Lost Job Start Business

Many tech focused entrepreneurs believe that their product is made for one thing. That it can only satisfy the needs of one niche. In may ways, this is a good thing. It makes the entrepreneur think about how to service that particular customer group with regard to their specific situation. It also gives an unambiguous message to their customer base.

However, in many cases, other niches can be tapped with the same core technology. The important thing is to have different messages for each different niche. A good example of this is the iPhone App “Watch Me Change”.

This app reminds you to take a photo of yourself everyday. Then over time it creates a time lapse video for you to watch or share with others.

Who would want such an app you ask? Well plenty of people. The app is marketed to three specific niches. 1) Weight-loss 2) Pregnancy and 3) Aging/Growth.

On their website, specific landing pages are set up that relate specifically to each target niche. This dramatically increases the total target market for the app. The key to this is the positioning the technology to be relevant for a specific niche.

If you are relevant and useful to their specific needs/wants people will pay attention to your message.

For example, a pregnant woman would never dream about buying an app that created a time-lapse video on weight loss. However, she would jump at the chance to get an app that produces the same video over her pregnancy.

Likewise, a guy growing a mustache for Movember would not use an app that was targeted at pregnant women. However, a facial change app would be perfect for him.

By making their app relevant to different niches watchmechangeapp.com have increased the market size for their app without making dramatic changes to their technology.

Every start-up should consider how their product or tech can be leveraged by looking at how it can be made relevant to different niches.

If you’ve lost your job, but you’re keen to start making money, then you don’t always need to start your own business company or organisation. Indeed, not everyone is suited to the role of an entrepreneur, which can be essential in ensuring that any business is a success. However, there are other options available, such as investment.

There are now a number of opportunities to invest your money online – so investors needn’t even leave the comfort of their homes. It possible to manage your investment account from home, which may have become your primary workspace if you are no longer working full time. Depending on the type of investments which you are looking to make, you may find that you are soon able to generate a relatively substantial income, without the hassle of managing a team, or traveling to and from your place of work each day.

Many people shy away from the idea of investing simply because they have little or no prior experience in this area. However, there are certain types of investment for which many people find prior experience is not necessary, such as buying and selling gold. This type of trading relies on the basic principle of making sure that the gold price which you pay to buy is lower than that at which you choose to sell. Anyone with even the smallest amount of business experience will doubtless be able to master this concept. Therefore this can be a good place for those who are unfamiliar with the investment process to start.

Gold also has the advantage of being a much more stable commodity. Those who are not in a position to take financial risks may prefer this type of investment, as opposed to investing in stocks and shares, whose value can fluctuate much less predictably.

What does marketing mean today?

Simple, it’s about creating art. Art is subjective. Not everyone will like your art but some people may. These people will identify with your product and hold your product as a badge for their own self image.

If you don’t get an emotional reaction with your product you are not creating art.

If you create something that stands out, you can’t please everyone. If somebody you talk to, does not hate your product you should be worried. Maybe eight of ten people will be repulsed by your product but two of ten will fall in love with it. That’s a big enough market to grow a business in.

More importantly, these people are likely to tell their friends about you.

Don’t sell cardboard. Don’t be bland. Have fun and mean something.

So many entrepreneurs that I talk to don’t fully understand advertising. They think that advertising is marketing and vice versa. They see advertising everyday. When they open a newspaper, when they watch T.V., when they visit a website, when they listen to the radio, as they are driving they are exposed to advertising.

We all know that most entrepreneurs are not from a business educational or business background. Therefore, they believe that they must advertise using the same media that they see everyday. In other words buy T.V., newspaper and radio ads. They don’t analyze the effectiveness of buying these ads. Instead, they just do it because they see others doing it. This is totally the wrong approach to advertising and marketing in general.

The most important issue when developing your marketing strategy which may include advertising is “Return on Investment.” This is where current display advertising on T.V., radio and in newspapers falls down. They are too expensive and therefore don’t give the return on investment required. In many cases, the return on investment is negative and that’s a great way to burn through all your cash. You are not in the cash burn business, you are in the cash making business.

Marketing has now moved away from advertising to “talkvertising.” This is because the math just doesn’t make sense for traditional advertising anymore. The approach to talkvertising is much different than the approach to traditional advertising for entrepreneurs. It’s about having your product so different, innovative, quirky, good that people talk about you.

Technology has supercharged word of mouth. Word of mouth can now turn your start-up global overnight. However, the biggest hurdle to achieving this is by following a “by the book” strategy. Grey is not a color worth talking about. If advertising rates come down to a level where they make sense for a start-up, then great. However, even if you can turn a good ROI from a traditional campaign it’s a good idea to talkvertise as well.

The key is to get the buzz going. After all, if your start-up is going to take off you need to be comment worthy. As you build your business always think about talkability. I’s like recruiting sales people who will work for free.

Remember, advertising won’t make your business, talkvertising will.

Perfection is the enemy of the entrepreneur. It’s an idea that stifles innovation. It stops the all important launch. It’s the excuse’s best friend. Unfortunately, our default setting is to only launch when something is “perfect.”

We are trained to believe that we must be perfect In school because we are graded as a fraction of perfection. We look at magazine with “perfect” images of “perfect” people. It’s easy to slip into the mindset of “if it’s not perfect, it’s not good enough to release.”

If entrepreneurship was a music it would be free form jazz fusion improvisation. You don’t read from a score, you jam it out and use your intuition. The true secret of entrepreneurship is that it’s not about perfection it’s about making progress.

Progress is much more valuable to you than perfection. Progress should be your key goal. In other words, get your product out there and start making all aspects of your business better. Perfection presumes that you know it all. Entrepreneurs don’t have that luxury. Great entrepreneurs realize that they don’t know it all. That’s what makes them great.

The recent uproar over Facebook’s privacy policy has led to the social network reverting to a more simplified privacy system. Facebook has faced the stern criticism for implementing a more complicated privacy policy in order to expand it’s business model. I believe much of this is unfair and undeserved.

Firstly, Facebook must innovate to stay alive. Currently they are the number 2 website in the world behind Google. However, the past evidence shows that if a social network remains static they will see a dramatic fall off in users. Just look at the once popular Bebo. If you look at the various innovations Facebook has introduced it’s obvious that their privacy policy would have to change accordingly.

No business get’s it right all the time. Facebook introduced a new privacy policy, listened to user feedback then made the appropriate changes. Start-ups can learn a lot from this approach. Of course there will be people who shout and yell. Of course there will be critics. These are the same people who would criticize Facebook for not making any changes and not introducing any new features. The key point start-up entrepreneurs need to take on board is that they put it out there and listened then did something about it.

When you work with techies they tend to over complicate things and make stuff seem much more difficult than it is. I believe that this is one of the core reasons why people did not warm to Facebook’s new privacy policy. Also, Facebook is a social network. The name is a big hint. Social implies, sharing so by joining Facebook people are doing it to share stuff. What sort of privacy policy would you implement if you were in Zuckerberg’s position?

Ultimately this controversy can be boiled down to snobby “right first timers” versus the more realistic and chilled out “incremental improvement” gang. See it’s all about making mistakes and learning from them.

Please comment especially if you have a different view.

I have just uploaded a new ebook on Scribd. I have combined previous blog posts and content form other ebooks to put together a comprehensive one stop resource for people who are starting a business after losing their job.  Hope you enjoy.

The Rebound: The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Business After You Have Lost Your Job

Recently Jupiter lost one of it’s stripes. Scientists cannot explain why this has happened. Start-ups need to learn from this. Look, sometimes things just happen. Sometimes you just lose your stripe. This can not be rationalized or explained. It just happens.

You might have devised the most bulletproof, foolproof, guaranteed to succeed, watertight, plan. You may think that there is absolutely no chance that it will not succeed. However, this is the start-up game and anything can happen. There is no such thing as guaranteed to succeed. There are way too many variables.

That’s why standing off and doing reams of market research is dangerous. Instead find out the fundamentals and jump into the game. Be like a jazz musician and start improvising. Eventually you will play something astonishing. When you are an active participant in the market you can roll with the punches. However, when you spend months researching before you do anything, you are open to get knocked out.

By gearing yourself to expect the unexpected you will be able to deal with any unexpected shocks in a level headed manner. Remember, the unexpected is to be expected when you start a business. It’s up to you to be prepared for it.

I have been looking at previous posts and articles that I have written over the last year and a half. There is quite a lot of stuff. As a result,  I am currently working on an ebook based on that content. I hope it will be a valuable resource for first time entrepreneurs who have recently lost their job.

I will be condensing and re-writing the material over the next few weeks. I hope to get the ebook out there before the end of June.

You can’t bluff a start-up. It’s a no bluff zone. That’s the reality. You can’t achieve anything without substance.

This is actually a good thing because you don’t have to worry about anything else. You can be the worst presenter ever. You can look like a mess. You can smell bad. If you are competent at what you do and there is substance behind your start-up then people will be prepared to invest.

Conversely, you can be Mr/Ms slick and it will get you nowhere. Remember, the people you will be dealing with will  see through the crap. This applies to both investors and early adopters.

Substance over sales pitch all the way.