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The Entrepreneur’s Roadmap to Success

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | The Entrepreneur's Roadmap to SuccessWhen speaking with groups, questions arise on how and where to get started on going into business for ones self. Often times a new entrepreneur feels he or she has done their due diligence only to learn later that they barely scratched the surface. They checked out the market, discussed the business idea with friends and family and feels they can come up with enough capital to set themselves up for success.

Unfortunately, often the amount of working capital needed to fund the project is simply not enough to account for all the expenses that arise with a new business. It seems that most businesses fail, not due to the validity of the idea, but rather that the project was under capitalized or underfunded from the start. The simple fact is that if you cannot preserve your working capital, “You won’t make it”. We have all seen great business ideas go down in flame because of working capital issues. Too often, the unforeseen – which were not budgeted for, will consume the cash that the business was relying on to bridge the gap between idea and implementation. If nothing else, budget and plan for the unknown – because if something can go wrong – it will.

Being in business for yourself, according to many entrepreneurs, is the greatest job most individuals will ever have . In doing so you have the potential to impact other people’s lives in a positive way while leading an organization to success. This can be both a blessing and a curse. If you are confident enough in what you are doing, and you have truly done your due diligence, you can have a prosperous business. If you don’t put in the time and effort to cover all your bases, you are not only setting yourself up for failure but you are doing yourself a disservice. A successful entrepreneur not only plans for the unexpected, but anticipates that it will invariably happen.

Ask yourself, “Why do I want to go into business for myself?” The first answer most of us give is that we want to be our own boss. A great perk is that most entrepreneurs can live and work wherever they want. Entrepreneurship, if done correctly, can not only be rewarding from a financial perspective but also from a quality of life perspective.

How someone with a limited amount of experience and resources thinks they can go into business and be successful is beyond me. Furthermore, what financial institution would ever loan this type of person any money? Does this mean there is little or no hope for young adults to make it as budding entrepreneurs? Not necessarily. Since most young entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury in making a lot of mistakes, they must go about this very differently. Having a partner with the experience and resources to make this idea or business a reality is a route these young entrepreneurs must take. Finding a business mentor can be the difference between success and failure. You may have to give away more ownership in this type of arrangement than you wanted, however, if successful, it should be well worth it.

About the Author

Randy Steele, author of The Entrepreneur’s Roadmap to Success, is a lifelong entrepreneur and has had tremendous success in the financial service business, real estate, real estate appraising, greenhouse growing operations, and the mortgage industry. Through these experiences, the knowledge he has gained is invaluable to someone wanting to start a business or someone wanting to take their business to the next level.

Spending Money To Save Money (Yes, Really)

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Entrepreneurship | Spending Money To Save Money (Yes, Really)

As the owner of a modern business, you naturally understand the need to make your capital work harder. This removes a great deal of stress from the venture while also allowing you to pass some of the savings onto your clients. Price comparisons and cutbacks can have a positive impact. Still, it’s possible to find investments that spearhead further savings.

Spending money in the right places is essential or creating an efficient company built for sustained results. Here’s are the best solutions at your disposal.

1. Security, Safety, & Protection

Prevention is the best form of protection for your business. Aside from removing the threat of damaged reputations, it can actively reduce insurance fees and put an end to wasted time. Hiring a site safety manager may feel like an added expense, but it’ll save you vast sums of money in the long run. Data protection is equally important in this modern age. Updating your systems can prevent major problems including penalties as well as direct damages. Given that almost half of all hacks hit small business, now is the time to take control of the situation.

2. Accountancy

Like a site safety manager, a professional accountant can seem to be an unnecessary expense. However, they will save you money in the long run as they have a far greater understanding of the financial and legal elements. When added to the time savings on offer, it is evident that this will be a wise addition for your company. Related investments into automated accountancy software can seriously boost your endeavors. Aside from the financial benefits, you will gain peace of mind and enjoy easier time management. You’d be very foolish to ignore it.

3. Eco-Friendly Upgrades

It’s very easy to embrace a “why fix something that isn’t broke?” mindset. In reality, though, upgrading the workplace with eco-friendly features is essential. While you may not see the property value improvements seen by residential users, the monthly energy savings are huge. Boosting the company’s green credentials can also enhance its reputation. For the sake of your finances, brand image, and personal responsibility, this is a vital addition. Even the employees will respond positively to this new approach. Better still, the results can be seen right away.

4. Marketing

Regardless of the industry, reaching the target market in a cost-effective manner is vital. However, the cheap option doesn’t necessarily offer the best value for money. It’s important to focus on the cost per acquisition rather than the actual overheads. With this in mind, social influencers can be the best investment for your business. When supported by improved web design and a conscious effort to gain positive customer reviews, you should see the very best returns.

The Final Word

While wasting money is the worst thing a business can do, there’s no reason to fear spending money. As long as you invest in the right features and expertise, your venture will begin to see positive outcomes in the very near future. The positive outcomes can bring upgrades for many years to come.

What to Consider When Buying a New Commercial Property

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | What to Consider When Buying a New Commercial PropertyLeasing a commercial property isn’t the best option for a lot of businesses. Therefore, if you have made the choice to buy your next business property, you are opening yourself up to more flexibility and more freedom to allow your business to grow.

That said, there are a lot of important areas to take into account when searching for the ideal commercial property.

The Maintenance Costs

Alongside your fixed monthly outgoings, you’re going to have to prepare for maintenance costs over time, and any unexpected issues that may arise. This means you should consider any commercial property that you view with the expected maintenance costs in mind.

For example, are there any structural features of the building which you see as having a high maintenance bill? Does the sheer size mean more maintenance should be expected?

Maintenance is always a must, no matter the building, so budgeting for it is essential. You should also seek out a dependable maintenance service such as urban-propertymaintenance.com.

The Need for a Survey

Having any new potential business property professionally surveyed is a must. You shouldn’t elect for the cheapest and quickest option, either. Although it’s preferable to save money, you will lose money in the long run if you fail to have a property survey in the first instance, resulting in your property running into problems further down the line. Ensure that you have a thorough survey carried out, which is specifically tailored for commercial properties.

The Location

Your location needs will vary depending on what your business entails, so you’ll need to think carefully about yours. Location can be a crucial factor in the successful running of your business.

Consider the following:

  • Do you have clients regularly visiting your business premises? If so, the property will need to be in an easily accessible location, and close to your main clients.
  • Do you have a large team of staff who will work on site? If so, the property will need to be easily accessible for them, and not difficult to travel to.

Also think about the impression that you want to give of your business; you need the property and location to reflect this in a positive light if you are going to have external individuals and clients visiting the commercial property on a regular basis.

Transport Links

This is an imperative consideration if you have people traveling to the premises on a daily basis, whether they are staff or clients. If your new commercial property is near plenty of public transport links, such as train stations and bus stops, then this is a huge positive.

If you can’t find a property which is close to public transport links, or if your commercial premises is in a very remote location, then you need to ensure that there is at least a car park for staff and visitors.

A commercial property in a remote location, without a car park, and far away from any public transport links, will be very problematic and may be seen as unprofessional if you are failing to provide these needs.

Things you have to know before you start your coworking marketplace

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | Coworking Marketplace | Entrepreneurship | Things you have to know before you start your coworking marketplaceCoworking is a new concept of an open working environment that allows several unrelated companies to share office space and work together. According to Statista, there were around 22,4000 coworking spaces worldwide by the end of 2019. With the rising popularity of shared workspaces, more and more businesses are launching coworking marketplaces. In other words, they are just like Airbnb.

When Airbnb offers vacation rentals with homely amenities, a coworking space marketplace offers office spaces with unique amenities for individuals and businesses. The coworking marketplace efficiently connects coworking space owners looking to rent out their unused office space with individuals and businesses looking for vacant shared work spaces.

In the coming years, we will be seeing tremendous innovation in the field of building and running coworking rental marketplaces. There is no better time to launch your coworking space business. Before we start, let me establish this- There are no easy ways to launch a coworking marketplace and make it successful. Following a sound business strategy and understanding, best practices are important.

Things to consider before starting an Airbnb for coworking

The whole world has been taken aback by the potential of coworking space marketplaces and you are on the right track with launching a coworking rental platform. But running a successful Airbnb for coworking requires a lot of planning and effort. Here are some of the core things to consider before starting your own coworking marketplace that helps you to take your business to new heights.

Research your target market

Whether you are creating a coworking space platform from scratch or using a white label solution, there is no way around doing thorough market research. According to studies, lack of market research is one of the major reasons why startups fail.

To build a viable coworking space rental marketplace, you need to have a clear understanding of the market, how the industry looks like, your target users, their requirement, and the solution they are looking for. Pay attention to market trends as well to spot any big changes like technology breakthroughs so that you can use it for your business advantage.

Choose the right business model

It is a great idea to design a viable business model even before starting your coworking marketplace. Now, the exact way your coworking space rental platform makes money will depend on a lot of factors. However, there are some common business models to consider.

Service fee

It’s a great monetization strategy of any peer-peer marketplaces to charge service providers a service fee each time they receive and process a new booking on your platform. The more transactions your marketplace makes-the more revenue you get. The host service fee can be 3% or more and can vary with different countries. You can also incur service free from guests which can range up to 20% of the booking subtotal. For example, Airbnb takes a 20% service fee from guests and a 3$ from the hosts.

Listing fee

Your coworking marketplace can collect listing fees from coworking space owners when they list their space on your platform. It can be a flat fee or vary based on the total reservation made or any other parameters. To reduce friction, you can consider collecting the fee once the transaction is completed instead of doing it at the time of listing. Airbnb charges a 14% host-fee from property owners according to its new policies.

While these are the common business models- You can add more than that including the following.

  • Adding premium subscriptions
  • Collect payment processing fee
  • Promote sponsored listings
  • Setting your own ad system

Carefully plan your operations

Creating a coworking space management tool is one thing and successfully running is something completely different. As you have to manage two user types, bookings and scheduling, payment processing, and a lot of other functions together, the operations can get a bit complex. Hence, it is important for your rental marketplace to have all essential features that support the operations carried out on your platform.

You will need specialized marketplace payment gateways that allow users to book coworking spaces and pay effortlessly. Implementing an in-app communication system is also essential to set a channel for all your users to communicate regarding scheduling, booking, and cancellation.

Optimize your platform’s search to deliver high performance

Search is one of the most critical interfaces of your coworking office space rental marketplace users leverage these features to interact with your platform. Significant engineering goes behind a smart and intuitive search that performs well. If you take the example of Airbnb, the smart search is one of the most powerful features of this peer-peer vacation rental marketplace.

A typical search for any coworking marketplace should support the following search features.

  • Location
  • Coworking space type
  • Price range
  • Availability
  • Amenities
  • Capacity
  • Meeting rooms
  • And more

Improve the booking flow and experience

To deliver a great user experience to all user groups, your coworking space platform must have a seamless booking feature. When a coworking space owner registers in your platform and activates his listings, the people who are looking for rental office spaces must be able to view and book the space.

Consider instant booking as opposed to normal booking feature as it is the preferred way for hosts to rent out their properties. With proper identification verification services, you can allow service providers to reliably list their coworking space for instant booking option so that users can make instant bookings.

Dealing with Last minute cancellations

Building and running a successful peer-peer coworking management software requires you to think from a user perspective. For example, Airbnb allows hosts to cancel the booking at the 11th hour. When thinking from a host’s perspective, this is an absolutely great feature, but if you think from a guest perspective, this might not be a pleasing feature. Hence, your marketplace must have smart ways to deal with last-minute cancellations considering the interests of both user groups. To reduce last-minute cancellations, you can add a cancelation fee and block booking dates. Another great alternative would be to reallocate another similar coworking space to the user in case a service provider cancels the last minute.

Conclusion

Building an Airbnb for coworking is a different thing and scaling it to millions of users like the real Airbnb does is another thing. Implementing the above-discussed things will help you to run your peer-peer coworking marketplace successfully and gain a competitive advantage in the industry. Happy Coworking!

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Shirley C. StewartShirley C. Stewart is Business Consultant and Marketing Head at RentCubo. She helps brands to build their web products that people love using. Shirley has a passion for growth hacking and startups.

7 Ways To Finance Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Entrepreneurship | business finance | 7 Ways To Finance Your Business

Financing a business can be a big obstacle for new startups and established companies alike. It isn’t always easy or even possible to obtain funding through the usual channels, especially if you have no track record to show lenders or investors, and without the money required, it can mean that the business simply cannot succeed. However, there are some ways to obtain the money you need, and if you want to start or grow your business and need funds to do it, you can look at these options to see if anything will work for you.

1. Your Savings

It’s true that not everyone has any savings put aside, but if you do and there is enough, then you might consider using that money to fund your business. This can work out perfectly because there is no requirement for you to borrow the money from anyone else, and therefore your business won’t be in debt (although, of course, you will want to have the money paid back to you over time). You won’t be giving away any equity either, which is something that some business owners don’t like the idea of. Plus, if you do need to borrow more at a later stage, your business’s credit won’t be affected.

2. Your Investments

For those who like to make investments and trade, the profits made in this line can be something you can use to start your business or add funds to it when you need to purchase something specific that will, in turn, help you to make more money in the long-term. Investing doesn’t automatically mean that you will make a profit, which is why checking out the gold and silver price regularly and finding a good broker will help you. However, when you do make money, it can be ideal for your business.

3. A Business Loan

Possibly the first thought that will come into a business owner’s mind when it comes to finding money to fund their project is a business loan from a traditional lender such as a bank. It can work out very well, and with enough research, you will be able to find a variety of different loans with varying interest rates and special deals. You may not be eligible for all of them, however, and applying for too many loans all at once can damage your credit rating. Therefore, it is wiser to make appointments to speak to bank managers or investment advisors to find out what you can and can’t do, and what will work best for you. It may be exciting to find that you can borrow tens of thousands of dollars, but remember that this money must be paid back, and that can be the part that causes problems. Think things through carefully and only borrow what you know you can afford.

4. A Personal Loan

If your business has no trading record, it might be difficult to obtain the loan that you want, in which case a personal loan, assuming your credit rating will allow it, could be the ideal alternative. You take out the loan and then make a director’s loan to your company. The company pays you back each month, and you then pay your own lender back too. This way, you aren’t ever out of pocket, and you don’t have to worry about making repayments.

However, the vital thing to bear in mind with this kind of loan is that you are ultimately liable for it. It means that if the company cannot pay you for any reason, you still have to make the repayments for your loan. Make sure you have two or three months’ worth of repayments in a savings account just in case you need to pay the money back yourself.

5. Angel Investors

Angel investors are groups of people or individuals who use their money to fund businesses and projects that they think are interesting, have potential, and will bring them a profit. This last point is the most important of all because although angel investors do have the business’s interests at heart, their main aim is to make money from whatever they invest in.

The first step in obtaining an angel investor is to write an interesting and informative (and truthful!) business plan as this is what they will want to see before making any decision. You should also work out how much equity you are willing to give away in your business, and how active a role you want the angel investor to take. Some simply want to give you their money and leave you to get on with running the business, and others will want to have a more active role. It is essential you know how you want to do things before agreeing to anything, and don’t get carried away if someone offers you money; make sure you are happy with the deal first.

6. A Credit Card

Credit cards can be supremely useful, or they can be disastrous, and which outcome will depend on how sensible you are with their use. Funding an entire business on a credit card, especially if it is a personal one, is not a good idea; this can leave you in vast amounts of debt that you find difficult to pay off. Plus, the interest rates on credit cards tend to much higher than on other forms of borrowing such as a loan from a reputable company. However, for smaller business expenses a credit card can be ideal, as long as you pay as much off the balance as possible each month. Paying just the minimum amount will mean you spend a lot more than you would need to otherwise, and it will also take you longer.

7. Friends And Family

A loan from a bank or other lender might not be possible if you or your business don’t meet specific criteria, and an alternative might be to borrow money from friends and family. Ideally, you should have a loan agreement drawn up so that everything is legal, and so that everyone knows what is expected of them. This way, there can be no disputes, and you will know how much to pay and when, just as your friend or family member will know how much of a return they should be able to make.