that Ferris’ vision could be achieved by the many and not the few.

Can You Work In a Remote Team?

In short. Yes, you can—longer answer. You should.

One of the main drawbacks of remote work is working in solitude. I’ve been working remotely for over five years now, and what office workers take for granted, I have to make an active part of my day.

Socializing with team members is an essential part of the company dynamic. Whole MBA modules are built around understanding “office culture.” When you work remotely, there is no office culture. It is you, yourself, and your laptop.

With that being said, working in remote teams can allow you to retain some sense of company culture still while engaging in remote collaboration.

Employees can ditch the office space and still maintain a positive work culture. One that relies on Whatsapp Gifs, Zoom backgrounds & Slack workspaces and avoids the awkward run-ins with that one person you kissed at the office Christmas party after too many tequilas.

However, for managers, motivating employees and making sure they are on track with projects can become more complex.

Remote work policies & check-ins become more critical to ensure that employees, especially those in different time zones, are getting their work done and still working the required hours.

There are, however, numerous tools and practices that management can take advantage of today. If anything, gone are the days of autocratic, overbearing managers believing they are god’s gift to employee motivation and positive work environments.

New managers should understand that a more Democratic & free approach to employees’ work will result in happier, more productive workers. Remote work can provide just that. Allowing teams to work remotely, free of in-person meetings that suck the life out of each attendee.

A remote team member working from the comfort of their own home is a happier one, and a happier team member is a productive one.

Win-win.

How Remote Teams Stay Connected

I’m a big believer in communication. I’d say it’s the cornerstone of any successful relationship.

Having problems at home? Try to improve your communication first before taking drastic action. Active listening & understanding are two hugely underrated skills and making sure you fully understand team members become more challenging when you go remote.

You cannot transfer emotion or body language over a WhatsApp message. I’ve watched manager-employee relationships break down in front of my very eyes over a message that the employee interpreted differently from how it was intended to be received.

The nuances of digital messages are on a knife-edge. We live in an age where an unanswered text can be seen as an insult and a “haha” be interpreted a thousand different ways.

As a remote manager or startup founder, how do you navigate this communication minefield to maximize your employee productivity when working in a fully remote team?

Start by setting clear ground rules and expectations.

• If you send a message at 7 pm on a Friday, do you expect to receive an answer right away, or can it wait until Monday?
• Should all messages be at least recognized and replied to during work hours?
• When is it ok to ignore a message?
• What platforms should particular messages be sent over? Simple messages over text, important tasks via email, and conflicts over Zoom?
• How should you share documents? Email or Slack?
• How are you going to give feedback?

Left alone and communication rules are made up as the company grows and can lead to many conflicts and unrealized expectations later on.

Top tip: Limit your communication methods to 3 platforms (Whatsapp/Slack, Email & Zoom). If you start communicating with your employees on more than 3, then things start to get real confusing, real fast. Let’s take a look at these tools in more detail:

Zoom

Did Zoom even exist pre-pandemic? If there is one company that won Covid-19, it is Zoom. The company has become synonymous with video calling.

While “Zoom fatigue” is real, you cannot knock the company’s ability to connect people easily via video calling. With fantastic features to schedule meetings, invite others, share screens, and more, Zoom is the cornerstone of a productive and engaged remote worker.

Google Drive

This platform has saved my skin more times than I can count. With the ability to create documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations, and more and share them with others to collaborate on, for FREE is a game-changer. While the free version only gives you 15GB of memory, this is more than enough for a freelancer.

Slack

Remote companies rejoice. Slack allows remote employees to communicate with the entire team, keep track of projects, share documents, and create project groups. Employers with remote workers should consider moving all casual & work conversations to Slack. This would be a poor guide to remote work if we didn’t mention how you can store and manage your employee communication.

Email

Who doesn’t have an email address these days? But, do you know how to manage your inbox? Did you know that email inbox manager is a job you can do (remote, of course)?

Managing my inbox correctly was one of the best skills a former manager taught me before I knew how. I was overwhelmed, constantly checking my inbox throughout the day and becoming more unproductive as a result.

Knowing how to manage your inbox, label certain emails automatically, and check them infrequently is a crucial skill to master for any remote worker.

Essential Remote Work Tools

To begin your journey into flexible work, there are specific non-negotiable tools that you need to make it possible to work from the beach home. While there are two essential items you need to work remotely, there are many others that will help you make that transition all the more seamless.

Laptop

The first of the two essential items. A laptop is a quintessential tool you need to work remotely. When we think about remote work, the image of an individual in a cafe typing away, headphones on, is easy to imagine. When it comes to a laptop, you need to consider what type of work you will be doing before investing in one.

Are you a graphic designer and therefore need powerful graphic cards, or are you a software engineer and prefer a Linux operating system over Windows?

Some essential laptop accessories for remote workers include:

• A wireless mouse
• Laptop case
• Bluetooth headphones
• Laptop stand

Pocket Wifi

Next on the essential item list for remote workers is a pocket wifi. Since a laptop and the internet is often all you need to get started if you’re planning on shooting off to the far corners of the globe, you want to make sure you stay connected.

When running an online business, you may need to take a video call from a customer or employee, keep track of orders or attend zoom meetings to discuss various projects in real-time. With this being the case, you don’t want to be caught out without access to the internet.

While most cafes, hotels, and even parks have Wifi now, sometimes it can be a bit suspect and often insecure. A pocket Wifi, especially one that can be topped up using your credit card, is your pathway to making sure you’re always available and never missing a beat.

Technical Know-How

Ok, so I know this is not a “tool,” but having the technical know-how for freelancing projects is important. Today, it’s never been easier to level up your skills with the abundance of online courses available.

Top tip, avoid the “fake gurus” who try and pitch you their “secret recipe” to success or get rich quick schemes. When looking to buy an online course, stick with the legitimate course-based websites out there, such as Udemy, Coursera & Teachable.

Want to learn digital marketing, SEO, graphic design, or content marketing? There’s a course for that. Looking to learn spreadsheet maintenance or how to build a dashboard? There’s a course for that too.

Alternatively, if your skills lie in the more “soft” area and you want to run a business rather than build one, look to partner with an MVP development service, who can take all the technical know-how away and create a product you can run.

An Online Profile

While, again, not necessarily a tool, something that is essential for any freelancer or entrepreneur wanting to go fully remote. If you’re looking to get into the world of freelance remote work, an online profile isn’t just important; it can be your lifeblood.

From developing one on Upwork, Fiverr, or even LinkedIn, your online profile is where you will showcase your work, submit bids for jobs, and where potential employers can find you.

Ensuring your online profile is frequently updated and sells your services is crucial for sustained success in remote work. Alternatively, for entrepreneurs working remotely, an online profile is equally important but for different reasons.

A solid LinkedIn page, for example, can help with networking with others in your industry, promoting your business, or finding prospective employees. The beauty of an online profile is that people can find and connect with you any time while you work from home despite the different time zones.

How To Be Better Team Members

While working remotely can be especially hard on remote teams, we’ve identified these eight best practices to ensure that you can be the best remote team member you can be and that fully remote teams remain as productive and as happy as possible.

Make Good Communication A Priority

I think we know by now what I think about good communication. But just because it’s important for you does not mean that everyone shares your values. Invest in proper communication tools and decide on certain communication non-negotiables. Or, go a step further and train remote teams on how to be better remote communicators.

Improve Your Project Management

Good project management will keep everyone in line and ensure that everyone knows what they are working on and what deadlines they are working to. Tools such as Asana, Trello & Click-up help keep fully remote teams engaged in their work and clear on their expectations.

Apply Your Company Culture Best Practices

Did your team used to have casual Fridays or happy hour Thursdays? If so, you can keep doing these things. Allow your team to express their regular office best practices but online instead. Meet on Zoom for a drink or two or make a remote-first pub quiz. Just because you’re all sitting at home doesn’t mean you can’t keep up your company culture.

Agree on Remote Work Policies

Like you have specific office rules, you need remote work rules as well. One of the most challenging things is keeping yourself engaged and making yourself productive and accountable for your work as a remote employee. You won’t have a manager looking over your shoulder in your home office, so you need to make sure you set up some good remote work policies that everyone agrees to.

Manage Your Hours

When working remotely, it can be easy to fall into the trap of putting away your laptop at 5 pm and then working on your phone until the late hours answering messages from the person in charge. The key to remote work is to manage your hours.

Try and separate home from work as much as possible. Work in another part of the house rather than the bedroom or lounge; otherwise, you’ll always feel the pull to work to answer that last email.

Engage In Collaboration

When working in an office, it’s easy to jump over to someone’s desk and collectively work on a project. Or book a conference room to solve a problem. Take that online, and it becomes more difficult. We are happier when helping others, so set aside time to spend working with others and helping them on projects. You never know when you might need their help in the future.

Improve Your Work Environment At Home

Do you work on a desk with old coffee cups and children’s toy’s all over it? Do you sit at your laptop in your pajamas or get distracted by an untidy house? It’s essential to keep your work area free from distractions.

Remove anything that isn’t work-related out of where you are working and dress like you are going to the office. These little psychological tricks are great for keeping you productive.

Work Part Of The Time On Your Own Projects

If it works for Google, then it’s going to work for you. Make time to work on projects that you’re passionate about. Whether that’s improving your skills, volunteering on a community project, or building a business. It’s important to allow your creativity to flow and not get stuck in a rut when engaging in remote work.

Fully Remote Companies

If this article has inspired you to get started looking for remote work or joining a remote team, you can start by checking out the companies below that are moving forward with remote employees. Working for these companies can ease you into the life of remote work or working from home.

Zapier

The ultimate automation tool, Zapier, helps businesses build Zaps where information is passed between software to automate as many mundane tasks as possible and make life easier for remote workers.

Google

Everyone’s dream job, work for Google but do it from the comfort of your own home! Google recently announced that they don’t expect employees to return to the office until 2022, so while this isn’t fully remote, you can get in now and then move to one of those fancy offices at a later date.

Upwork

Dream of working for yourself or have some skills to sell? Upwork allows you to create an online profile and submit bids for jobs from anywhere in the world. Since being on Upwork, I’ve made Facebook ads for Australian Politicians, built a website for a Boston-based business consultant, and wrote articles for a fantastic, brilliant and excellent MVP development service based in the Philippines (no prizes for guessing who that is).

Life’s too short to spend it stuffed in an office, shuffling between meetings

Your Own Remote Company

Want to have the ability to choose your hours, hire employees and set your own work policies? Then maybe it’s time to look into building your own business. We’ve spoken at length about where to begin when it comes to starting a tech startup or why you need an MVP, so if you like the idea of being your own boss, start with these two articles first.

The Future of Work?

Covid-19 sure did put a spanner in the works, but it also looks to have sped up the adoption of remote and flexible work. With ever-improving internet speeds, unique and changing employee demands, cheap and easy international travel, and new remote worker visas introduced across the globe, remote work looks like it’s here to stay.

Life’s too short to spend it stuffed in an office, shuffling between meetings.

It’s time to take control of your environment and your work. Remote work has enormous benefits for those willing to take advantage of it. It can be hard to make a change, but it’ll be even harder to go back once you do.

The post Remote Work: What It Means & How You Can Start Working Remotely Today appeared first on Startup Oasis.

The pandemic has thrust more people into the joys of online work that now allows individuals to dream about working on a beach in the Philippines or mountaintop in India rather than a stuffy cubicle with the soundtrack of traffic blaring outside the window.

With faster internet speeds, improved infrastructure, and special visas issued by (currently) a small selection of nations, there has never been a better time to consider a path into digital entrepreneurship.

So what is a digital entrepreneur, and how can you break out of the daily 9-5 grind to realize your dream of being your own boss and only relying on a laptop and an internet connection?

Well, this article attempts to explain just that. From what defines a digital entrepreneur to 9 different online businesses you can start today.

We’ll also show you some free software tools you’ll need to get started and pose some questions you can answer to give you that all-important advantage when stepping into the digital world.

Digital technology affords digital entrepreneurs around the world access to infinite knowledge and data to create companies

What is a Digital Entrepreneur?

While “digital” refers to something in the non-physical realm such as the internet, and “entrepreneur” refers to an individual who develops and operates a business or businesses, often taking on various risk factors in the process. Combine the two – someone who creates businesses on the internet – and we have a digital entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship has grown in popularity over the last decade due to the financial rewards and security it can bring to those that succeed.

Coupled with the fact that the internet has drastically reduced start-up costs needed to become a digital entrepreneur. However, a lower price is by no means the only significant advantage of the internet.

Still, due to the sheer number of people online, the opportunity to reach billions of potential customers while easily refining and testing business ideas and gathering feedback has never been more accessible giving rise to more and more digital entrepreneurs.

Never before in history have digital entrepreneurs been given access to the tools and information they need to make critical decisions in real-time that affect the success of their business. Digital entrepreneurs today can try multiple variations of their business simultaneously and figure out what works.

Digital technology affords digital entrepreneurs around the world access to infinite knowledge and data to create companies and ads for precisely what customers need without them even knowing it.

These advantages then have lead to a wave of young professionals giving up the traditional demand of working in an office, to make money from anywhere in the world using new skills to create digital businesses on the web, using tech that allows for focus and improved quality almost daily.

The Tools You Need To Create An Online Business

Since cost is one of the great advantages of starting a business online compared to previous years, another benefit is taking advantage of the many free online tools you can use to help you begin.

One of the biggest challenges of digital entrepreneurship is keeping everything together and accessible.

Gone are the days of file cabinets, offices & whiteboards; you’re now relying on cloud-based software for business development needs. Let’s look at four essential tools you’ll need to get started today.

A Communication Tool

Communication is one of the most underrated skills in business and management. Without good communication, ideas can get lost, mixups can happen, and delays can occur in your business.

I’ve seen poor communication destroy relationships, cause deals to fail, and mistakes that lead to physical injury.

Without a proper communication method between you & your team or co-founder, your digital business could be doomed from day 1.

Start with these platforms;

WhatsApp: The ultimate messenger tool. Almost everyone I know has WhatsApp, and it works great across borders as well. As a digital nomad, you’re likely to be working with customers and suppliers from several different countries. I’ve found Whatsapp to be the most common communication tool. It loads quickly and works on your laptop as well. This is a no-brainer.

Telegram: If you’re looking for something a bit more secure, Telegram is a great option. With Telegram’s broadcasting function, you can update multiple customers and followers through text messages without dealing with replies. Use Telegram to offer products and services updates, hints, tips, and advice. The opportunities are endless and a great novel communication platform for digital entrepreneurs.

Slack: The ultimate workplace productivity tool. Slack was built for companies to integrate all of their internal communication needs. Each “workspace” can have different channels for different purposes. Think of a Whastapp group but for “Marketing”, “Research & Development” & “Management”. Slack also allows you to integrate other cloud-based apps, including Google Drive, so you can share documents and chat without leaving the app.

A Planning Tool

When planning your journey to take over the world, you’ll need a platform where you can place an idea and assign it to someone to take care of. You need a place to map out what you need to do and who needs to do it. Thankfully digital technology has your back.

To be a successful digital entrepreneur, you need to be both productive and organized, and the right planning tool can help you achieve both.

Asana: I’ve been using Asana for several years. Asana allows you to create multiple projects, add tasks and assign them to either yourself or others. With so much available on the free plan, you can use this not only for your professional life but your personal one as well.

Trello: Similar to Asana, Trello focuses on a Kanban-board style of project management. Developing a bit of cult following in the digital entrepreneurship space, Trello is a popular choice for successful digital entrepreneurs and could be for you as well.

Monday.com: The only platform with a limited free trial; however, I’ve spoken to many people who have fallen in love with the software from day 1. Integrating easily with automation platforms such as Zapier, Monday.com is a great visual tool to get stuff done.

A CRM Tool

A Customer Relationship Management tool is your ticket to building a relationship with your online consumers and allows you to identify holes in your sales and communication process. Truly utilizing one of these platforms is the real difference between successful and unsuccessful digital entrepreneurs.

As Jeff Bezos says, “The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer.” A good CRM will allow you to do this while automating a lot of your consumer outreach, so you can sit back with a Pina Colada while the tech does the work for you.

HubSpot: Probably one of the most recognizable CRMs in the world, Hubspot has a free plan that allows you to track your customer’s journey, inquiries, and marketing. This will enable you to make better decisions as a digital entrepreneur.

Mailchimp: With a heavy focus on email marketing, Mailchimp is one of the world’s most popular email hosting platforms. However, the free version can be a little limited, but the premium templates and automated functions are excellent.

MailerLite: My favorite, MailerLite, is a free platform (up to 1000 subscribers) that allows you to import contact lists, send email broadcasts, create automations and workflows and contact forms that you can embed in your site for no cost.

A Website/App Tool

This is the only section where you may need to shell out some dollar. Depending on what kind of digital business you want to start will depend on where you build your website.

A new business needs a platform to showcase its products or services, and a website is the best place to do this. You can funnel customers to capture their information, sell your stuff online, offer digital products and services or post a blog with affiliate links. The list is truly endless.

Wix: Wix offers a straightforward and seamless drag and drop service. While the platform may be limited in its SEO capabilities and plugins, you cannot knock it for ease of use. Ideal for people who do not have many technical skills or the funds to pay someone to build a website for them.

WordPress: With about 1/3 of all websites on the internet built on WordPress, it’s safe to say that the platform has some huge fans. And it’s easy to see why. It’s free and has tonnes of free plugins, and applies fantastic SEO capabilities. You can almost do anything you want on WordPress if you have the technical proficiency to do so. Unless you have the patience and skills, you will need a web developer to help you build a WordPress site.

Shopify: If you’re looking to get into the e-commerce game, then look no further than Shopify. With a free 14 day trial, Shopify is the ultimate online store builder with brilliant integrations and an easy-to-use interface. It can get expensive after the 14-day trial, so unless you have solid margins and inventory ready to go, be careful using this platform.

MVP Development Service: Alternatively, you can seek an MVP development service. We’ve spoken about the advantages of MVPs at length here, so be sure to take a look. Outsourcing your website or product development is a great road to go down if you’re lacking the technical capability of doing it yourself.

While building an online business can be a long and arduous road, the lifestyle benefits can indeed be a game-changer.

The Benefits of Digital Entrepreneurship

There is a platitude of benefits when it comes to digital entrepreneurship.

Not to mention the flexible working hours and location, you can pick and choose who you want to work with and what you want to work on. If done right, the financial opportunities are endless, and you can continue to give yourself pay rises without waiting for a performance review.

Tired of wearing uncomfortable shoes and jumping on a packed subway in the summer to sit in an office? Then swap that for sandals, a motorbike on an open road, and a beach cafe with reggae music. Heard about an excellent spot for digital entrepreneurs in Argentina? Book a flight and go check it out. Saw a fancy co-working space in Bali with free surfing lessons; sign up tomorrow.

While building an online business can be a long and arduous road, the lifestyle benefits can indeed be a game-changer.

Work when you want to on a business you created yourself, build a brand that can provide a job to a person in need, and identify growing trends that can propel your business to the next level.

Digital entrepreneurship also allows you to build a network of other entrepreneurs in related or entirely different fields. Doing so can lead to more opportunities to collaborate as you both plot a course for online & digital success.

How To Start A Digital Business

So how can you begin? Nobody said that starting a digital business would be easy, but you can give yourself the knowledge needed to find out if your idea is likely to work by figuring out the following.

Find Your Niche

Finding a niche and creating a product or service for that particular area is the single most powerful thing a digital entrepreneur can do. The more detailed you can go, the better.

A niche could be anything from coffee for cowboys to yoga teaching for pre-natal American women between the ages of 24-32.

The more you can narrow down what market you want to create a business for, the less competition you will run into, and the more you can refine your product, service, marketing, and branding for your target consumer, the more you’re giving yourself a huge advantage to begin with.

Define Your Target Audience

Second to finding your niche, defining your ideal consumer is another effective exercise and one that is necessary. Understanding who your dream audience is will allow you to make decisions with them in mind.

When building a business in the digital world, most decisions you make are purely assumptions. You don’t know exactly what your user will want or what their behavior will be until they start using your product or service.

By understanding who they are earlier, you can help minimize the mistakes you’ll make in your offerings and start to narrow down exactly what they want. Ask yourself questions such as

• What is their age?
• Where are they located?
• What is their gender?
• What is their pain point?
• What is their desire?
• What books do they read?
• What are their interests?
• What do they do on the weekend or in their spare time?
• Are they single or in a relationship?
• Do they have children?
• What is their income & education level?

The more you can refine who your ideal consumer is, the better you will serve them.

Decide on a Product or Service

Once you have your niche and your ideal consumer persona, the next step is to decide what you want to offer. Before doing so, however, consider several things;

1. Is there a real demand for your product or service?
2. What separates you from the competition?
3. What business strategy are you going to use?
4. Are you going to compete on price or product differentiation?
5. How does your product or service offer value?
6. Is it easy for someone to copy your product or service?

While digital technology has undoubtedly made building an online business easier for the aspiring digital entrepreneur, it also means that someone else can copy your product or service with ease.

Big tech companies that seemingly have infinite resources could develop your product or service within a matter of days, so make sure you’re offering something that gives real value.

Find a Co-founder or Partner with an MVP Development Service

The next decision you need to make is whether or not you need a co-founder, someone to bounce ideas off or someone with expertise in another business area.

We spoke about the pros and cons of a co-founder here.

What you must also consider, especially if your product or service requires certain degrees of technical skills to develop, is whether you should partner with a development service or not.

There are many benefits when it comes to hiring a development service that you can check out by clicking the button below.

Types of Digital Products and Services

Now that we’ve covered how to start as a digital entrepreneur, let’s take a look at nine digital businesses you can start today.

Social Media Manager

Do you have a lot of experience with social media? Have you grown a sizeable following on your personal account?

Did you know you can manage the accounts of companies?

If you’re pretty snazzy with taking pictures, writing captions, or graphic design, a gig managing multiple social media accounts could be for you.

e-commerce

The art of buying something for $1 and selling it for $2. Done right, e-commerce can be highly profitable, and with platforms such as Amazon, e-Bay, and Shopify making it easy to sell and ship products around the world, it’s never been easier to set up an e-commerce store.

Digital Marketing

This one requires a bit more of a knack and understanding of the digital world, but if you know your way around Google & Facebook ads, setting up a digital marketing agency is an excellent method to collecting some big paychecks.

However, needing the technical know-how around such areas as email marketing, SEO, Google analytics, and data analysis, this hustle may require high technical skills. Alternatively, you could outsource everything.

Online Courses

Even though it seems like every man and his dog is selling an online course right now, if you have skills that you think someone else might be interested in learning, building online courses is a great way to earn passive online income.

The beauty of an online course is that you can create it once, and it earns you income over and over again.

App Development

While creating an app is not easy, if it’s successful, the rewards can be massive. Just look at successful apps such as Tiktok, Snapchat, Candy Crush, Instagram, and more. Luckily for you, App development companies out there can help take away all the stress around app development.

Website Development

Websites have been around for years; if you have experience tinkering or designing them, building websites could be a great source of money. With some websites costing upwards of $2000, it’s not an area to dismiss.

Content Marketing

Do you like writing or graphic design? How about editing videos or even acting in them? If so, you could build a career in content marketing. Content marketing refers to creating, publishing, and distributing valuable content for a particular audience.

In an age where ads and distractions come from all angles, quality content sticks out more. Companies are crying out for quality content, and as a digital entrepreneur, you could provide it for them.

Start A Blog

If you love writing and have a topic that your passionate or knowledgeable about, starting a blog could be the beginning of a beautiful dream.

Blogs can have a massive reach, with some bloggers developing huge followings. Blogs can be monetized in several ways, from integrating affiliate links to building an email list and selling a course. There are hundreds of ways to monetize a good blog, and the best digital entrepreneurs have worked out how.

NFT Collector

A relatively new area, but one that is exploding right now. NFTs or Non-fungible tokens are storming the digital art world with some pieces selling for millions of dollars.

If you’re not sure what an NFT is, check out this blog here.

If you’re looking for a unique way to become a digital entrepreneur, I can think of no better place to begin than collecting and selling NFTs, definitely one of the stranger trends of 2021.

The Mindset Behind Successful Digital Entrepreneurs

In this article, we’ve defined what a digital entrepreneur is, the tools you need to get started, how you define your niche and your ideal audience, and some online businesses you can start right away.

However, to become a successful digital entrepreneur it also takes the right mindset. Digital entrepreneurs require grit and determination and the nerve to never give up in the face of adversity.

It will take long hours and hard work to develop a successful digital business, but the rewards can be huge.

Aspiring digital entrepreneurs should not expect overnight success. Instead, digital entrepreneurs should consider success more by making small gains, taking advantage of opportunities, and looking for areas to improve consistently.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Don’t compare your business to someone else’s. Keep moving forward, keep improving and never forget your goal.

The road to becoming a successful digital entrepreneur is littered with those that tried and gave up. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Always keep learning, keep improving and remember your goal. Do that, and you’ll be on that beach with a Pina Colada in no time.

The post How To Become a Digital Entrepreneur In 2021 appeared first on Startup Oasis.

This blog aims to bridge that gap, taking would-be entrepreneurs from idea to creation, holding your hand along the way, and revealing secrets about entrepreneurship that you won’t find anywhere else. Starting a tech company can be incredibly rewarding, but the demands are great, and the anxieties are real. Get it wrong and try to do it all yourself can result in long-hours, burnout, and decisions you may ultimately regret.

However, in saying all of this, the most critical decision you can make when starting a tech company is to begin. Get started right away. If you’re waiting for the right time to launch, you’ll be waiting forever. Launching a tech startup is the best way to learn what you need to do. Build a product and continuously test it. Network with others to learn more about your industry and start sharing what you are doing. Creating a business and talking about it makes it real, giving yourself a fresh stream of daily motivation.

So let’s jump in. Let’s begin by answering some critical questions so you can start making that all-important jump into entrepreneurship sooner rather than later.

If your vision is to grow a multi-million dollar business, with employees, numerous clients, and projects, then a co-founder could prove a real asset.

Do you need a Co-founder?

Building a tech startup or any startup, for that matter, is no small feat. In that case, should you consider finding a co-founder? There is no one correct answer to this question. However, many people will have you believe that you cannot achieve anything on your own, and those people may be right. When you run a business with another person, you are essentially entering into a marriage. This person will be your confidente. Someone who is going along this crazy ride with you, so make sure it’s someone you trust and get along with. Someone with whom you can communicate easily.

Regarding whether you need a co-founder, let’s consider the pros & cons.

Pros

• Co-founders keep each other accountable
• They will motivate one another
• Each co-founder will bring something unique to the table
• Increases the number of connections in the business
• Co-founders share the risk and responsibilities
• A co-founder can broaden the wealth of knowledge in the business

Cons

• Bringing in a co-founder means you will have to give up equity in your business.
• They may not share the same vision for the business as you
• Tension and friction at the top of the business is terrible for the entire organization
• It will test your friendship/relationship (if your co-founder is a friend or partner)
• They could prove an expensive liability

Whether you need a co-founder is entirely dependent on how you intend to run your business and how big you want to scale. If you’re building a lifestyle business (a business that funds your lifestyle), then a co-founder may not be necessary as you won’t want to give up a % of the revenue that you live off. However, if your vision is to grow a multi-million dollar business with employees, numerous clients, and projects, a co-founder could prove a real asset.

What Is Your Value Proposition?

As Simen Sinek says, “start with why.” Your value proposition (VP) is the why of your business. Why are you building this product/service/organization? Who is it for, and what value can you provide them with? How does your product differentiate from the competition? For example, the VP of Slack is “Be More Productive at Work with Less Effort.” It shows its customers exactly what they will achieve by using its product showcasing the product’s value.

A VP is essential for several reasons;

1. It gives you clarity as a business owner as to why you are building this product or service.
2. It gives you direction and shows you what products and features to develop.
3. It tells you how you intend to be different from the competitors, something vitally important in an ever-increasingly saturated marketplace.
4. It speaks to your target audience, making them feel that your product or service has been created specifically for them.

When crafting a VP, ask yourself the following questions;

• What is your niche?
• How does your product provide value to the customer?
• What problems does it solve for your customer?
• What differentiates your product from your competitors?

How your product is different from the competition is a crucial question you must ask yourself as an entrepreneur. Do you intend to make something cheaper and therefore engage in a race to the bottom, or have you found a gap in the market you intend to exploit? Something we will be answering in the next section.

Whichever business model you choose, research into your market is key to finding out which will have the most significant impact.

What Is Your Business Model?

Choosing a business model is a bit like choosing what donut you want at Krispy Kreme. There are many different types of models to go with, but you should only choose one. Do you want to be a first-mover or be a disruptive innovator? Are you going to compete on price and volume, or do you want your product or service to differentiate significantly from the competition?

Choosing the suitable model will help guide you in the desired direction and force you to decide based on business strategy. Each of the above models has its advantages and disadvantages, so let’s explore them in more detail.

First Mover: As the saying goes, “the early bird catches the worm.” Regarding business, the cliche assumes that there will be certain benefits afforded to organizations that move first that will not be available to those that enter the market later. The advantage of a first-mover model is that it allows an organization to establish a dominant position that other firms then struggle to overcome. The disadvantage, however, is that it is a considerable risk since the demand for your product or service is not yet proven.

Disruptive Innovation: The business world definition of shaking up an industry. When pulled off, an innovative product or service that is disruptive can have devastating effects. Disruptive innovation refers to a product or service that threatens to replace the existing traditional offerings in a marketplace. The upside can be extraordinary, with disruptors setting the world alight and having free reign in an industry. The downside is that it’s heavy on research & development, which could increase your costs and provide a substantial risk. One of the most famous examples of a disruptive innovator is the iPad, which took on the behemoth laptop industry.

Cost Leadership: With cost-leadership, your focus is all on, you guessed it, cost. It’s a race to the bottom between you and your competitor to see who can offer the cheapest rates without coming across as too budget-conscious. Cost-leadership consumers are often more accepting of sacrificing product or service quality in return for something more affordable. Walmart is a prime example of a cost-leader. Cost-leadership can make companies extremely competitive. However, choosing this model will require a laser-like focus on making your company as efficient and streamlined as possible to protect those razor-thin margins.

Differentiation: Conversely, a differentiation model attempts to convince consumers to pay a premium for a product or service with unique features. Organizations following this model are keen to show their marketing and branding the unique features that make their product better than the rest. Apple is a market leader in this model, showcasing its products as the best in the marketplace. New annual features and materials that convince consumers their products are different from their competitors and therefore worth paying more.

Business models don’t stop there. However, you could also consider, Bricolage, Footholds, Blue Ocean Strategy, Fighting Brands, or even a Joint-Venture. Whichever model you choose, research into your market is key to finding out which will have the most significant impact.

Who Are Your Potential Customers?

Identifying your ideal customer base is necessary for startups. The reason being is that it provides focus on who you are building your product for, what pain points they are currently experiencing, and where your customers are located. Suppose you try and create a product or service for everyone. You will ultimately build something for no-one. To understand this quickly and in the early stages of your business will save you a lot of time and effort moving forward. Many startups fail to define their ideal users, which will create a big problem for them pre-launch.

So how do you identify your customer base? When starting a tech company, founders and investors of startups should begin by answering these questions;

• Name?
• Gender?
• Age?
• Location?
• Customer Desire?
• Pain Point #1?
• Pain Point #2?
• What magazines do they read?
• What subscriptions do they have?
• What has their experience been in this industry up until this point?
• What is their background?
• What are their current skills, and why do they need your product/service?
• What part of the customer lifecycle are they in?
• What kind of product/service are they looking for?
• What do they want to achieve with your product or service?

When doing this exercise, start by visualizing the kind of person you want to attract and use your product or service. Giving them a name and even finding a picture on Google Images of what they could look like is a compelling way to provide you with clarity about who you are building your startup for. Even though you are not likely to get someone who perfectly matches your dream customer’s description, the exercise above will create a strong enough persona to attract the right kind of people to your brand while also showing you where they are located.

What About Project Execution?

Thinking about your idea is one thing, but to start a tech company is another. While your strengths may lie in leadership, management, and marketing, do you have the skills to code your product or service, something that is necessary when you start a tech startup? Building a tech startup is the sum of its parts, where you need a variety of tech skills in your team to build your product successfully.

Where do you find such a team? Do you need Project Managers? How can you be sure that your developers’ team understands the difference between coding an app or new tech software? Let’s go through each of these questions below, starting first with Project Management.

Do You Need A Project Management Lead?

An integral part of any business, project management is the link between the dreamers and the developers. Project managers have the tools and experience necessary to take your idea from notes on a page to a fully-fledged product within a set deadline. A good project manager can inspire, motivate and plan weeks ahead while maintaining budgets, managing communication and deliverables so you can be sure your product will be ready to ship on time.

However, in the startup world, many founders become project managers, taking it upon themselves to manage the development and timeline of their minimum viable product. If this is you, there are several excellent free software available to help you succeed in the early development stages. Such software includes; Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday.com, Backlog & Jira.

How Will You Build Your Products?

As we spoke about this here. When considering building your tech product, first, you need to decide how you will build it. Will you use a Minimum viable product development company or a team of freelance developers? Will you build it using the Agile/SCRUM methodology or ad-hoc? How about a Minimum Viable Product or a fully-featured product? Every tech startup has to answer these questions, and if you’re not sure how to answer them, then I suggest finding a co-founder and building a team to help you out.

Do You Need A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

A minimum viable product is a product that only has the primary or most essential features. It is the basic version of an app or software and includes the features the target users need. Companies, especially tech startups, prefer to release their MVP before the full-scale version. This allows them to determine the product’s viability and helps make the development process quicker and more efficient.

The MVP development process follows the “build-measure-learn” methodology, which means a tech startup can create an app or product and improve it as they test the market with their dream customers’ help. A tech company will build a product, release it to the market, and gather essential, invaluable feedback, which they’ll use to change and iterate the product to growth hack their way to success.

Whether or not you need an MVP is barely even worth asking. Trying to build a fully-featured product without testing your app or software product first could prove a very costly error. Trust us on this one when we say you need an MVP, and by starting here first, you’ll save yourself, your investors, and your customers a whole lot of headaches later on down the line.

Should You Build A Team For Your Product Development?

Every tech startup needs a team of talented tech passionate developers to start building an MVP. By bringing in a team of developers to help create your MVP first, even though your costs may increase, the hurdles, bugs, and issues you may encounter will decrease. You can be confident about the quality of your product or service because you’re bringing in experts.

When building a team, there several things to think hard about;

1. Be sure about the kind of people you want to bring in. Not only must they be talented and have the right skills, but they must also fit the company culture and be easy to work with. You don’t want to build a team of egocentric developers who are tough to work with and often don’t understand your product or what you are trying to build. Successful companies can balance this step and always find the talent they can be around and have the technical skills necessary.
2. Look to hire a range of talents and skills. Developers come in all shapes and sizes. Some have specialties in different coding languages, whereas others are experts in UI/UX. A successful tech startup will diversify its talent pool enough to reduce the number of technical problems it could encounter
3. Hire people who are smarter than yourself. This age-old adage is a tricky concept to grasp for insecure entrepreneurs, but hiring smarter than yourself, will save you the time having to learn concepts necessary for your tech startup to be successful. Filling your startup team with competent developers, marketers, and experts is a sure-fire way to not only challenge you but improve your business immeasurably.

Think about your product or service as a forever evolving product. If you ever get to a point where you believe your software cannot improve, you’ve run into a severe problem

What’s The Best Way To Get Feedback?

When bringing a product to market, collecting feedback is essential for startups. Starting a tech business is a hard enough challenge, but doing so without your initial users’ feedback is a shortcut to failure. This is one of the most significant advantages of an MVP. A good MVP is always going to provide your business with solid feedback consistently to improve your product to your users’ benefit.

Once you have developed your MVP, launch it to a subset of ideal users so they can identify the bugs, what features they do and don’t like, and ensure the technical specs of your software are ready. When doing this, one problem to think about is your ego. Are you going to let your ego get in the way when you release your product? Creating a product makes entrepreneurs incredibly biased. It’s hard to think that your product or service may not know precisely what clients want. Yet, when it comes to building a tech business, there is only one opinion that matters, and that’s the customer. Keep your ego in check.

When it comes to testing your product, do it often. There is never an end goal. User requirements and demands will forever be shifting; your job is to keep up with them and create and develop your software according to user wants. Think about your product or service as a forever evolving product. If you ever get to a point where you believe your software cannot improve, you’ve run into a severe problem, and you’ll find that your business will begin to decline quickly. ABT – Always Be Testing.

Should You Start A Tech Startup In Stages?

Launching a product does not happen overnight. It is a long, drawn-out process, taking advantage of different sub-sets of customers ready to buy and try your product in various stages. The problem is, trying to locate these users to understand exactly what each type of customer wants.

This is why it’s necessary to roll out the product in stages, something an MVP can assist with. An MVP will always help make sure that your product is ready for the next set of users, all of which have varying degrees of acceptability regarding product quality. When developing an MVP, always consider the different stages your ideal clients are in. Doing so will allow your software to become better tuned to the user’s demands and benefit your tech business overall.

What Is An Early Stage with Early Adopters?

For a better understanding of the different customer segments, check out our blog post here. In the early phases for startups, Innovators and early adopters are vital clients in providing critical marketing and technical feedback. Early adopters and innovators are often young clients with disposable income, willing to take risks on new products, services, or software. The feedback startups gather from these early adopters can be the launchpad needed to help market their tech business to the more extensive customer segments that are less risk-averse.

How Will You Work On Your Marketing Strategy?

By answering all the questions above, you’ll now be in a much better position to start marketing your tech business. When looking to create a go-to-market strategy, it’s essential to think about the following areas of the business which will become the base layers of your branding:

• Color scheme
• Logo
• Voice
• Copywriting
• Personality
• Branding

All of these will quickly provide an image for your brand which a potential user can relate to. Entrepreneurs must think about how to position their brand’s personality, often defining exactly what value consumers will achieve from their product and how it differentiates from the competition. By recognising who your ideal customers are, what value your product can have on them, where they are located, and using feedback from your MVP, your go-to-market strategy is much more likely to attract the more significant customer segments.

Do You Need Investors?

Finding investors to help fund your project can be extremely daunting. Not only do you have to open up your business to intense scrutiny, showing your forecasts, current financials, and operations, but the physical act of pitching and being grilled can quickly get scary. You also have to face the possibility of giving away a slice of your business in exchange for investment. While this can be a frightening prospect at first, when you find investors, it’s necessary to remember that with that money comes a wealth of knowledge and experience. Some investors give you their money, but they also bring with them their network and business intelligence which can be the difference between a tech startup that grows and one that does not.

The first step when finding investment is to create your pitch deck. You’re going to have to face the fact that you’ll need to put on a brave face and present your business and idea to a room full of influential people. Your pitch will need to sparkle and can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.

Next, research Venture Capitalists (VCs) that you’d like to work with. Go online and find the ones that match what industry you are in, those that have experience working in a similar market. Remember, a good VC will be able to connect you with people in the industry that can help your business grow, so you’ll want one that has an interest in your market. You can also start by reading blogs written by VCs, which set out to assist startups in navigating the VC world. Blogs such as Both Sides of The Table by Mark Suster & Vator News are great places to start.

Bringing people into your business to sit on your board is not a decision that should be taken lightly. There are other ways to fund your business, either by bootstrapping or getting a business loan from a bank. Both methods have their pros and cons. However, the wealth of knowledge, expertise, and connections that investors can bring to the table should not be understated. There is a reason why most highly successful companies today are all backed by an array of investors. It’s a great way to launch & scale your business quickly.

Success

Who doesn’t want long and sustained success in their business? While there are several other factors to consider for the long-term, you can make sure that your startup and your team are on the right track to achieve success by answering all the questions above. Of all the points mentioned, using an MVP to test your startup product in a step-by-step process is not only going to benefit your users most but keep your developers happy also. For entrepreneurs, it can be hard to understand exactly what a user always wants. Still, you can be confident that your startup is on the right track through continuous testing and iteration.

In this article, we’ve discussed at length how to choose the suitable model and strategy for your startup, how to define your dream customer, whether or not you should consider taking on investment funding, and how to gather feedback. This is only the tip of the iceberg. A startup is a long process that requires extreme dedication and a determination to look failure in the face and work around it. Having the right talent, managing your cash flow, and considering the business’s long-term future are all key areas necessary for success.

A tech startup is an evolving project; it will keep you awake at night, provide extreme highs and lows and challenge you more than you can hope to imagine. But it’s also your baby, and like all parents, we want to see that baby grow into something we’re proud of. We’re willing to invest the time and effort necessary to keep our business surviving and by answering the questions in this article, you’re starting off with one foot forward already.

The post 14 Questions To Answer Before You Start A Tech Startup appeared first on Startup Oasis.

Listening to podcasts is a joyous experience. You get to listen to world-class experts share their wealth of knowledge and expertise; in an entertaining format that you can listen to on the go. Think of any sports star, politician, entertainer, or business person you admire; it’s likely they have featured on a podcast and laid out their tips and insider secrets to their success in an entertaining interview.

Imagine being able to listen to such quality information delivered by the thought leaders of today. Podcasts also have limited ads that you can skip at any time, anywhere, and for free. With podcasts, you can.

I’ve been listening to podcasts for years. From comedy to health, self-help to business, there is such a wide range of topics out there for everyone. I’d be lying if I said podcasts haven’t opened my mind. They have educated me on the wonders of the world and what the people in it have to offer.

Podcasts For Startups

A famous quote about reading states, “those that do not read have no advantage over those who cannot.” The same can almost be said for podcasts. If you do not listen to podcasts, you are seriously missing out on what could be vital advice. Advice that can help elevate your business, relationship, or life to the next level, for free.

So whether you want to become an entrepreneur, listen to thought leaders, or hear successful insider stories from entrepreneurs, podcasts are for you. Below we’ve outlined 10 of the best podcasts for startups. Some of these podcasts give you a fantastic insight into what it’s like to start a business and how to manage growth. In contrast, others focus on the mindset of entrepreneurs and how to manage your physical and mental health.

So open up the podcast app on your phone and get ready to subscribe to some of the best, most exciting podcasts for startups out there. This could be the first step to a new direction in your business and life.

#1 Masters of Scale

Hosted by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, Masters of Scale is an award-winning podcast that brings in-depth analysis, advice, and theories on how to scale and grow businesses. Hoffman doesn’t do this job alone, though; he also brings in legendary industry leaders for his talks.

Just some of the leaders that have been on his show include the founders and CEOs of Netflix, Google, Facebook, Starbucks, Nike, Fiat, Spotify, Instagram, Airbnb, Uber, Paypal, Huffington Post, Twitter, Medium, Bumble, Yahoo, Slack, Spanx, Shake Shack, Dropbox to name a few. Along with the high-profile guests, the use of sound is second to none. It impactfully adds to the storytelling, making a well-edited and snappy podcast.

Come for: The most prominent names in the business

Stay for: The insight and advice

Top 3 Episodes

1. How to do good and do good business, w/Starbucks’ Howard Schultz – #21
2. Bill Gates: How to accelerate history – #48
3. Innovation is managed chaos, w/Eric Schmidt of Google/Alphabet – #6

#2 Mixergy Startup Stories

Hosted by Andrew Warner, Mixergy is another business podcast that features interviews with people at the top of their respective but incredibly diverse industries. What sets Mixergy apart is the depth of research that Andrew Warner and his team gather for each episode. While using a typical bulldog approach to ask penetrating questions. Not letting his guests get away with easy answers, Warner is typical of an investigative journalist. He drills down on points and asks follow-up questions.

Mixergy also integrates case-studies into some of its episodes. Interviewing an array of business owners about the businesses they have built. This results in delivering incredible inside value to aspiring entrepreneurs, showing them that there is no one way to run a company.

Come for: Diverse guests.

Stay for: Warner’s bulldog interview styles.

Top 3 Episodes

1. Reddit Founder: “I Wish I Still Owned Reddit Now” – #400
2. How Sam Ovens Is Helping Everyday People Start Their Own Consulting Businesses – #1417
3. How Clever Entrepreneurs Turned 3 Air Mattresses into Airbnb, the Site that Makes Any Home a Bed and Breakfast – #216

#3 Tim Ferris

One of the Godfathers of podcasting, Tim Ferris, has been around for what feels like years beginning with this startup podcast. Along with Joe Rogan, Tim Ferris is arguably one of the most influential podcasters around. Ferris can not only be called a podcaster, but a business owner, serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and early-stage angel investor. His investments range from Uber, Duolingo, Shopify, and Evernote, reportedly helping Tim reach a $100m net worth.

While his podcast has lately taken a turn towards more health-related topics ranging from meditation to character development, Tim can bring in world-famous people and gurus in the industry and startup world. Personalities such as Seth Godin, Derek Sivers, Tony Robbins, Ray Dalio, Lebron James, and Vitalik Buterin, the cryptocurrency Etherueum creator, have all appeared on his podcast in recent years.

Come for: Long-form interviews.

Stay for: The range of quality personalities and interview style that packs a massive amount of quality information.

Top 3 Episodes

1. How to Design a Life — Debbie Millman – #214
2. Tony Robbins — On Achievement Versus Fulfillment – #178
3. Jocko Willink — The Scariest Navy SEAL I’ve Ever Met . . . and What He Taught Me – #107

#4 Lewis Howes: School of Greatness

“Former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur” is how Lewis Howes begins every podcast. I started listening to Lewis Howes over four years ago on the recommendation of my former boss. Since, I’ve seen this startup podcast grow from one with only a few hundred episodes to one that now has over 1000. Lewis releases 3 new episodes weekly, with a long-form interview format on Mondays & Wednesdays being replaced by a 5-minute motivational burst every Friday.

Howes’ story itself is inspiring. Going from a down-and-out injured pro-athlete with zero career prospects to being called one of the biggest names in podcasting, a best-selling author, and motivational speaker, Howes tries to find and share the definition of greatness in every episode. Attracting various guests from investors, entrepreneurs, therapists, authors, athletes, Howes’ brilliant interview technique brings you into the mind of those on the show, espousing their wisdom and knowledge to the thousands.

Come for: The knowledge.

Stay for: The inspiration and motivation to achieve greatness

Top 3 Episodes

1. Mel Robbins – #970
2. Wim Hof – #910
3. Gary Vaynerchuk – #299

#5 NPR: How I Built This With Guy Raz

One of my absolute favorite podcasts series, not just in the business niche but in general. Guy Raz is a seasoned reporter who oozes a specific style of class interviewing with perfect storytelling. Hosted by NPR, so the editing, writing, and score are all top-notch. The clue is in the title of this podcast. How I Built, This (HIBT) brings in some of the industry’s biggest names, explaining how their company started in the very beginning and is built to last.

There are very few egos or tales of boardroom politics here, just stories of sheer grit and determination and how some went about raising capital. Famous entrepreneurs like Drew Houston of Dropbox, Daniel Mayer of Shake Shack & Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia treat listeners each week to past stories of their businesses’ early beginnings and how they identified the problem their organization now solves, and how they overcame initial hurdles while trying to launch.

It is a beautiful startup podcast that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. It introduces listeners to a wealth of personalities in the business world.

Come for: The guests.

Stay for: The storytelling.

Top 3 Episodes

1. Ben & Jerry’s: Ben Cohen And Jerry Greenfield – #60
2. Southwest Airlines: Herb Kelleher – #11
3. Airbnb: Joe Gebbia – #6

#6 Breaking Into Startups

Breaking Into Startups is a platform that features stories of people who broke into tech from non-traditional backgrounds. If you’re curious about how startups work or how to get a job without a degree, the guys at Breaking Into Startups can help.

This startup podcast gives listeners an insider look at the most disruptive startups by sharing success stories from people from all walks of life. This includes guests from college dropouts, pro athletes, army veterans, investment bankers, consultants, and venture capitalists who all acquired new skills and found jobs in technology.

The show highlights how to break away from the traditional route into tech, where guests on the show describe how they attended coding boot camps and immersive programs. After graduating, they found well-paying jobs in startups focusing on a range of tech industries. If you’re a fan of other tech-based startup podcasts, then add this one to your list; you won’t be disappointed.

Come for: Stories of people changing career

Stay for: Advice on how to do it yourself

Top 3 Episodes

1. Albrey Brown
2. Rodney Urquhart
3. Haseeb Qureshi

#7 Startup Podcast with Alex Blumberg & Gimlet Media

I credit “Startup Podcast” by Gimlet Media with launching my insatiable interest in business and startups. This startup podcast is a brilliant introduction for anyone wanting an insider taste of starting a business from the beginning, warts and all. Alex Blumberg, the host & co-founder of Gimlet, started this podcast as an experiment as he decided to quit his job and start his own podcasting business.

Gimlet Media & Alex Blumberg’s unique storytelling technique, combined with a relatable stumble through the world of entrepreneurship, is a welcome change to the polished and interview type of business podcasts we’re now used to. Alex opens up his home, relationship, thoughts, anguish, and anxieties in a podcast that makes you root for the underdog throughout.

In a particularly memorable episode, Blumberg attempts to pitch his business idea to Chris Sacca, a notorious billionaire venture capitalist, and gets it completely wrong. Instead of showing you how to pitch your business, Blumberg shows you precisely what not to do in a refreshingly open and riveting podcast series, especially the first season.

It’s not all bad news for Alex Blumberg and Co.; Gimlet has since grown into one of the biggest podcast media companies in the world, which Spotify recently acquired in a deal worth $200m, (I’m sure they celebrated with a Gimlet or two). The podcast is also the motivation behind the ABC sitcom “Alex Inc.”

Come for: The birth of Gimlet Media

Stay for: The captivating story-line

Top 3 Episodes

1. #1 – How Not to Pitch a Billionaire
2. #3 – How To Divide An Imaginary Pie
3. #6 – How To Value Your Startup

#8 The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE)

One of, if not the biggest and most famous podcasts in the world. Joe Rogan is a UFC commentator, comedian, and reality TV show host, so why is he on a blog post about the best podcasts for startups? Because of his massive audience and influence, he can attract some of the world’s biggest names. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Andrew Yang, John MacKey, Robert Bigelow & Tom Bilyeu have all appeared on at least one episode.

Rogan himself is a brilliant host. His relaxed style and setting make his guests feel incredibly comfortable throughout, resulting in a more open and honest conversation. The JRE has been responsible for some of the most memorable moments in podcasting history, including one Elon Musk incident which caused Tesla stock to fall by 9% after the episode aired.

The longest of all podcasts on this list with an episode lasting anywhere from 2-3 hours, the JRE is the ultimate in easy listening. Imagine you were at a bar, and you couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the following table, put it on a podcast, and you’ve got the JRE. This show will teach you less about how to start a business and more about entrepreneurs’ minds, what made them successful, and the reasons they wanted to venture into the business world.

Come for: Elon Musk

Stay for: The chit chat

Top 3 Episodes

1. Elon Musk – #1169
2. Anthony Bourdain & Brian Redban – #138
3. Jordan Peterson & Bret Weinstein – #1006

#9 Business Wars

As the name suggests, Business Wars pit well-known companies against each other to deliver some great insight into these companies’ real stories. This podcast highlights famous rivalries and assesses their performance and reputation to show who’s winning the race. Hosted by David Brown, an award-winning radio personality, Brown delivers a show like no other. Primetime business boxing finally has a platform.

Expect to see lineups including; Starbucks Vs. Dunkin Donuts, Nintendo Vs. Sony & Netflix Vs. Blockbuster and more. This no-holds-barred expose into some of the world’s most infamous and binge-worthy business rivalries stokes the flames of already fragile business relationships.

Come for: The headline names.

Stay for: The boardroom politics.

Top 3 Episodes

1. Starbucks Vs. Dunkin’
2. Southwest Vs. American
3. The North Face Vs. Patagonia

#10 HBR Idea Cast

Moving away from the charming personalities and army of famous guests and billionaires is HBR’s Idea Cast. Not to say that this podcast is not as entertaining as the others, but IdeaCast brings under-appreciated but extremely skillful management & leadership experts rather than famous CEOs.

Away from the fireworks and celebrity, HBR’s IdeaCast is arguably one of the more insightful and helpful podcasts when it comes to delivering excellent and actionable business advice. Expect topics and information on everything from networking & growth to business management. However, the real diamond is the podcast’s ability to share valuable information on managing teams of employees and contractors, something often overlooked by its fancier competitors.

For entrepreneurs and founders looking at building a team, this podcast is for you. To make the information being shared more valuable and easier to grasp, the host often frames advice firmly around real-life case studies we all could learn from.

Come for: The real business heroes.

Stay for: The exceptional value.

Top 3 Episodes

1. Become a Better Listener
2. When to Team Up with Your Competition
3. Networking Myths Dispelled

So You’d Really Like To Start A Podcast?

Maybe you’ve tried all of the above podcasts, and you’re inspired to try recording your own. Starting a startup podcast is a business in itself. All you need is a microphone, some editing software, an idea, and away you go. Not sure where to start? Try listening to podcasts about starting a podcast (very meta), or take notes from the above shows and see where you could offer improvements.

Get it right, and podcasting can be a great way to earn a side income or even a full-time one should the show become popular. However, you better begin soon since, as of January 2020, there were 880,000 podcast shows currently available, contributing to over 30m episodes, a figure that’s only going to increase. Launching a podcast isn’t easy, but it’s like any business. It takes determination, dedication, and a staunch mindset never to give up. The biggest stars in the game have over 1000 episodes under their belt. If you want to compete with the big boys, you’ve got to put in the time.

Final Word

There you have it. Ten of the best podcasts for startup founders to listen to and follow in 2021. These 10 are a sure-fire way to provide motivation and infinite knowledge and wisdom in the world of business and technology. Podcasts are here to stay, and they’re only going to get better as more people realize the platform’s potential and demand higher quality. Don’t miss out on an education you can carry in your pocket. If you’re not listening to podcasts, now is a great time to begin.

The post The Best Podcasts for Startup Entrepreneurs in 2021 appeared first on Startup Oasis.