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You probably know the saying: It costs money to make money. And with 50 percent of new businesses failing within five years — and 70 percent failing within 10 — marketing is more important than ever. Marketing is what fuels business growth, and it’s one of the most important things to consider in a business plan. Without a solid marketing strategy in place, you’ll find that you’ll be spending a lot of time and money on trying to grow your business with little to show for it.

As a new business owner, it would be great to see high-impact results immediately. Without millions of dollars from venture capitalists, though, gaining results can be a long road. However, while there is no magic formula to marketing, there are some easy, high-impact ...

We’ve spent the last couple of sessions at Startups Live talking about idea validation: how do you know if an idea you have is an actual viable business in the first place? How do you go about learning about your idea from the people whose opinions matter most – customers?

For this session, we’re staying on the idea validation theme, but we’re taking it a bit more tactical, focusing on actual, concrete methods you can use to validate your ideas. Joining us for this conversation is Stuart Brent, founder of userinput.io, a service that provides on-demand feedback for websites and business ideas. Stuart has shared his favorite startup idea validation techniques with us in the past, and he added his insights to this conversation as well.

The ma...

The competitive analysis section of your market analysis in your business plan is essential. Knowing your competition is as important as knowing your product and your customer. Market gaps tell you where to develop your product and internal weaknesses tell you where you’re vulnerable to losing customers.

A solid competitive analysis is your way of showing that you know exactly where you stand among your fiercest competitors — and that you have a way to out-maneuver them. The best way to think of the argument you’re trying to articulate is:

“Here is where we can gain the most customers (offense) and here’s where we could potentially lose them (defense).”

Your competitive analysis should start with your SWOT Analysis — Strengths, Opportunit...

This is a question that I’ve been struggling with for years. Through my life as an entrepreneur, I’ve had the opportunity to be a TEDx speaker. I have good friends that have organized tech conferences themselves, and I’ve obviously been an attendee of a fair share of events and even part been of those Startup battle segments.

So, are tech conferences worth it? That depends on the expectations you have going in.

With time, I’ve learned that the best thing you can do is set accurate expectations, and have a clear action plan in place as to what you want to accomplish at the event.

Here are some of the goals we’ve set at Slidebean when investing time/money in attending a tech conference, and mostly succeeded at:

1. Networking: meeting relevant p...

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ah, rejection. The early-stage Founder’s bread and butter.

When you’re building a company from the ground up, you kind of get used to hearing the word “No.”

But Saasmetrics Founder Leo Faria: he didn’t just get used to it. He broadcast it for everyone to see.

A few weeks ago, Leo published a post on Medium that he called “Lessons learned from a startup rejected by 500 Startups, Techstars and Y Combinator.” In the post, Leo digs into his experience applying for the US’s three most prestigious accelerators — and (spoiler alert) getting rejected by each and every one. He even goes as far as to include the actual text of the actual emails he received from each accelerator, and you can just imagine what it must have felt like to se...

As Product Managers, building product roadmaps is a crucial part of our job. Yet most of us still use outdated tools and software for roadmapping—Excel, PowerPoint, wikis, etc.—to try and keep several teams on track toward the same goals. It’s painful. The good news is that there’s a better way.

We understand that building a product roadmap is not easy and that your business colleagues always want to know what’s coming next.

It’s time to lead your product with conviction. Take a radical new approach to roadmapping because your company needs it and you deserve to build the future and enjoy what you do.

Executives have a vision of the future and sales and marketing teams want to be heard too. And engineering is waiting for those detailed requ...

Most small business owners and entrepreneurs have considered the question of whether or not to hire additional help. Whether you are just starting out, looking to expand, or simply need to become more organized and efficient, the need to delegate common administrative tasks is a typical problem.

Knowing you need help is the easy part, but making the decision of how to get that help is a little more daunting. Is it better to hire in-house or do you need a Virtual Assistant? Is a VA cost effective? What are the real benefits to the business and the user if you hire a Virtual Assistant?

We’ve honed in 5 important reasons you should hire a Virtual Assistant and the positive impact it will have on your business and your work-life balance.

1. Us...

Many leaders start their careers with hopes of reaching the top as quickly as possible, skipping past lower-level positions as they scale the corporate ladder. This is particularly true in the startup scene, where founders essentially choose their own titles and begin their careers in management positions.

My career did not have such a direct trajectory. I meandered through the insurance industry for decades before I finally secured a leadership role. I started out working for my parents’ company, doing the grunt work of the office. I generated invoices, processed mail, and even handled janitorial duties. I was the youngest person in the office and the lowest on the totem pole, so I didn’t have a problem earning my stripes. Some people mig...

“Our target market is everyone!”

If we had a dollar for every time we heard these words from Founders here at Startups.co, we would have… okay, so we’re not quite sure. But it would be a lot of dollars.

We get it: planting your flag and defining your target market can be scary. It means taking a stand and proclaiming to the world, “This is who we are.” And, maybe just as scary and definitely just as important, “This is who we aren’t.”

But let us give it to you straight: your target market is not “everyone.” At least, not right away. And you know something else? You don’t want it to be, either.

What is a target market?

In layman’s terms, a target market is a group or groups of consumers in which a product or service is intended for.

The Pow...

What is a term sheet?

In the context of startups, term sheet is the first formal — but non-binding — document between a startup founder and an investor. A term sheet lays out the terms and conditions for investment. It’s used to negotiate the final terms, which are then written up in a contract.

A good term sheet aligns the interests of the investors and the founders, because that’s better for everyone involved (and the company) in the long run. A bad term sheet pits investors and founders against each other.

Let’s take a look at the elements of a good term sheet — and some elements every founder should be sure to avoid.

What is included in a term sheet?

While each term sheet is going to be different, depending on the specifics of the star...