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 Sales
By 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.

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