Perhaps you’ve spent the past year thinking, scheming, planning and yes, dreaming about launching your own business. And now, by George, you’ve got it: that next great product or service is just steps away from becoming reality. All what’s left to do is to press that magic “launch” button and you’re off, right? Not quite. Rome wasn’t built in a day. So before you sign any papers, or apply for a license or a loan, here are a few applications that can help make sure you and your soon-to-be-launched startup, are headed in the right direction.
Ad-spend calculator
We all know it pays to advertise, but should you pay to advertise? If it’s bringing in business (customers, revenue), then sure. Still, you want to crunch those numbers before you splurge and put your new startup’s name in lights. Check out the ad-spend-calculator at qwilr.com. This easy to use plug in tool looks at the economics of your business, examining such items like average revenue, churn rate and customer acquisition cost.
And once you have this feedback, take some time to really examine and analyze it. You don’t have to follow the analysis to the letter, but it pays to heed the data.
Check out your competition
Yes, you’ve brainstormed and come up with the latest and greatest new product or service since sliced bread. But chances are, you still have competition in your respective field, so do your homework and check them out, extensively. Knowing your competition is just as important as knowing the ins and outs of your own business operation. Study them and see what works and what doesn’t. Utilize free version services like SimilarWeb to gain valuable traffic and marketing insight for any website, including your competitors. From one convenient visual dashboard, you’ll enjoy a general overview as well as different metrics like
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geography
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referring sites
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display advertising
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audience
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similar sites, and
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search traffic
That’s right, there’s a free version which allows you to compare two sites, next to each other. Of course, their Pro version allows for comparison of up to five sites simultaneously. But to start, get your feet wet for free.
Pitch your idea and do it well
Any good pitcher on the mound will stress the importance of warming up and good mechanics. And unless you already have all the capital you’ll need at your disposal, pitching your idea to potential investors is definitely in your future. You need to have a solid pitch before meeting investors.
All of this is accomplished with a good coach. Enter pitcherific.com. This awesome site provides varying templates, each emphasizing a different scenario or situation. They’ll coach you in everything from the elevator pitch, a one-sentence pitch to presentations enhanced by PowerPoint to a teleprompter. And yes, sign-up is free.
A platform to help you grow
When your company starts to grow, you’ll need more features, security and functionality than an entry level accounting software like QuickBooks can offer. I encourage you to look at Gravity Software® (Gravity). Gravity is an innovative mid-market accounting application written on the Microsoft Power Platform (aka Dynamics 365).
Believe me, I know the challenges that startups face each and every day. But what can help is having a technology solution that is scalable and can reduce time spent on administration. Here are some additional features that are important when your business starts to grow:
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Financials and CRM: Fully integrated into one database, one on one platform. There’s no need to manage two separate systems.
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Real-time Access: 24/7 real-time insights into your operations, anywhere, at any time.
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Better Collaboration: Users can increase productivity by using the technology that they already know and use.
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A Scalable Platform: Enjoy a cloud-based solution that can scale up or down based on your business needs. Easily go from 3 users to 30 uses to 300 users in just one day.
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Advanced Financial Reporting: In less than 15 minutes you can have sophisticated financial reports with the ability to export your reports to Excel or PDF with just a click.
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Maintain Unlimited Budgets: Keep it simple with just one budget or revise your budget as needed with automatic revision tracking.
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And much more . . .
Learn how you can apply this exciting technology for your growing business and schedule a demo. Gravity’s guiding principle is to simplify the lives of end users while providing the businesses the platform they need to grow.
Gravity Software
Better. Smarter. Accounting.
