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Technology makes the world a new place.
The Internet plus the growing adoption of various software tools to bridge the time zone, geographic, and communication gaps between individuals and entities from all parts of the world have helped to forge a workforce revolution we now know as the “freelance economy.”
More and more people are choosing to work for themselves and be their own boss, which explains in part why 100 million startups are being launched each year, 1.35 million of which are tech startups.
And then, there are the below figures, which are expected to rise as the idea of job security is slowly becoming just that – an idea:
- A 2005 Gallup survey discovered that 61% of employed Americans favor being their own boss over working for someone else. (com, April 2005)
- University of Phoenix surveyed 1,600 people who were in their 20s and found that 63% want to start their own business. (com, December 2013)
- Babson and Baruch Colleges discovered that in 2012, 13% of U.S. adults were involved in startups. (com, March 2013)
Then again, starting a business is no easy feat.
So if you’re seriously toying with the idea of launching a SaaS or B2B business, here are 10 things you need to know, as discussed in this Quora article:
Running a B2B Business: 10 Secrets You Need to Know Now
1) Focus
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According to Ryan Leavitt, LearnCore’s VP of Business Development, focus is where most startups have difficulty with.
The temptation to be everything to be everyone can become overwhelming.
Keep in mind that focusing on a small niche and owning it is the key to startup success.
If the niche doesn’t work out, look for another one, and another one, until you find what clicks.
Having a tight focus keeps your messaging consistent, allowing you to “replicate and scale faster,” says Leavitt.
2) Listening skills and market research
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A problem with some startups is they think their product or service is the “next best thing,” so much so that they fail to consider if there’s even a potential market for it, or if the features they keep adding are actually useful.
Sotiris Spyrou, founder of Paradox SEO, suggests starting with a minimum viable product and iteratively improving its every aspect for at least six months.
To understand the pulse of your target market, do some research.
Instead of second-guessing what they want, ask. Leverage services such as SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo and get the answers you need.
Then, let those answers help you build a product or service that addresses people’s pain points.
Another solution is mentorship. Find people whose achievements mirror those you’d like to achieve for yourself.
Pick their brains and ask what they’ve learned from their successes or failures, or if given the chance to start all over again, what they would do differently, and why.
3) Product quality
Marketing and everything else you do to build brand awareness is useless if your product is faulty. By definition, a quality product addresses clients’ needs and expectations.
Therefore, ensure that your product is useful, delivers what it promises, and solves people’s problems.
Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham advises in an article:
“Assume that anything you’ve made is far short of what it could be. Force yourself, as a sort of intellectual exercise, to keep thinking of improvements.”
Keep in mind, with more and more people using review sites and social networks prior to making a purchase, unhappy customers are your worst nightmare.
4) Skilled development team
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It can’t be emphasized enough – great people make organizations great. If you have a development team with solid skills, you’re in good company. But how do you assemble a world-class development team that kicks ass?
According to 6fusion, a company specializing in data services, “Great developers embrace both creativity and efficiency.”
That said, quit implementing rigid policies that render them less efficient or stifle their creativity. Instead, trust them and treat them the way you would want to be treated.
5) Pricing and freemium risks
To thrive in a B2B environment, have a revenue model from the get-go. Offering early adopter perks, such as discounts or credits, is okay, but keep it to a minimum, says Quora user Sanjay Kalantri.
He adds that the moment you “hit critical mass in user engagement, you should switch to a more sustainable revenue model.”
On the topic of pricing, Michael Wolfe, an entrepreneur and self-confessed tech geek, says that most startups make the mistake of pricing too low simply because they’re thrilled to have customers. Others don’t want their customer base disappointed, and others are just that bad at negotiating.
On the freemium strategy used by startups to grow their user base, Sachin Kulkarni, a web developer and consultant, explains that there are inherent risks associated with the freemium model.
He says that if not wisely handled, freemium may result in increased overhead spending, negative product positioning, and overall failure.
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6) Word-of-mouth marketing and social media
An early problem for most startups is the lack of a user base. Sanjay Kalantri adds that B2B entrepreneurs should make it a point to build solid relationships with early adopters.
Listening to their feedback and feature requests facilitates product enhancement and can help you gain more customers through word-of-mouth marketing.
Acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining new ones, so make sure every customer you gain is satisfied with your product or service. Make them happy and they’ll soon become your raving fans.
As Ryan Leavitt also discusses:
“You need to make your clients exceed their goals and ROI using your product – by killing them with service (especially in the beginning).
We’ve said it here many times and I’ll say it again for good measure: Customer service is the new marketing.
7) Content management
Quora user Joerg Beyer, managing director of a SaaS company, emphasizes the importance of content management in B2B marketing.
According to him, B2B, as opposed to B2C, takes a far longer sales cycle.
Therefore, know your value proposition – how your product or service eases people’s lives – and focus your content to support it.
An article by Forbes contributor Chuck Cohn explains the differences between B2B versus B2C selling. B2B includes the following:
- A longer decision-making process
- A greater number of involved stakeholders
- A lengthier relationship
- A smaller lead pool
- A different type of product knowledge
8) Importance of metrics
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“You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”
This is a line often heard when talking about analytics, and for data-driven processes, it’s easy to see why it holds water.
Not everyone, however, find this to be true. Forbes contributor Liz Ryan contends in an article that “the important stuff can’t be measured.” Metrics have their place, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of all things business.
Think about it:
Why would you hire talented people, offer them competitive rates, and then limit them with policies and guidelines that dictate every step and measure everything they do?
But for businesses that would rather record every employee action to gauge how well they perform at the end of the day, Brandon Gains, Referral SaaSquatch’s Growth Marketing Lead, suggests that you keep track of your metrics but remember to be data-aware, and not data-driven.
9) Service, not software
“It is service and not software,” says Subraya Mallya, an entrepreneur and tech executive.
More than the product you offer, making your mark in the B2B/SaaS space has a lot to do with how you serve your customers.
Software and service go hand in hand, and this entails hard work, the ability to listen well, and service expectations that need to be met.
Sharon Rowlands, CEO of ReachLocal, a digital marketing outfit for local businesses, asserts that software with service is better suited for local business owners than most SaaS models.
Software with service calls on service providers to assist business owners with setup, installation, and troubleshooting.
This allows the latter to maximize their software investments, as most local business owners, and even their employees, aren’t adept at IT or software deployment.
10) Security and compliance
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Sanjay Kalantri underscores the importance of data and information security in enterprise SaaS, particularly on the B2B side.
In a Quora thread discussing security standards and compliance for apps deployed in Fortune 500 companies, Drew Dillon, AnyPerk’s VP of Product Management and Engineering, lists a dozen standards that may be asked for. However, he goes on to emphasize that:
“At the end of the day, compliance doesn’t actually make you secure or safe from disaster; it’s the lowest common denominator. If you run a reasonably tight ship, you’ll probably exceed the goals of those compliance standards anyway.”
Final word
Launching a B2B or SaaS startup can be exciting; for some, a dream come true.
But it’s mostly a long, grueling process – a path fraught with failures.
To achieve success, be willing to swallow startup reality hook, line, and sinker and ready to work your ass off for at least 24 months.
Doing startups isn’t a sprint, after all.
The post Running a B2B Business: 10 Secrets You Need to Know Now appeared first on Cloudswave Blog.
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