Follow These Tips

In no particular order, here are 10 tips to help you bootstrap your way to success.

1. Fully research your market and competition.
Before you do anything you need to make sure you have a viable business opportunity. Is your proposed product or service already available on the market? If there is competition, how will consumers differentiate between you and them? What makes you better? What is your unique selling point?

2. Create a business model that produces quick revenue.
If you are bootstrapping, you need to make sure that your business model generates revenue quickly. If not, you will be dead in the water when you blow through your reserves. Constant cash flow is mandatory -- if you look at successful bootstrapped startups you will see business models that generated revenue very quickly.

3. Handle your own public relations in the beginning.
Startups can benefit greatly from major media exposure in the beginning. Journalists and editors receive press kits from PR firms around the clock. They don’t want to talk to a public relations representative -- they want to talk to you! They are much more interested in speaking with founders than a PR firm because they want to hear your story just as much as they want to hear about your actual startup.

There are several ways for startups to score media coverage, so roll up your sleeves and get cracking.

4. Provide ways for your initial customers and early adapters to create buzz.
People love new startups and technologies -- and they love to show the world that they are cool, hip and trendy through social media. Provide ways for your early customers to help put your startup in front of their social audiences.

Allow them to unlock a discount coupon by sharing your website on social media or create a branded hashtag and randomly select winners for prizes. You can even share images of your customers using your product with a designated hashtag on the company social media pages. By appealing to people’s narcissism you can create instant brand engagement.

5. Don’t be afraid to let your website grow with you.
I see it happen all the time -- a startup will have a custom website designed and by the time all of the features are built out they are left with no marketing dollars. They use their entire pile of seed money on a great website but then have no way of marketing -- and they turn into a statistic, joining the 80 percent of businesses that fail within their first 18 months.

6. Launch creative branding and marketing campaigns.
You don’t always have to have the deepest pockets to get brand exposure -- you just need a creative approach. A great example is Newcastle Brown Ale and its video about almost making a Super Bowl commercial with Anna Kendrick. They didn’t purchase airtime for the actual Super Bowl but they did release a video about how they almost did. It went viral on social media and was an instant hit.

7. Account for every penny you spend.
Keeping track of every penny that leaves your business account is crucial. Money goes out quickly when you are starting a business. Sloppy accounting can lead to a rude awakening. Using accounting software such as QuickBooks or free tools such as Mint that will help keep track of your spending and gauge burn rate. Monitor your cash daily -- there is no excuse for lazy accounting.

8. Eliminate as many personal expenses as possible.
When bootstrapping a startup, there isn’t a nice comfortable salary that comes with the gig -- you have to be prepared and willing to clip unnecessary and lavish expenses. Find ways to drastically cut expenses or eliminate them all together.

About LaraNet: We are a web design firm focused to help you to grow your business and communicate with your customers and prospects using two simple but powerful tools: 1) Interactive Website and 2) Internet Marketing Strategy on social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc …
Whether you want to work with just a web page, or launch or improve your presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or communicate with your customers through newsletters, or improve the location of your business in the search engines through Search Engine Optimization, or start marketing your products or services online, in LaraNet we can help you.

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