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Startup Accelerators – why and what is expected ?

India has become one of the world’s favourite ‘startup’ destinations. The numbers say it all!

  • Over 4200 new age companies have come up during the last year. As per NASSCOM’s statistics we have over 3100 startups in IT (as of last year) and expected to have 11,500 startups by 2020.
  • Being the youngest startup nation, and 2 out of every 3 founders are under 35 years.
  • Almost $5 billion worth funding has been pumped into Indian startups in 2015.

Well the stats can go on, but the key point to consider here is that the environment has never been better for a great startup ecosystem to get built. At a time, while the rapid rise is on for the startup industry, how long can it LAST and how many of those can actually SCALE?

Well the stats can go on, but the key point to consider here is that the environment has never been better for a great startup ecosystem to get built. At a time, while the rapid rise is on for the startup industry, how long can it LAST and how many of those can actually SCALE?

Many startups face challenges in even having an office space for their work. With limited funds, lot many of them cannot afford a proper working space and address. Here comes incubators who do provide co-working space for startups and this trend is picking up across various cities over the past few years.

To facilitate startup ecosystem, there are enablers like TiE, NASSCOM, CII, BYST, etc. who provide a platform for startups and bring together mentors, investors, incubators, and other stakeholders. This is also witnessing increasing tractions, as we can see from the number of such events being conducted across cities.

To ensure that we have a solid startup ecosystem, and one that sustains over long term, is to have good accelerators. So who are, and why, ‘startup accelerators’?

Startup accelerators support early stage high growth companies through incubation, mentoring, investments, and guide them through their journey.

Today, many companies call themselves accelerators but not really sure as to what they offer other than incubation space, and possible networking with investors. I would say, ‘accelerators’ are meant to ‘accelerate the startups’ businesses. Startup accelerators need to ensure that startups tread in the right path, direction, and do course correction when and where required. These accelerators need to have a business model that incentivizes them when these startups perform. This gives both the startups and startup accelerators a win-win proposition.

You might have heard about the famous Y-Combinator in the US. Based in Boston, it was the first seed accelerator program that I know of. They add a lot of value for those startups who have the opportunity to work with them. Accelerators typically have a cycle time of 3-6 months of working with startups.

Startups, in order to increase their success quotient, need more nurturing than before due to dynamic market conditions, shift in technology, disruptive innovation, and many other factors that startups need to be aware of during their journey. The growth can be exponential and at the same time can go down deeply, if they tread on a wrong path.

Startup accelerators need to support today’s young entrepreneurs through incubation, mentoring, connecting with potential investors, perfecting their pitch to investors, and guiding them through their journey. By doing this they certainly can create a positive impact in our society and also help build a better startup ecosystem which is essential for our rising economy.

Startup Xperts is a business accelerator supporting startups, small medium enterprises, boutique firms, by driving their go-to-market strategies, digital marketing, smart sales initiatives, to accelerate their revenue growth.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.comThe views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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Digital Marketing’ New Age Mantra for SMEs

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should focus on creating their brand identity and uniqueness that can differentiate them from others to showcase in the market, said Shyam Sekar S, founder and chief mentor at Startup Xperts which is advocating digital marketing. He emphasised the need for the Startups and SMEs to pursue ‘digital marketing’ and position themselves as thought leaders in their space.

Addressing the third edition of ‘Start Manage Expand: A Knowledge-led Small Medium Business’ conference organised by Andhra Pradesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry Federation (APCCF) here Wednesday, Shyam Sekar felt that SMEs and Startups could leverage through smart marketing strategies by which they can position themselves better than competition. Effective and smart branding can help win clients, increase revenue and profitability.

“While pursuing digital marketing tactics, focus should be on the customers and their need. Twin strategies need to be adopted – inbound and outbound, where a right balance between these two, is essential for companies to succeed,” he said. Inbound involves SEO, blogs, and social media posts, while the Outbound include SEM and social media ads. Depending on the industry they are in, market, customer segment, budget and other factors also should be dealt with. “With the right digital marketing evangelist and business consultants, SMEs and Startups can use this opportunity well in our marketplace,” he added.

APCCF vice-president and Sravan Shipping Services managing director G Sambasive Rao said that the SMEs were playing a very potent role in all sectors especially in automobile sector to shipping allied services like ship breaking and dry docking. APCCF Vizag chapter chairman Pydah Krishna Prasad spoke on the need for technological knowledge in the prevailing ambience.

THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS press release page link: Click here

Mr. Shyam can be contacted at shyam@startupxperts.com.

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Use Analytics in Digital Marketing | Startup Xperts

From an IT age, it is the age of the customer today. Digital marketing is getting unified. It is no longer inbound Vs outbound; or SEO Vs email campaigns, etc. How well one is able to deliver all of these channels into a common stream, establishes the winner Vs loser, in today’s digital world.

According to eConsultancy, 2014 Real Time Marketing Survey Report, “Customers increasingly expect us to know where they are and what they are doing to deliver a more relevant experience.”

Digital Marketing follows a simple rule;

Plan -> Attract -> Engage -> Win / Retain

Success in marketing depends on how well you are able to create value for your customer’s business. Majority of the CMOs today, do not use quantitative measures. They use qualitative measures that cannot be used for measuring the success of those initiatives. The 2014 CMO Survey states that just 36% of CMOs have quantitatively proven the short-term impact of marketing spending, and for demonstrating long-term impact, that figure drops to 29%. So there is a certain need to look at the numbers in a more objective manner.

As entrepreneurs, CMOs, you will need to justify spend across various ‘buckets’ (or initiatives). Unless and until you are clear as to which bucket is giving you the returns, you may never be able to invest in the ‘right bucket’. So here’s the need that arises for using Analytics in your Digital Marketing activities.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) had declared that data scientist is the sexiest job of the century.

I do come across numerous instances where the CMOs feel proud to have brought large number of hits to their website. Well, increasing traffic to your website is certainly nice. But does that meet your objective? Is getting hits to your website the goal that you wanted to accomplish? Certainly not, as even one page can produce a dozen hits, depending upon how you have designed it.

The initiative has to lead to conversions. Whether you are a product company or services entity, the parameters to measure are going to be different, and you can set goals as to what you wish to achieve as per your business needs. It could be as simple as measuring ‘likes’, to request for information, or download an app or whitepaper, etc.

Web Analytics is all about collecting, measuring, and analyzing data that we obtain from the internet. Every website can start to use Google Analytics and/or any third party tools. If you have not used analytics before, better to try using the free version of Google analytics. You can use Google analytics behavior report that will help you understand the below-

  • Performance of your content
  • What works well and what does not
  • Actions that your visitors take in your website
  • What all pages are most likely to convert your visitors, to leads?
  • Leads to conversions
  • How your keywords perform vis-à-vis your competitors
  • Your visitors demographics, profile, etc.
  • Ability to track specific information from your site like clicking of external links, video or whitepaper downloads
  • Understand what your visitors are interested in, etc.

In all, Google analytics will provide you a lot of data, information that helps you to understand as to how your visitors get engaged with your website.

Analytics helps you to measure and measurement builds the system for accountability. Besides, effective use of digital marketing will also help you earn revenues through your website, through your visitors. There are many companies that use this to drive revenues through their website. You can use Google AdSense, and generate revenues when your visitor clicks the ads that get published through Google AdWords in your website.

Once you understand what your visitors expect from your website, it will be easy for you to chalk out an action plan to engage them more effectively. You will need to communicate your personality through your digital means. This can be done effectively if you know your ‘right audience’. Gone are the days, where you communicate in a manner ‘one-size-fits-all’. Customized communication, personalized messaging is more apt if you have to succeed through digital marketing.

Analytics has far more strategic importance to your business. Once you pick the right data, use analytics to pick the right information, you can derive meaningful insight that can lead to a business decision. These business decisions will play a critical role in taking your digital initiatives forward.

Digital Marketing has the power to shake established businesses. It can break boundaries and barriers. It has the capacity to make traditional businesses obsolete. All this can happen when you are able to relate your objective in the business, with what the market wants. The beauty of digital marketing is that you can, customize, set accountability, execute in a cost effective way, launch and create immense impact in a short period of time.

Analytics is slowly gaining momentum and the challenge that we face today is dearth of good professionals, who knows what data to pick, what information makes sense for your business, and more importantly, one who can think of short and long term strategies in building your business. But till then it will be wise to hire or engage specialists who can use the digital medium effectively, for your business.

So the next time when you discuss with your digital marketing team, speak about goals; discuss about leads and conversions; build strategies for short and long term, and one that delivers results for your business!

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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Who, How, and Why a Startup

In a recently concluded Global Entrepreneurship Summit, I had the opportunity to meet with some of the students’ community too. One of them posed a question – Should we become an entrepreneur now? Or are we safe in taking up a job with a decent salary? I am sure this question is not unique to this set of individuals; it is likely to linger in many students’ and professionals’ minds as to whether one should jump into the entrepreneurship bandwagon at this stage or not.

Let me try to uncover some part of this challenge and trust that will help you as to why, when, and how, this could be pursued.

First, why would you like to become an entrepreneur?

  • Is it because you think you can make tons of money than your job?
  • Is it because, you are so passionate about solving some issues and contributing to society?
  • Or because, you are either not getting a job, or fired from a job, and like to pursue entrepreneurship?

If you objective is to only make money, then I would raise a caution flag that this is probably not the right way to approach your entrepreneurship. We get carried away by some startup success stories, but there have been many failures which mostly do not get reported or not known. This is not to scare you from taking this plunge but to share with you the brutal reality that there are high risks involved when you jump into this entrepreneur-ship. Many do not venture into starting their own business for the fear of failure. According to Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s Founder and CEO, “I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”

Right at the start, if you are looking at an exit for your business (by selling your entity sooner or later), you probably may not find one. You need to believe in your idea, product, or service; for one that you plan to build bigger and better. Tons of entrepreneurs have sold their company (in part or full) but then, selling and making money should not be your only goal.

Another common question that I come across is, ‘what’s the best age to step into an entrepreneur’s shoe? Should I get into a job now, make some money, and then start something on my own? Well, there is no one right, or wrong answer. I would say there is no ‘right’ age to become an entrepreneur.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook when he was just about 20 years.

Sachin Bansal co-founded Flipkart at 26.

Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia at the age of 35.

Craig Newmark founded Craigslist when he was 42.

Ray Kroc started McDonald’s at 52 years.

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.comThe views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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Email marketing, a powerful way to expand your business | Startup Xperts

This article appeared as a column in the ‘Small Enterprise’ Entrepreneur Business Magazine in Oct 2014 issue.

Marketing is all about creating great customer experiences, consistently. It has transformed itself significantly over the last few years, thanks to digital marketing. Today, marketing is not just meant for large corporate (which were the case decades ago) but for every startup, SME can boast to benefit from.

A study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Capgemini Consulting on ‘Embracing Digital Technology’ finds that, according to 78% of respondents, achieving digital transformation will become critical to their organizations within the next two years. This was the study on traditional large corporations. This underlines the importance of digital technology that needs to be embraced in order to achieve success. In other words, without this you do not dream of taking your organization on a success path!

Digital technology is changing the industry and competitive landscape. Though many CEOs acknowledge the importance of digital marketing, it is the question of time and consistency with which these are being managed and executed. Though digital marketing can be encapsulated into inbound and outbound marketing, the strategic pieces still can lie with the CEO themselves.

Out of the many outbound marketing techniques that include display ad like Google Adwords, Webinars, Virtual conference, email marketing stands tall. Being an advocate of email marketing myself, I cannot resist saying that it is one of the most potent weapons that a company can use; more importantly even for a small enterprise, or a startup venture.

According to a McKinsey report, reaching people through e-mail is 40 times more effective than Twitter and Facebook combined. Yes, it is a mind boggling 40 TIMES! These stunning numbers prove that you as an enterprise cannot afford to miss out on this great marketing tool.

Why is it so powerful? Everyone (certainly most) of us checks email at least once a day, and probably the first thing in the morning. Besides, almost 3/4th of customers prefer to receive marketing messages through an email. Having now understood its importance let us see how best you can put to use this strategy.

The first step is to build an email list. You can buy the list, and/or you can start collating this over a period of time. It is kind of an ‘always-on’ activity. Beware of anti-spam challenges.

A tip – you can pick your connections from social media (relevant ones), other contacts, and prepare a list to start with.

The next importance element is the ‘messaging’. Your message should build trust and be relevant.

Customers do not want to see just ‘sales mails’. At some point in time it will be treated as spam and junked. So share information that are worthy, informative, a note as to how you can possibly solve their issues or challenges or save money, general insights, reports, etc. This will help you position as a thought leader in this space.

I have recommended and helped my clients build their brand and reach through smart email marketing techniques. For one of my consulting clients, we had shared an interesting article to a senior level vendor management person with a billion dollar enterprise in the US. Reaching out this contact over email or phone, might be next to impossible as they would be flooded by sales calls/mailers every other day. But with a non-sales, informative mailer that was shared, my client received a response from this billion dollar prospect requesting them to fill up an RFP that they sent along with their mail. Bang! What a smart and powerful way this email marketing can be? And this is without any sales effort, without thousands of dollars spent in sales follow ups (and still doesn’t guarantee an RFP though).

Create an interesting subject line. Most often, mails get read based on the excitement / interest that the subject line provides. There is no one standard thumb rule to say how exactly the subject line should be. Some may argue to short ones, while some for a lengthy one. But fundamentally make it look interesting, and that addresses ‘what’s in it for me’?

Personalize as much as possible, your email contents. Rather than just sending one mass mailer you can address the person by his/her name in the starting place; or you can even have their name addressed in the subject line itself. Human touch is essential in creating engaging content and that will be a key.

Engage a good content writer and keep churning out articles of interest, blogs that can position you as a thought leader in that space. Though developing content in-house is best, I have noticed most often that in companies the priorities would be different at different times and good articles do not come through as planned. In such cases, best is to engage content writers to ensure that messaging is happening with consistency; your strategy should define the frequency of such posts, timing, etc.

Include Social Media links in your posts / email. This way, it will help share these articles through popular social media sites directly. It can turn viral and your brand / offering can reach through extended connections that you would not have dreamt of.

Most use mobiles to open emails, so it is imperative that your content gets displayed across all devices fine. Care should be taken so that rendering is checked across devices before your email campaign is triggered.

Now, how do you send this? Though outlook? A strict no-no! Use CRM solutions and the beauty of that is ‘analytics’. You could slice and dice your data, contacts, and send targeted messages, and campaigns.

Here is an important point; I am not suggesting you to drop other modes of digital marketing and advocate only email marketing. Email marketing can be used, along with other digital marketing techniques like retargeting, etc. the right combination when used can be very powerful. When your digital strategy is encompassing a few areas synchronized well, you can take your enterprise to a significantly higher level in building up your brand and business.

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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