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If you’re managing your business and handling your online marketing at the same time, you’ll need good social media scheduling tools to keep your posting consistent. Scheduling your content to be published several weeks, or even a month in advance leaves you more time to devote to operating your business. There are quite a few social media scheduling tools available, and most offer the basics: post scheduling and publishing, monitoring and analytics. Are you looking for a more efficient way to publish your social media updates? Perhaps you need a way to publish posts when you’re offline, but your audience is online? You need a social media scheduling tool. There are thousands of social media tools that all do things slightly differently. Below are the Top 5 Social Media Automation Softwares; Hootsuite Hootsuite lets you schedule and publish to Facebook and LinkedIn groups, LinkedIn company pages, WordPress.com blogs, and YouTube channels Additional apps that integrate with Hootsuite allows you to schedule and publish to other social media networks, including Tumblr, SoundCloud, Flipboard, Pinterest, Flickr and more. The one downside for me is that Hootsuite’s mobile app only lets you schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, leaving out all others. When, and if, they’ll add other social media networks to the mobile app is unknown. Types of content you can schedule and post: PNG, JPG, GIF, .mp4, or m4v (video). Buffer Buffer is a software application for web and mobile that lets you schedule content to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Linkedin from one dashboard. It has limited scheduling functionality compared to purpose-built tools like SmarterQueue and MeetEdgar, or even all-in-one tools like Sendible and AgoraPulse, but it’s simple to use. For starters, you can create a preset publishing schedule for each social account, so content always gets posted at the optimal time. And you can tailor your content for each network, so you can customize the tone, emojis, and hashtags to fit each one. Zoho Social Zoho Social connects to the biggies, including Instagram, but not Pinterest. You can custom schedule or auto-schedule posts using its SmartQ tool (paid accounts only), which chooses the best time to schedule posts based on your past posts’ performance. Bulk scheduling is also possible with Zoho. One unique feature of this tool is the ability to repeat schedule posts (pro version only). MeetEdgar MeetEdgar is a purpose-built social media scheduling and automation tool that makes it easy to publish your content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. MeetEdgar lets you schedule, share, and recycle the posts you want when you want. It uses category-based scheduling like ‘Motivation on Mondays’, ‘Blog Posts on Tuesdays’, and ‘Inspiration on Fridays’. Each category has its own color-coded queue, so it’s easy to see at-a-glance what type of content is on the schedule. MeetEdgar continues to publish and reshare content, even when you reach the end of your queue. It simply goes back to the beginning and starts again. Sprout Social Sprout Social is a beautifully designed platform. It’s the first platform I used for my social media management. However, with more clients added to my roster who work with YouTube and other platforms, I had to switch to Hootsuite. But for an individual business that doesn’t need to publish to YouTube or Pinterest, Sprout Social is a great option. The scheduling interface is intuitive, and there are many options. These are some of the best social media scheduling tools. Test one or all of them to see which one will help you stay on top of your social media marketing. #socialmedia #marketing #business #entrepreneur #scheduling #startups

Customer Lifetime Value is a simple way to estimate the value of each additional customer you acquire. The beauty of CLV is it allows you to evaluate the performance of your marketing channels while giving you insight into the KPI’s that drive your company’s value. You can use CLV to calculate the number of new customers a marketing or sales campaign must generate to break even. Because it’s so simple, CLV can conceal its assumptions about the future. You should understand those assumptions fully any time you calculate your CLV. While it’s simple to calculate your CLV, calculating and monitoring the elements of your CLV is an ideal task for a business intelligence system. Margin: Your margin is the difference between the revenue you receive per unit (e.g. one month’s subscription revenue) and the variable cost of delivering your product or service to one additional customer. Remember that this is only the additional cost of serving one more customer. Don’t include overhead. Also, don’t include sales costs, because you’re going to compare the CLV to the cost of customer acquisition later. Churn Rate: Churn Rate is the percentage of customers who end their relationship with your service during a specific time period. The Churn Rate is arguably the single most important number for a subscription business. If you have 1,000 customers and lose 10 in a month, your Churn Rate for that month is 1%.  You’re always going to have some churn, but managing churn through product improvements and customer service is a key to building a successful subscription business. We’re going to be writing more about churn in a future post. Retention Rate: Retention Rate is the percentage of your customers who don’t cancel in a given period. It is simply 1 minus your Churn Rate. So, if your Churn Rate is 1%, then your Retention Rate is 99%. Customer Lifetime: If you know your Churn Rate, you know your Customer Lifetime. Customer Lifetime is 1 divided by the Churn Rate. So, if your Churn Rate is 1% per month, your Customer Lifetime is 1/.01=100 months or a little over eight years. Discount Rate: You’re unlikely to be able to get this number from your business intelligence system. It’s your cost of capital. If you have to borrow capital from the bank, it’s your interest rate. If you’re seeking investors, it’s going to be more difficult to determine your discount rate. The longer your customer lifetime, and you want it to be long, the more your discount rate matters. A decent rule of thumb for Discount Rate 10% per year, but you should consult your CFO or financial advisor for a more accurate number. Churn is a key indicator for every SaaS business. You can’t manage it directly, but it shows up in other elements of your business. Customer satisfaction is a leading indicator of churn. Knowing your CLV will help you plan, monitor, and evaluate your marketing and sales initiatives. It will also help you chart the progress and success of your business. It helps determine whether you have a profitable, scalable business or need to reassess your entire strategy. Understanding how each element contributes to your CLV helps you understand how your business works, identify trouble spots and improve your relationships with your customers. #customers #relation #business #startups #entrepreneur #clv #churn

These days, small businesses increasingly need access to their data on the go, with no overhead for storage maintenance and no hardware maintenance costs. Cloud storage provides an efficient solution and is rapidly gaining in popularity. There are so many cloud services out there; it may seem overwhelming picking which one to use with your business. When picking a service you need to consider a couple of things like security (which can turn into a disaster), ease of use, cost, and availability. Not all cloud services are created equal, but a few are typically regarded as the best in the business. Dropbox for Business Functions: File Storage, Sharing, Synching Price: Free 14-day trial; $12.50/month (minimum of 5 users); 1 TB of storage per user You may have heard of Dropbox because it’s commonly used as a personal cloud. They offer free space to anyone looking to store files in the cloud, but they also excel when it comes to small businesses. Dropbox is a leader when it comes to file storage, sharing a synching, making it easy to share files across all of your teams, anywhere, anytime. Dropbox for Business bulks up its free offerings lending support to multiple users. You also get 1 TB of storage per user – which is basically a whole desktop computer’s worth. Google Drive Functions: file storage and sharing Price: Individuals get 15 GB free, 100 GB for $1.99/month, 1 TB for $9.99/month, 10 TB for $99.99/month, 20 TB for $199.99/month and 30 TB for $299.99/month. Anyone who’s ever used Gmail has probably used Google Drive. It’s renowned for its personal cloud storage services and helps all of us get around that pesky 25 MB limitation in email attachments. Google Drive includes a number of insanely helpful features that foster collaboration. It basically has Microsoft Word built into the system, allowing you to create documents that your team can edit, save, and share. You can even suggest edits for your entire team to see. Create spreadsheets, slideshow presentations, and more. Microsoft OneDrive Features: Storage, Synching, Sharing Price: 15 GB free with sign up; 100 GB for $1.99/month; 200 GB for $3.99/month; 1 TB with Office 365 Personal for $6.99/month. Microsoft OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to Google Drive, and it’s seamlessly integrated into Windows operating systems. If you’re a business who’s life and soul runs on Windows computers, this is the service for you. For example, if you use Windows 8 or Windows Phone, you can sync your system/device settings and apps and files and folders. Don’t be fooled by the integration, though – you can run Microsoft OneDrive on iOS, Mac, and Android, too. Much like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive lets you collaborate and edit documents simultaneously and in real-time from any device – PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones. You can also upload photos from your phone and tablet and have them synchronized with your desktop. CrashPlan Functions: Online Backups for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris Pricing: Free 30-day trial: unlimited storage for $10/month or up to 20 laptops and desktops Those of us who use Linux and Solaris may feel a little left out when it comes to cloud storage solutions. Most cater to either Windows or Mac. Where the competition fails, CrashPlan swoops in because it works with Windows, Mac, and Linux and Solaris. It also has unique pricing. You can choose to backup an unlimited amount of data per single computer or choose how much data you need in advance and spread it across an unlimited amount of computers. This really helps certain business models. Some businesses may have a lot of employees that share computers, so it’s less cost-effective to pay per user. Some businesses have a small number of employees who each use their own devices. It may be more cost-effective to pay per user in that instance. #storage #business #cloud #files #integration #work #startup

Work-life balance is critical for entrepreneurs because being an entrepreneur is tough. You have a lot of highs and lows, and not a lot of other people to help you grow the business. If your life is out of balance, you won’t be able to excel in any area. Working longer is usually not more productive, but the temptation to overwork is always there. You must find a way to integrate the things that are important to you while growing your business. Be mindful that work-life balance, or integration, is something that you must define for yourself. The things that are meaningful to you will not necessarily be meaningful to others. It’s your responsibility to oversee the balance in your life. Take control by setting clear goals and boundaries. Be sure to schedule your time for each area that is valuable to you and commit to it. Let others know where you stand by communicating with key stakeholders. Eliminate time wasters and take care of your health and wellbeing. The more you balance your life, the more your business will thrive. Becoming a workaholic when beginning the process of entrepreneurship is inevitable. Most of us believe that we have to give up our lives outside of work for this new journey we are trying to map out. However, this is not the case.  Below are five tips for entrepreneurs looking to maintain a social life while starting their own business! Stop the guilt Feeling guilt from doing things besides working is normal. You probably think “Well if I have all of this new free time, it has to be devoted to my new business if I want it to be successful.” While this thought process is common for most entrepreneurs, it isn’t necessarily a healthy thought process. Change your mindset, and you will learn how to better prioritize. Give yourself some personal time You can take time off without losing customers. Blocking out time to do something for yourself is essential for a healthy mindset, especially when holding the responsibility of being in charge of your own business and employees. The fear that your customers will leave due to the fact that you took personal time for yourself is a common fear, however, it is predominantly in your head. Self-care is the best care! Say “no” Saying “no” is not an easy task. Learning how to say “no” is entirely different than actually saying it. Saying “no” is rejecting obligation. Yes, you do have duties that require your time and focus. But, there are going to be times where you do not want to do something in regards to your business. It is imperative that you say “no” instead of being a “yes” waiting to happen. Stand up for yourself and your business. Write SMART goals SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. These goals help you evaluate progress. Include your team in this process. Feedback from your coworkers and employees will be beneficial in the long run for the success of your business. Having a business plan for your company is extremely important, but do you have SMART goals planned out for yourself? Try writing them down and prioritize your personal goals to fit into your work schedule. Be present Being present in everything you do is one of the best ways to maintain a balance between your work life and your personal life. Multitasking is something that will occur often as you start your own business, and yes, it is a great skill to have! However, multitasking can also cause room for less-effective work. Focus on one thing at a time. If you are at your child’s recital or at a sports event, let the work call go to your voicemail. If it is something important, the person calling will leave a message. Don’t be afraid to let your phone call go to voicemail! Now, starting a business of your own can be an intimidating process. Making sure that you maintain a positive work-life balance is essential to the success of your business, as you are the one in charge! The more of these tips you incorporate into your life and make into a habit, the more in-control you’ll feel over your work life and personal life. #entreprenuer #balance #work #life #business #startup

Employee complaints run the spectrum between serious allegations that require official action and perceived wrongs with little or no substance. They often stem from employee perceptions and are relatively easy to resolve. As a human resources professional, you may sometimes wonder how to respond to employee complaints, especially if you get one or two every day. Depending on the gravity of the situation, you may be able to address the complaint then and there, or you may find it necessary to get others involved. It's critical that you don't become too hardened to employee complaints, because your most important job is to help the business. If you ignore a complaint that a manager is yelling and it turns out that the manager truly is yelling, turnover may increase or customers might overhear and that's damaging to the business. Be careful about telling people that they always have to go through the chain of command before complaining. For example, a sexually harassed female may not feel comfortable going to her male supervisor's boss to complain about the harassment. In this case, the policy of always following the chain may result in continued harassment and legal liability for the company. There are many approaches to handling employee complaints, but six general strategies form the basis for investigating possibly subjective complaints. Get To Know Your Management Team. You need to know that who is prone to yell, who is the nicest guy ever but allows his staff to walk all over him, and who doesn't have a clue what goes on with the staff. You can't get this information just by talking one-on-one with the management staff. You need to pop in and out. This isn't because you're managing these people, it's because you need to know what's actually happening. Find Out What's Really Going On. When an employee says, “My manager is always watching me,” figure out what that means. Ask, “What do you mean when you say that your manager is always watching you?” and “Why is this a problem for you?” You may find out that the employee is just whining. Then again, you may find out that the supervisor is hovering inappropriately over a particular employee or that the employee hasn't been properly trained. You won't know until you ask. Are They Venting or in Need? Sometimes people just want to vent. But sometimes they really want help with a problem. It's important to differentiate between the two situations, but critical if you want to effectively respond to employee complaints. Keep Your Door Open It's a great policy to encourage employees to solve most of their problems themselves. An HR manager is not a therapist or parent. But if you turn people away, you'll miss valuable or even critical information. An open-door policy is always recommended. Notify the Supervisor or Manager You may not need to notify an employee's manager. If you do, you should let the employee know that you are going to. If you don't, they will feel betrayed. Sometimes the employee may ask that you not tell a supervisor. In this case, you'll have to decide whether it's necessary. #humanresources #action #steps #HR #Business #startup #management #entrepreneur

As any good employer will tell you, the most important component of any company is the employees. Motivated, qualified, and passionate employees. Finding these people can be exceptionally difficult if you don't know where to start. The key is in the recruitment process, managing it effectively from start to finish and ensuring all quality measures have been taken. Finding a needle in a haystack can sometimes seem a more achievable prospect than finding the perfect candidate. Hopefully, your recruitment process isn't quite as time-consuming as sifting through hundreds of candidates until you find that promising, shiny one. To avoid this from happening, it is important to set a few fundamental rules to follow. Each stage of the recruitment process is just as crucial as the next if you are to attract the very best talent. To skip a step or take any shortcuts can undermine the quality of the end product you seek. Below are 5 of the most important steps to follow when recruiting for the perfect candidate. Time frame If you are to have a clear plan for your recruitment drive, setting a time frame is fundamental. Don't worry too much about sticking to an exact day, as allowing some leniency will help to prepare for (almost inevitable) unexpected delays. But giving yourself a deadline for each step in the process, such as shortlisting and interviews, will generate the urgency it requires. Recruitment strategy The next challenge is to choose the right recruitment strategy to suit the job that you're hiring for. The differences between contingency and retained recruitment can vary from agency to agency, but it's worth noting that retained recruitment strategies tend to be a little more bespoke and therefore lend themselves to more high-end, niche roles. Job description Building a job description can either be very easy or very hard, depending on your closeness and familiarity with the role. More technical roles, such as IT or Engineering, will often require skills and experience in using very specific software and machinery. Explaining these details as clearly as possible is crucial if you are to find the most suitable candidates. Shortlisting & Interview To arrive at the shortlisting process is somewhat of a celebration to employers. The key to making the shortlisting process as efficient as possible is to become 'ultra-critical'. Consider finer details such as their proximity to your business, their experience, and their applicable skills/qualities. At this point all shortlisted candidates should be competent enough to do the job in question, otherwise, it's a pretty poor shortlist. Induction Having whittled down the thousands of CVs and interviewees, you're left with one. You're totally confident that you've made the right choice, as they seem more than competent at everything you threw their way. Nothing to worry about right? Wrong. You still have to deliver a quality induction to this candidate for two main reasons. Firstly, although they know what the job entails, they don't know how your company actually operates, so you need to show them. Introduce them to all of the staff members, show them where the different offices/departments are, even tell them what local shops are handy for their dinner breaks. By carrying out such a thorough recruitment process you are also potentially future-proofing your company for years to come. Ensuring a candidate is a perfect fit for the role, and overall working ethos of the company will increase your chances of employee retention- leading to less hiring campaigns down the line and more money and time saved. #recruitment #business #focus #startup #interview #entrepreneurs #action #steps

Organizational structure determines the assignment and coordination of roles, power, and responsibilities within a business. It also defines how information flows between the different levels of management. Every business, from a sole trader to the largest company, is organized in a particular way. You can organize a business by function, geographical area, product, or project. You can also organize a business in a hierarchical or a flat structure, or even a matrix structure. Introducing a formal organizational structure can help put your business in a better position to achieve its objectives. There are a number of factors that differentiate small-business operations from large-business operations, one of which is the implementation of a formal organizational structure. Organizational structure is important for any growing company to provide guidance and clarity on specific human resource issues, such as managerial authority. Small-business owners should begin thinking about a formal structure early in the growth stage of their business. Without a formal organizational structure, employees may find it difficult to know who they officially report to in different situations, and it may become unclear exactly who has the final responsibility for what. Organizational structure improves operational efficiency by providing clarity to employees at all levels of a company. By paying mind to the organizational structure, departments can work more like well-oiled machines, focusing time and energy on productive tasks. A thoroughly outlined structure can also provide a roadmap for internal promotions, allowing companies to create solid employee advancement tracks for entry-level workers. It is common for small businesses to lack a solid organizational structure. All employees in startup companies can be required to perform a range of tasks outside of their official job descriptions, and a good number of employees in startups have generous leeway in making decisions. Aside from that, all employees in a startup generally know who they report to, since it is usually a single person or group – the owner or partners. It is very important to have a formal organizational structure in place before your company grows so large that your unstructured workforce becomes unwieldy. #organization #action #steps #business #entrepreneurs #management #structure

When you consider all the time, effort, and money you invest in hiring a new employee, you want to be sure that once your new employee finally signs on, they’re going to stick around for a while. That’s why proper onboarding is critical because a new hire’s first few days can make or break their decision to stay with the company long-term. If you have yet to create a formal onboarding process, now is the time to implement one. Here are some tips for getting started. What a Successful Onboarding Program Looks Like Use the following tips to establish an onboarding process that sets new hires up for success. Establish Goals Approach onboarding as you would any other business initiative, and set goals for what you want to get out of it. The goal of any successful onboarding program should be to instill confidence in new hires and set a foundation for success by: Welcoming new hires and familiarizing them with the company. Clarifying their roles, establishing goals, and setting expectations. Helping them understand and make informed decisions about their benefits. Giving them the necessary resources to do their jobs successfully. Answering any lingering questions about the role or the company. Start Before Day One Onboarding should begin as soon as your employee signs the offer letter. Send the new employee a welcome email with information on when and where to show up, how to dress, what they should bring, the orientation schedule, and any paperwork they need to fill out. (If possible, enable them to fill out and sign forms electronically to ease the burden of having to print forms themselves and remember to bring them in.) Give employees everything you can ahead of time to ensure the employee arrives prepared and ready to “hit the ground running.” Don’t Confuse Onboarding With Orientation It’s important to understand that, unlike employee orientation, which is usually a one-and-done event, onboarding should be an ongoing process that could last anywhere from 90 days to a year, with regular check-ins along the way to review performance, provide feedback and identify any challenges the employee may be encountering. Make Sure Managers Play a Key Role The employee/manager relationship is one of the biggest predictors of on-the-job satisfaction, and the onboarding process sets the tone for the rest of the employee’s tenure. Therefore, managers’ involvement in the onboarding process is critical. They should check in early and often to show new hires they are respected, valued, and appreciated by offering regular encouragement, guidance, and performance feedback. Seek Input from Those Who Know When designing your onboarding program, it’s important you work with their managers; however, it is just as crucial that you ask current employees for their input and advice as well. Ask employees what they would have changed their experience and what you could do to improve the process. Gathering feedback from those who have been in their shoes will help ensure new hires get the information and assistance they truly need to succeed. While onboarding can be an intensive undertaking for both employer and new hire, the benefits outweigh the costs. Taking the time to onboard new hires properly shows that you care about their success, which not only reaffirms their decision to join your company but instills confidence in their ability to do their job. #action #steps #business #entrepreneur #startup #role

Organizations pay a high price for ineffective leadership and dysfunctional teams. Low productivity, high staff turnover, and poor customer service can cripple profits and productivity. Focusing on improving leadership skills and building effective teams are high-ROI areas for organizational improvement. Personality tests can be a huge asset in getting to the root of who you really are.  But with so many to choose from how do you know which one is best. TOP FIVE LEADERSHIP PERSONALITY TESTS True Colours Test: Take a moment to pick your favorite color: do you prefer orange, gold, green, or blue? In this test, originally developed by personality innovator Don Lowry in 1978, you’ll discover how closely that color matches your natural-born temperament! The true colors personality test is an excellent way of understanding yourself and understanding others. The Big Five Personality Test: This free personality test gives you accurate scores for the Big Five personality traits. See exactly how you score for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism with this scientific personality assessment. The StrengthFinders helps individuals identify, understand, and maximize their unique combination of talents, knowledge, and skills—strengths—to do their work, achieve their goals, and interact with others. Love Languages: It's never too late to start loving better. Whether you're dating or married, currently single, learning to parent children or teenagers, or simply looking for new ways to connect with others and grow personally. This test is for you. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI assessment) helps professionals conduct one-on-one and group discussions about conflict. It is a tool for managing and building teamwork. It’s important to understand assessments are not tests; there are no correct answers. And, employment is not dependent upon the results. They are used to help team members to better understand their unique traits that may help or hinder workplace performance. Although they can be used alone, we use them as a supplement to what they learn in other exercises of our leadership development programs. The bottom line is to become a better entrepreneur, you have to be fully self-aware.  These tests can help in that journey; none of them are perfect but all of them will help you in your quest in knowing yourself and seeking self-improvement. #entrepreneur #leadership #business #startup #personality #selfawareness #businessplan #business #plan #test

An executive summary is a brief introduction and summary of your business plan. It should describe your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights. A good executive summary grabs your reader’s attention and lets them know what it is you do and why they should read the rest of your business plan or proposal. While the executive summary is the opening section in your business plan, draft the other sections of the business plan first, and then write your executive summary. This approach will allow you to be thorough and distill your company’s key strengths. For this reason, details and activities for developing an executive summary are located at the end of this workbook. The goal of this section is to get potential investors excited about your product or service. You must convince investors that there is a problem in the marketplace that is not being addressed by currently available solutions. The key message to convey is how your company will achieve and sustain market power. Ensure that the investors understand why the problem is important, as well as the customers and their needs. Consider the following questions when writing this section: • What is the market your product or service will address? • Is there a particular niche in the market that you should focus on first? • What problem does your product or service address? • How should you price your product or service? • Who are the potential customers? What is their profile? • How will you get the product or service to your customer? The planning guide includes the following headings: Market Overview: Provide an overall description of the market you are in or are planning to enter. Market Background: Provide the context for your market, including market size, market growth rates, demographics, psychographics, needs and trends, buying patterns, preferences, and barriers to entry. Market Challenges: Based on the data, provide the relevant analysis for your product or service, and focus on some unique issues that can be solved. Market Opportunity: Bring the section together by articulating the opportunity and setting the stage for your product or service. The general rule of thumb is that executive summaries should be as short as possible. Your audience has limited time and attention and they want to get the details of your business plan as quickly as possible. Try to keep your executive summary under 2 pages if possible, although it can be longer if absolutely necessary. #summary #businessplan #startup #executive #summary #business #plan

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is like the first draft or copy of the product. The purpose of MVP is to release the concept and collect the data about customers’ response with minimum effort. It might be the first product of its kind and the company has no idea whether the concept will work or not. The uncertainty in the innovation process leads to the advent of MVP. It might be the first product of its kind and the company has no idea whether the concept will work or not. The uncertainty in the innovation process leads to the advent of MVP. MVP is not just about the product, rather it’s a process. It requires you to test the concept, make modifications, and most importantly, whether consumers will like it or not. MVPs are quite economical because it is like a beta version and does not cost as much as that of a full product. Here are some of the innovative ways to develop a minimum viable product and set the path to a successful product launch later. Understand User Needs The concept behind any product creation is to address user needs and solve them. While developing a product, we perceive user problems as the final words. However, through interviews and surveys, we can get a better picture of what are the actual problems and how to solve them. It is similar to market research that requires understanding the target market according to consumer’s preferences. There are possibilities that the concept you are working on might not be new to the users. Interviews and surveys will ensure that the concept you are working on is practical. Moreover, the interaction with the users helps you find any other problem that can be solved by you. You have to be vigilant and make sure to develop a great MVP for the best results. Analyze Your Competitors Startups or entrepreneurs who have blind trust in the product’s uniqueness must not blindfold themselves. An ideal approach is to analyze competitors and figure out whether there are similar products on the market or not. In fact, if there are no competitors, it does not mean that you can push the product and introduce it. Competitors’ analysis is thus a core part of MVP development. In fact, if there are no competitors, it does not mean that you can push the product and introduce it. Competitors’ analysis is a core part of MVP development. A number of tools will allow you to analyze competitors’ websites such as the source of traffic, monthly page visitors, geographical location, and website rank. Define User Journey The primary goal of any product is to facilitate users and allow them to take certain actions. For instance, if you were looking for a pair of jeans, what would be your journey? Visit the store, select the most liked one, check the size and color, and pay for it. The user journey comprises of the sequence of categories and activities. There are certain steps that need to be followed in order to achieve the main objective. For each of these steps, there are a wide variety of solutions and things to develop and achieve what the user wants in the end. Prioritize and List Down Features The next step is to prioritize and list down features that are necessary for each stage of the users’ journey. It is not necessary, but ideally, you can highlight features that are nice to have. Prioritize each feature for each stage you have listed down earlier. For example, you can ask what your users want to accomplish by taking a certain action. This will be the main feature of your product. Ask what other features are necessary to facilitate users and why they need them. Develop, Test and Learn After the scope of work is defined, now it is time to gear up for development. Going through the long process of development it is time to test the product. For this purpose, quality assurance engineers have to figure out any kind of bugs or flaws in the product. Moreover, they make sure that the product is ready for alpha-beta testing. The alpha testing is limited to a few people, mostly friends, and family. However, if you want to move directly to beta testing, there is no hard and fast rule. The process of beta testing requires users to test the product and varies from one to two weeks for the feedback. The purpose of the Minimum Viable Product is to learn quickly about your product with low investment. As soon as your product goes through the MVP development phase, you will likely conclude something valuable, whether it needs to be discarded or it can be continued. #startup #business #idea #validation #valuation #MVP

Pirate Metrics was invented by Dave McClure in 2007. AARRR, also known as Pirate Metrics, stands for acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue. It’s pretty much the pillar of understanding your customers, their journey, and optimizing your funnel as well as setting some valuable and actionable metric goals for your startup. AARRR is widely accepted as the five most important metrics for a startup to focus on. That is because these metrics effectively measure your company’s growth while at the same time being simple and actionable. How Do Pirate Metrics Work? The basic concept of Pirate Metrics is based on five types of measurements of user behavior: A: Acquisition – from what channels do users come from? This stage is your first contact with customers. A: Activation – what percent of them have a satisfying initial experience? This is the stage in which your users actually try your product. R: Retention – do they come back? This stage main goal is to keep customers locked to your product or service. R: Referral – do they like it enough to recommend it to their friends? This stage focuses on growth. R: Revenue – can you monetize your product? This stage starts when a customer buys your product or service. Acquisition The acquisition is the first step in the Pirate Metrics process. It describes how people find you and turn into customers. They come through organic search, banner ads, social media, etc. So, acquisition begins when you start to identify your customers as individual users. This is not just to look at visitors, but to know how many and how to convert those visitors to customers. You need to monitor those steps because it will help you better realize and optimize the customer journey. Therefore, start by establishing the right metrics for each step and each channel through your visitors came. Activation This metric focuses on conversions, one in particular. Activation is the process where your visitor already signed up and decide to actually try your product. It’s about the first experience your customer has with your product or service. When your visitor activates, and they are starting to see the value of your product, they want to try it. This is called activation conversion. And this the primary focus of Activation. But it’s not enough to get people to try your product. They need to stick with it. It’s crucial to bring them to the realization of the importance of your product for their needs. And it needs to be realized as quickly as possible so that they keep coming back. It’s a good idea to segment and target users with specific onboarding emails. Revenue Revenue is the stage that starts when a user finally takes a decision to buy your product. Revenue is important for any startup. Even Facebook and Instagram, companies that started out as purely social, non-monetary platforms, are only successful today because of the huge advertising business behind them. It is much cheaper to drive an existing customer to repeat the purchase of your product than it is to acquire a brand new one. So, the way of increasing revenue is by increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and decreasing Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). CLV is the amount of revenue you earn from a customer during the time it sticks to your company. Your CAC is the amount of money you spend on acquiring your customer. This includes various costs, from marketing, sales, and others. So, it’s logical that you need to lower CAC and increase CLV to see the revenue growth. Retention Customer retention is all about keeping people around after they try your product or download your service. How you turn your success with acquisition and activation into growth is what’s important. It is more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. It’s also easier to sell to someone who has purchased from you before as trust between you has already been established. Tracking retention is different for every business, however. For a SaaS company, this means continuing to keep a customer from churning, in addition to up-selling more advanced features of a current model of the product. Retention is an important group of metrics to keep an eye on. If your retention numbers are low, it is very likely that you are not marketing the right product to the right people. With the low retention of a product, you are going to lose more customers and money in the process. Well-timed, targeted emails can be a really powerful tool for encouraging retention. With well-targeted emails, you can reach out in a personal way. Referral Referrals might be one of the most important, and an often underrated group of metrics to focus on. Word of mouth marketing is one of the best customer acquisition channels to focus on. So, the absolute best way to drive growth can be through referral. Having your customers refer others is every business dream. It’s a genuine and cheap way to acquire new customers. Applying Pirate Metrics Pirate Metrics is simply a guideline meant to help business owners and marketers to find the most important metrics for them. Especially for startups and small businesses. These metrics will help you simplify this complex process and stay on track. Optimizing your funnels will help you to realize the most important stages that customer goes through when it interacts with your business. So, knowing how to act and react is of key importance. At the very least, knowing these metrics will allow you to sustain and scale your business more efficiently. #piratemetrics #AARRR #swot&more