TO LAUNCH & GROW START-UPS NEED CLOUD SOFTWARE
Are you involved in a start-up? Start-ups often fail because there was no business plan, it was a bad idea to begin with or the stakeholders never got traction. Many start-up companies now turn to cloud software for low cost solutions that dispense with actual offices in order to better manage schedules, organize projects, share files, working with clients, thereby gaining a huge advantage in the collaborative process. When your team gets things done your stakeholders get traction and traction pushes the start-up along. Low cost cloud software helps start-ups by providing a virtual identity, lowering fiscal risks, enhancing innovation, accelerating collaboration and reducing up front expenses.
Innovative technology, online applications and a paradigm shift in business practices has made the cloud software model easier to adopt and even more attractive for today's entrepreneurs. The time it takes for a new company to be registered, branded, located in a virtual office, setup with digital communications, marketed and made ready to sell and take payments has shrunken from months in the 90's, to weeks in the 00's, to days in the 10's.
Where to Find Start-Up Help
Virtual staffing by using online contractors cuts
overhead, enhance skills and access talent not easily
available locally. General services like Elance and ODesk
make online hiring easy. Costs are far lower compared to
hiring permanent staff. Services like these often
allow you to screen candidates for various assignments.
Check your LinkedIn account, maybe you know somebody who
is connected to an authority. Make sure your have your
priorities straight regarding the skills required for the
position. Remember to read the reviews that others have
taken the time to post. It is important to be clear in the
job description not only about what the assignment is, but
also what results you wish to obtain and how you measure
success. Always insist on a work for hire agreement with
freelancers and check references.
Virtual Office vs Temporary Office Space
An office for a start-up might be deemed an unnecessary
luxury. Putting your workplace in the cloud allows
everybody that is part of the start-up to take part in
moving initiatives along. With virtual office software,
smart phones, laptops and internet access workers can be
writing business plans, building marketing strategies and
collaborating on new products and projects.
Your start-up can take physical meetings at a in business
centers like Regus, or use your lawyer's or
vendor's conference room. This means paying for space only
when needed, which saves time and hassle. Paperless work
is now the norm, thanks to cloud-based groupware
applications like eStudio
and Zoho Docs, which allow file
collaboration for group documents, spreadsheets,
presentations and paperwork to be created and edited
online in the cloud.
Online Meetings Help Everyone See Eye to Eye
eStudio's integrated online
meeting software brings start-up members together
via web cam and screensharing tools to help everyone "see
eye to eye" . Online meetings can be scheduled using the
calendar software and VoIP networks like Skype
offer free or cheap international calls and a chat
client, so a global team can potentially link together for
a conference call from all corners of the globe.
Make Branding & Identity Management Important
Solid branding is vital for virtual startups, and a
standout identity should scream we are "this". Logos,
corporate identity packages can be created from
templates or by a freelancer. Make a list of what key phrases you want
"searchers" to find you by typing into that Google
search bar. Within a start-up using the
collaborative power of eStudio's document
management
software to build consensus about logos, media
buys, legal forms, business plans. Central managing this
content means that you are in control or the workflow as
the brand is shaped.
For your company website, competition has driven down prices at GoDaddy webhosts like Vrtual1.com for help with email, web hosting and domain name packages for $50 for 3 months. Alternately WordPress can deploy a free, scalable blog or website in minutes that can be further enhanced. Make it a point to help search engines find you byusing the list of key phrase (mentioned above) to add meta tags to each page on your website. Hint that will save you thousands of dollars: Each page of the website should have unique meta tages related to the text on the page.
Socially Help Your Start Up Build SalesBy mastering Search Engine Optimization and using social media sites like Facebook to generate a buzz, a start-up company can build awareness and acquire a large number of customers quickly and cost effectively. These social networks have huge user bases, and are such powerful tools for finding and acquiring clients that they can help make or break a fledgling enterprise.
Mass marketing strategies can include email campaigns using systems like Constant Contact and affiliate sales using Commission Junction. Google AdWords can display targeted ads on your blog in seconds so experiment with different marketing strategies (key phrases). Clearly have a strategy in place to measure results and then adjust appropriately.
Building a Healthly Business Ecosystem for Your Start Up
The future of your business
depends on your ability to manage its growth
across a living network of investors, staff,
consultants, partners, clients and vendors.
eStudio's helps you develop a healthy business
ecosystems based seven
software elements: project management, scheduling
calendar, document management, contact
organizer, ftp, issue tracking and web
meetings. The ability
to silo data for
team efforts is an essential element in keeping
stakeholders focused. Centralizing the content in a
protected cloud and then establish typical work flow
patterns including naming conventions, review procedures
and archival best practices help keep your start-up moving
forward.
A healthy business ecosystem positions your business with a virtual office in the cloud. An office where everyone can log in from anywhere. Start-ups are typically burden by the complexities of dealing with organizing the interactions of every working group. From the cloud each person will know their schedule, download selected files, mark tasks completed, report a problem, and update client information.
So Is Cloud Software Right for Your Start-Up?
Leveraging new available technology to cut operating costs and
launch a start-up enables cohesive collaboration and reduces
overhead. Successful start-ups maximizes time input and
limit expenses, innovate rather than reinvents and can achieve
their goals by deploying simple, yet effective cloud solutions.
Start-ups have access to cloud software, vast social markets and
a global marketplace brimming with resource and potential
clients. It takes hard work and innovative thinking, but new
start-ups can leverage difficult financial times to enhance
output standards and lessen costs. The key to a successful low
overhead startup is finding ways to economize without compromise
and spending your time and limited resources on differentiating
your product or service.