Get Over the Idea of Shortcuts Being a Bad Thing

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Panelist Nathalie Molina Nino, CEO of Brava Investments, at far right, advised “get over the idea of shortcuts being a bad thing”

“Get over the idea of shortcuts being a bad thing. Use them,” said Nathalie Molino Nino at a recent panel discussion for Hispanic women entrepreneurs, organized by Ventureneer and CoreWoman.  Nino, is the CEO of Brava Investments, and author of “Leapfrog” which Random House promises will provide “50 proven hacks to help women entrepreneurs take their business to the next level.”

“Leapfrog” is to be published this August but for those who can’t wait that long, Panelist Diana Franco highlighted one lead: the WE Fund Crowd program, a New York City initiative which provides no-interest loans to selected women entrepreneurs.

Panelist Deborah Rosado Shaw encouraged Hispanic women entrepreneurs to think about women-owned business certification (e.g.  WBENC) as a way to access resources who can open doors or give advice.  As she pointed out, “Why go down that path alone? You are going to learn many lessons, but why not start with theirs?”

To read more  of the material featured at the panel discussion see the 2017 study:  “Hispanic Women Entrepreneurship:  Understanding Diversity Among Hispanic Women Entrepreneurs,” written by Susana Martinez-Restrepo, PhD, CoreWoman and Geri Stengel, Ventureneer.

 

 

 

 

 

Key Marketing Practices for Start-ups

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Marketing

Knowing how (and where) to look for help

Marketing has become a very specialized field, and there are talented resources available to start-up businesses in each of these specialty areas: Branding, Public Relations, Website Design/Development, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Market Research, and eCommerce Business Development.  Because there is so much more specialization for outsourced marketing help than for say outsourced financial resources, it is important that the start-up business owner have a point of view on what type of marketing resource he or she needs.

Starting with a marketing generalist might be a good first step – someone who can assess the business’ marketing needs, and what elements of marketing will be most gainful.

That said, a start-up business owner who can answer the questions listed below for him or herself will have a more fruitful first conversation with a marketing generalist.

  1. What is special about the product/service versus existing offerings? What characteristics will attract customers away from competitors?
  2. How could that specialness best be conveyed to potential customers, i.e., through branding, packaging, website, testimonial by “influencers”, word of mouth across peer networks, or point-of-purchase materials?
  3. Would sales be best driven through more of a “push” or “pull” strategy?
    • Push — contact potential customers/distributors one-by-one to close sales.   A push strategy would be sales intensive, so it could be that marketing spending needs to be kept minimal, to preserve budget for sales commission, brokerage fees, etc.
    • Pull — Create consumer awareness and demand so they will seek out a way to purchase product/service. A pull strategy would be marketing intensive.
    • Hybrid — Do some of both

If an owner is prepared with answers to these questions, the conversation with a marketing generalist should go quickly and either confirm, deny, or enrich the owner’s perspective.  It is also possible that if an owner feels they have a particularly strong  perspective on these questions then they may be able to save money and time by serving as their own “marketing strategist” and deciding on their own which strategy to employ and which specialized area of marketing is the one which would give them the best results for the spend.

Key Financial Practices for Start-Ups

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This is the first of a series of four blog posts highlighting key practices for successfully launching a start-up business.   Each of the four blog posts will tackle a different functional aspect of launching a start-up:  Finances, Human Resources, Operations and Marketing.

FINANCES

Managing the finances of a start-up entails spending money on what is essential and nothing more, to optimize the chance of attracting money from investors before initial funds are depleted.

Some business owners are able to decrease the up-front financing needed by launching a reduced version of  their product, or a so-called Minimum Viable Product.  This may have a lot of merit for a web-based service, where consumers are used to being offered both free and premium (i.e., freemium) versions of the same service.  However, in the world of packaged foods there may only be one chance to get it right.  If consumers don’t purchase and enjoy your “minimum viable” food product when it first is presented to them in a store, and those customers do not repurchase, retailers will likely pull it from the shelf as sales falls below their minimal expectations for turnover.  So MVP becomes a risky gamble.

In order to function effectively within your initial start-up funding it is important to have a current and accurate understanding of what you are spending. If budget is available to hire a part-time bookkeeper, then do so, and have him or her formalize how money is spent by creating purchase orders beforehand when that makes sense, and receiving, checking and recording invoices before vendors are paid.  All of these best practices will enable more proactive understanding of where your money is going, and whether spending is being managed within project budgets.

Savvy start-up entrepreneurs try to go with lean staffing at the onset. By getting team members to cover multiple roles when possible an owner can manage risk by committing fewer dollars to staffing until the business successfully achieves  critical early milestones which will unlock further funding. The key is knowing which tasks can be deferred, which can be economically outsourced, and which of your team members have the ability to take on assignments outside their normal area of functional expertise and still accomplish them with excellence.

What Does it Take to be a Superforecaster?

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What business wouldn’t benefit from having a “superforecaster” to accurately inform management about relevant future trends and to guide superior decision making?

In their fascinating book, Superforecasting, The Art and Science of Prediction, authors Tetlock and Gardner highlight characteristics of the 2% who have proven themselves vastly more accurate than the rest of us at making accurate forecasts of future events. Superforecasters are:

  •     accustomed to taking the outside view on questions, to validate their forecasts
  •     comfortable making quantitative forecasts, using percentages of likelihood as opposed to saying “possibly,” “probably,” etc.
  •     adept at making small, ongoing calibrations to their forecast over time

As a consultant I would say that even if you don’t have the luxury of having your own superforecaster you can benefit from these practices.  Companies of all sizes should consider outside factors in making business decisions, and not rely on just one original forecast.   You’d be surprised how often businesses ignore new information which could and should be the basis for doing an updated forecast. The best organizations go back and revisit forecasts more than once, which allows them to stay ahead of the game.

I am also a big proponent for the importance of getting information flowing across the organization to make better business decisions, and Tetlock and Gardner’s research backs that  idea up as well.  They report that teams are 23% more accurate at forecasting than individuals.   They also note that the teams that were superior at forecasting had “no hierarchy, no direction, and no formal leadership.”  Which I take to mean, leaders need not head up the forecasting team and input should come from all levels of the organization.

So if you are a business owner who wants to base your business decisions on better forecasts of future events, task a team to do the forecasting.  And, have the team members read Tetlock and Gardner’s book, it is very insightful about the factors that lead to better forecasting, and better business results.

Science Industry & Business Library Celebrates its Twentieth Birthday!

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The Science Industry & Business Library (SIBL) is the New York Public Library’s premiere business library.  SIBL celebrated its 20th birthday this week, and held a celebration which aptly recognized the library’s value and importance to a broad community of entrepreneurs, small business ownersSpeaking at SIBL celebration, and others.

Some years ago, I had become known to the SIBL director Kristin McDonough as a frequent user of SIBL, and agreed to be videotaped for the NYPL archives, talking about the ways I use the library to help my clients.

In the same spirit, I was invited to this week’s birthday celebration, and asked to speak about the value SIBL has been to me and my clients.

As I told the attendees, NY City small business owners typically don’t have the in-house research capabilities which they would need to uncover information about growth, key competitors or typical profit margins in their industry.  But they certainly have a need for these insights, to help inform them on the best strategic courses of action.  This is where SIBL is an invaluable resource, with on-line user access to research databases such as First Reference, Ebsco Host, Plunkett and D&B, and expert research librarians who can advise you on the offerings of these research databases, and many others.