sparkeighteen, Author at Sparkeighteen

October 5, 2020December 28, 2020

Why most startups fail and how can you make yours succeed

As an entrepreneur or a business owner, you dream of your startup becoming the next Apple or Amazon. The harsh reality is that not all startups get to share their success stories. Here we will talk about why startups fail and how you can make yours succeed.

Table of Content:

Overlooking the current market needs
Not passionate or committed to the idea
Startups run out of cash
Not following a plan
Spending all resources too soon

Look at the above statement. Do you wonder what can be the reason behind this?

This can be due to bad luck, or the sour market. In fact, there have been various researches and studies available online. Most of these mistakes can be avoided by taking strong steps at the very beginning of your business.

Here we’ve listed down a list of 5 reasons why most startups fail and how can you avoid them in order to succeed.

1. Overlooking the current market needs

After analyzing 101 start-ups failing post-mortems, CB Insights cited “not serving the market need” as the No. 1 reason for failure in 42% cases. That’s almost half of the number. So, what exactly does this mean?

This means that your products or services may not relate to the current needs or desires of your target market.

Successful startups identify beforehand if a segment of consumers is being served by existing providers or not. If not, then they develop and promote products and services to fill that gap.

How to avoid this?

There is one simple concept to tackle this problem and that is product differentiation.

Wonder why in a market full of Android products, people go gaga about a new iPhone from Apple every year? It’s the simple interface and sleek design that differentiates iPhones from every other product available in the market.

Similarly, a consumer choosing to order a product from Amazon rather than going to a nearby store to purchase the same thing is another example of a difference in the offering.

The market can be overcrowded with companies fixing problems the same way as you are. What it really needs is how you can differentiate yourself from what you offer.

If startups fail to analyze and test products in the market before launching it, then they may face the risk of shutting down forever.

Product differentiation is not only imperative to survive in a competitive market, but also creates value and help in defending a high-price range for products in the future.

2. Not passionate or committed to the idea

“People with passion can change the world” – iconic words by Steve Jobs.

Successful businesses aren’t made out of opportunities, but out of the greatest passion. Commitment and passion are two of the key factors when you want to make your startup a success.

An entrepreneur who conveys passion is more persuasive, motivated, and has a larger social network. The reason why startups fail is a lack of passion for a domain or lack of understanding which leads to them facing difficulty in dealing with problems that they eventually have to stop.

What they do not understand is leading a startup requires commitment, dedication, and passion to really see it grow.

How To avoid this?

Know what you’re passionate about

Is there something you love doing? What do you spend reading about the most? Is there a thing you’d love to do as your job?

It’s okay even if you’re unable to answer these questions. Not everyone has their passion sorted. Do as much research as possible or try consulting an expert to guide you. But keep in mind, that your passion must be true for you.

Start working on growing yourself

Unfortunately, having your passion sorted is just the bottom of the hierarchy. You’ll have to eat a humble pie. This can be by building experience working as an employee or working as an independent contractor. This process may take months or even years but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be ready to make it your profession.

Lead your passion in the right direction

Not every passion pays well. Once you are definite about your passion, figure out how you can make it profitable.

The best way to do that is by getting out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself. Identify what your competitors are missing out and use your business to fill in the void. Discover what can you change in your industry.

Your experience while you were working towards your passion may help you here.

Also Read: 5 Must-know tips for new business owners & entrepreneurs

3. Startups run out of cash

This is one of the biggest mistakes of startups.

Surprisingly, even among funded start-ups, money-related problems were the most common reasons why startups fail.

We get it, realizing that your business is running out of money is a gut-wrenching feeling and it takes a lot in grinding your company out of this hole.

How to avoid this?

Focus on growth with your cash

Based on their situations, growth can have different definitions for startups. Here it means focusing on advancing to a visibly higher-level. For example, if you have a working prototype, start focusing on the launch; if you’ve launched then move to market; and if you’ve started marketing work on improving sales.

Explore new investors

Meet new people and make the most out of those meetings. Find investors and if you fail to meet one try networking through your contacts.

4. Not following a plan

Even when you have the greatest product in the market, don’t expect customers to blindly come to you to buy it. Without a plan of how you’re going to put your product in front of your customers, you have nothing to bank on.

You need referrals, leads, advertising, and a proper marketing plan to push out the word about your business.

How will your target market become patrons of your business if they aren’t even aware of your business?

How to avoid this?

Create an effective marketing plan for your business. How is it going to reach out to your customers? Where is your target audience most available? Is it social media? Is it email? Consider activities like online advertising (through services like Google AdWords or Facebook).

Don’t be afraid to be innovative and creative as the whole point of marketing is getting your audience’s attention.

5. Spending all resources too soon

The initial stages of your business are when you should be very careful about how you are going to spend your money and resources and where exactly will they be going. There are some startups with millions in their budget, yet they will always end up going bankrupt.

How to avoid this?

Don’t hire too fast

During the early stages of your business, you may get excited to build up your own “team”. But before you do that, understand that at first what you need the most is sales and developing your business.

Don’t ignore sales

Spending a big fortune on research and development and other technical requirements by completely shutting eyes on sales and marketing isn’t great. You need to look over them equally.

In fact, here are some areas where you can spend money at the early stages of your business:

Accounting

Whether your business is small or large, you need an accountant to handle all your finances. You can either hire one or pay for signup on tools like QuickBooks. Simple link your company’s bank account to it and pay a monthly price to check your books.

Content Management System (CMS)

There are various reasons you need CMS for, there include – blogging, hosting white papers and ebooks, landing pages, and lead capture. We’d recommend going for WordPress. It is the best platform that can give you the flexibility to do those experiments you want to do in the early stages.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

No, CDNs aren’t just limited to big companies or websites with high-traffic. We are living in an era where 20% of a B2B product’s traffic can come from mobile devices (source: Ramen). So having a CDN can be a huge boon when it comes to improving the experience of those mobile users.

It is your time to shine!

So these were some common reasons why startups fail and how you can avoid them.

Every successful entrepreneur knows the importance of the right strategy and practice to get their business on top. Without having the passion, the right plan, and the right tools, you cannot expect your business to see the results you want to see.

Never step back in doing the right thing for your business, even when you feel like it may take time. An aspiring entrepreneur shouldn’t be afraid to take risks!

Take your startup to the next level by joining hands with us. Contact us here.

September 11, 2020December 28, 2020

6 things your customers are expecting from your website

Let’s face it, your company is already facing problems if you aren’t listening to your customers. After all, the best business decisions are based on real customer data and not blind-assumptions. Especially today, the most important thing a customer is expecting from your business is a website. Here, we will talk about the 6 things a website should have to deliver on those expectations.

Table of Content:

Contact Information
Interactive Content
Responsive Design
CTA Buttons
Great Content
Testimonials and Feedbacks

Today, when a consumer is looking for a product or service, they mainly surf online rather than going to a nearby store themselves. So in order to tell your audience that you are the right business, you need a website.

Sure, customers can easily trust reviews or opinions from other people, but an optimized website allows them to be fully informed about the business they are engaging with in order to make the right decision.

Your website works 24/7 in conveying your brand message and serving your customers. It is here that you attract new customers while also being in touch with the current ones. So to run a successful website, you need to understand what our customers are looking for when they visit it.

Do you want to know what are these important things a website should have? Keep on reading!

1. Contact Information

Your customers visit your website to connect with you. You would not want to make it hard for them to see your contact information, do you?

Your very first page should tell your customers how they can contact you. An email address, a contact number, or your company’s address – make sure everything is right there on your home page itself, clearly!

2. Interactive Content

To create a positive impression of your website in the eyes of your consumer, you need to introduce them to interactive content.

Interactive content refers to anything your visitors can interact with when they visit your website. This can be a short survey or a price calculator.

In addition to that, you can also include various interactive multimedia like compelling videos, images, or animations to create an enjoyable experience for your users.

3. Responsive Design

Your customers want your website to work quickly and efficiently on every device be it a laptop or a mobile phone.

Trying to purchase or read from a website that doesn’t work sufficiently on a mobile phone is the most frustrating thing. Users don’t even take a second to exit from such websites which makes having a responsive design one of the most important things a website should have.

The average time that a customer stays on a website is 15 seconds. So you basically have to expect them to find everything in this time frame no matter what device they are on.

Also read: How to create a successful business website?

4. CTA Buttons

It’s obvious that you would want your customers to interact with your website whether it is for a sign-up on your newsletter or action to purchase your products.

When you include buttons like “Sign Up Here” and “Buy Now” you are directly telling your customers what they can do next.

Just keep in mind that you do not create a mess with a hoard of call-to-action buttons on your page. Use 2-3 of them on one page and make them clear and accessible. Try testing different formats like pop-ups, social sharing, or slide-in forms, and see what type of CTA works best with your audience.

5. Great Content

Blogs are a great way to share industry-related news, tips, tricks, and other relevant information about your industry. Not only that, but writing blogs for your website can be highly beneficial for search engine rankings, social media posts, and email sign-ups.

So if you want to attract new people to your website you need great content and blogs are the way!

6. Testimonials And Feedbacks

No matter how much you assure people how great your product or service is, your audience will rely on proof rather than promotions.

This is why testimonials and feedbacks from past customers are important to be displayed on your website. It does not only validates your work but also builds trust with potential clients and customers to do business with you.

Simply email all your current or past customers to write honest feedback about your company. If you’re struggling to do so, try offering incentives such as free eBooks, discounts, or other gifts to encourage them to write a line or two.

It’s onto you…

Here was our list of things a website should have.

In the end, we would like to say that all you have to do is make your customer’s life easier by creating an engaged and dedicated website. If you don’t know what people think about your website, ask people around you or look at your website from the eyes of a customer – is it able to fulfill the problem of why that person has come to your site?

If you figure out where you’re lagging behind, start tweaking and changing to make your site perfect.

Directly asking your customer can also be a great way to clear all your doubts. Take polls on social media or see what your competitors are doing on their website.

Your website should be evolving constantly as your business does. Avoid all wrong moves and reach out for the right ones!

For further help, reach us here.

August 19, 2020December 28, 2020

Top 5 Award-Winning Ecommerce website designs

top 5 award winning best ecommerce website designs

The growing popularity of the internet and technology has made it quicker and easier to buy and sell online. Having an eCommerce website, your customers can quickly connect to you and buy your products. Here, we will have a look at the top 5 award-winning best eCommerce website designs that might inspire you in enhancing your eCommerce website.

Table of Content:

Apple
Frank and Oak
Pearls Only
ETQ Amsterdam
Quip

People are not wrong when they say your eCommerce website is a reflection of your physical store.

Just like your store, your eCommerce website needs to be user friendly and easy to navigate for your customers. This means your website should have easy navigation, great visuals, and should be highly optimized and mobile-friendly – the list goes on!

To make you feel less overwhelmed, here is the list of top 5 well-designed businesses with the best eCommerce website design:

1. Apple

You cannot expect Apple to not excel in designing, whether with their product or website.

3D touch, clever animations, and dynamic images – you’re not entering their website, but you’re submerging in it.

Above all that, their clean and simple navigation system is amazing. The use of silhouettes to differentiate between products is nothing but highly impressive.

2. Frank And Oak

Frank and Oak is a modern online clothing shop that focuses heavily on lifestyle and media.

They use their UI to grab user’s attention and provide a great shopping experience from a UX perspective making it one of the best eCommerce website designs.

You’ll be captivated by their use of bold photography and the clean sans-serif typography that captures their brand’s personality and target audience so well.

3. Pearls Only

The jewelry selling website has a quite unique way of welcoming their visitors to their online store that looks quite irresistible to pass on.

They promise their visitors a free discount offer in exchange for their email address. Would you spin the wheel?

4. ETQ Amsterdam

ETQ is a footwear label brand based in Amsterdam that takes a minimalistic approach using their own merchandise as the primary aesthetic of their site.

Simple yet compelling visuals accompanied by strong typography help the user to focus on nothing else but the brand products making this another great example of the best eCommerce website designs.

5. Quip

The UX of the toothbrush company Quip is so uncomplicated that visitors might want to come back to purchase again.

With captivating homepage, bold images of the products and a neon green CTA’s in the middle is enough to grab any one’s attention.

Did these website designs inspire you to make improve your eCommerce website design? You don’t have to think a lot. Just imagine your online store as a replica of your physical store. How will you decorate your store to pull customers?

Just think of the ideas, the rest is our work!

Want a stunning eCommerce website developed for your business? Reach us here.

June 24, 2020December 28, 2020

How to create a successful business website?

Do you have a website for your business? There’s no excuse for not having one. In today’s age, not having a website is quite equivalent to not having a shop, office, or contact number. Your customers and clients are looking for you online – outside just social media. Chances are they’d not take your business seriously if it doesn’t have a website. In this article, we will talk about the benefits of having a website for business and ideas for creating a successful business website.

Source: BlueCorona

Benefits Of Having A Website for Business

It provides a home to your business:

Whether your customers want to purchase or learn about your products/services, they’ll directly visit your website.

The website provides your audiences with:

Your contact information,
Your blog posts,
Links to your social media pages,
Your products/services,
Projects, etc.

Your website is the place where your audience can engage and connect with your business.

You can easily provide details and information to cover more areas keeping in mind what a user searches for. The ultimate goal is to answer as many user’s queries as you can.

It is easily accessible:

Your website works for you 24*7. It provides information about your products and services to the audience – at any given time of the day!

Imagine this, you’re looking for a bookshelf to buy. Would you rather drive around and look for a store that sells bookshelves or search one online from the comfort of your couch?

Most people will prefer the latter. That’s why it has become important for businesses to build a website – to showcase their products.

Your customers want to see your website:

Source: Local Search Association

Your website is your number one marketing asset in this digital age.

People spend an average of 6 hours 42 minutes on the internet. By now, they expect your business to have an online presence.

Your About Us page is where visitors will go to learn about your organization and what sets you apart from your competitors. This is the place where you can highlight all your company’s achievements, your team culture, and philosophy. This will help your customers and clients build more trust in your organization.

Builds credibility:

As mentioned above, without a website for business, people may find it hard to trust your business.

With a website you can:

Build audience trust with testimonials
Showcase your expertise with great content
Catch attention with authentic images and videos
Highlight your certifications and partnerships

All these things help build credibility that sets a high expectation for the level of satisfaction your potential customers will have with your business.

Answers all questions:

This is especially important for B2B companies. People visit your website when they want to do something, or know something.

To know something about your business, they’d not want to navigate from one place to the other, They want all their queries to be answered at one place – which is your website.

Your website’s landing page answers all such questions including:

Who are you?
What do you offer?
How to contact you? – and many more.

Now that you understand how web presence can benefit you in many ways, let’s move on to tell how you can create a successful website for your business.

Ideas To Create A Successful Business Website

A successful website may translate differently from industry to industry. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to build a website:

Step 1: Define Your Customers

Identifying who your customers are and what encourages them to buy your products or services is essential for creating a website design.

Knowing your target audience is the foundation of your marketing strategy. This not only necessitates understanding who your ideal customers are but also knowing the core pain points that your product solves.

Different sets of people respond to colors and fonts differently. This is true especially for men, women, people of different nationalities, cultures, etc.

For example, Nykaa is an online beauty store that offers a wide range of Indian as well as International brands. The company’s website clearly exhibits the lifestyle of its core customers – the modern Indian women.

Step 2: Create A Sitemap

As the name says, a sitemap is nothing but a map of your website.

Creating a sitemap is a great SEO trick that will help in optimizing your website. With Sitemaps, search engines are able to read the content on your website and index it accordingly. This, further, increases the chance of boosting your SEO ranking.

A sitemap is a core structure without which your business website may look flimsy.

Source: Hubspot

A great sitemap:

Offer better visibility to search engines
Makes website easier to navigate
Categorizes content

How to create a sitemap? Thankfully, there are various sitemap generators that will make the process quick and easy for you. Some of these include Screaming Frog, XML Sitemaps, Inpyser, etc.

Step 3: Create Wireframes

A wireframe is nothing but a skeletal outline of a webpage.

A wireframe of a page provides a clear layout, structure, behavior, and architecture. In other words, it answers questions like:

How the items on the page can be organized?
What content goes where?
How much space should be allocated?
What functionalities are available?

You can easily draw a wireframe by hand or create one digitally, depending on the details it requires.

How to create a wireframe?

Here are the steps to follow when creating your first wireframe:

Take inspiration from other similar wireframe products. You can easily browse through websites like Dribble and Behance to see what other designers have done.
Grab a pen and paper and start drawing a rough sketch of your page’s wireframe. Keep in mind the following things:

What are your business goals?
The action do you want the user to take on this page?
What are the call-to-actions?
The buttons and touchpoints will a user see?

Once you get the foundation in place, it’s time to fill in the details. How? Think about the layout of the page, how much spacing it needs, and what information goes where.

Make sure your wireframe is as clear and simple for you or anybody to understand.

Step 4: Work On UI/UX

What are UI and UX?

User Interface (UI) works on controls like buttons and actions that people use when interacting with a website. On the other hand, User Experience (UX) works on user behavior and feeling while using the website.

In other words,

UI is how the bike looks, UX is how you feel while riding it.

This is the time to give your website life with colors, fonts, illustrations, elements, images, videos, content, etc.

The UI/UX design helps enhance user experience and customer satisfaction on the website that helps in achieving any business’s primary goal – to increase growth and sales.

Pinterest’s exemplary user interface is a great inspiration. The website shows results in a card design with a waterfall flow providing users with a unique, smooth, and lucid experience.

Step 5: Development – Frontend and Backend

To simply put, Backend is focused on data, modeling, visitors, and backend of a website.

On the other hand, the frontend’s focus is to build what customers and users interact with while they are on the website.

A front-end developer makes sure whatever you see on the website. They assemble all the pieces including the text, images, and logo to create a visually pleasing experience.

A back-end developer, however, is helping you navigate through these pages via your mobile or desktop devices.

Step 6: Optimize Your Page

The process of optimizing your web page for search engines to rank them higher in the search results is known as on-page SEO.

On-page SEO helps your website grow organically.

Here’s how you can optimize your website:

Conduct keyword research:

Researching for keywords is important as people search using keywords that can be relevant to your business. To stand-out and be on top of the result page, you need to use those keywords and phrases in your website.

Free tools like UberSuggest will help you find the right keywords related to your business and niche.

Let’s say, you sell “food storage containers”. So you begin typing the keyword in the search bar.

The website will provide you with a list of keywords with their search volume, CPC, etc. You can choose your desired keywords and use them on your website either through blogs or product descriptions.

ubersuggest neil patel website for business

Make sure your page loads fast:

Source: Google

Google made page speed a ranking factor because they know that people don’t like to see slow-loading pages.

Here’s how you can save your visitors’ time:

Reduce image sizes:

Using a large size or high-resolution pictures is a major factor that slows down your website speed. Plugins like ShortPixel in WordPress optimize and compress images easily on the go.

Cut down useless HTML:

Every character of HTML takes time to load. Aim to use a text editor on WordPress rather than the visual editor. This will minimize all the useless HTML that is on your website.

Place the keywords in your H1 tag:

Header tags like H1, H2, H3, etc. communicate to the search engine what your website is about.

All of this begins with the H1 tag. So, it is important that you strategically place your keyword in the H1 tag.

H2 is a subheading and should contain similar keywords, then H3, and so on.

Step 7: Testing & Quality Assurance

Finally, before you go live with your website you test your website in order to discover any mistakes or errors that may not have been noted during web development.

All this is done by a QA Tester.

You can also reach out to people around you to get quick feedback about your new website.

A friend who just cannot stop shopping online would likely give you an honest review of your new eCommerce website.

Similarly, you can get inputs from various other people who are consumers themselves. After all, you’re creating a website for your audience, and who can give better feedback than the audience themselves?

There you have it. Your ultimate guide to building a successful website.

Now that you understand the importance of a website and how to create one – why should it delay any longer?

We, at Spark Eighteen, understand the significance of a website for business and therefore are ready to provide any kind of assistance in the way. From web designers to developers, our team is there to guide you through the process.

Feel free to contact us.

March 25, 2020December 28, 2020

Why a good design is important for your brand

As a marketer or a designer, one might know what impact can a visually pleasing design makes. A good design is much more than just a good logo or page layout. The importance of a good design goes much deeper than that. You might want to know what important role it plays as a marketing and branding tool.

Take Apple, for example. Apple, like any other big company, has played a hugely influential role in a way how products, applications, and websites are designed. For years, the company has effectively used design for its competitive advantage. Other companies like Airbnb and Xero are just more examples of design-led success.

Here we list out some reasons for you to understand better:

It Will Drive Conversions

A good and creative design helps in driving conversions. A good design will not have any obstacles and difficulties that stop users from taking the desired action. It will help the users to understand conversions and take relevant actions.

Motivates The User To Take The Desired Action

Whether it is purchasing your product or availing your services, the high-quality design will motivate your target audience to take the desired action. One of the main features is that it intrigues any person who looks at it. This further creates a desire for the offering in the mind of the person.

Use innovative and creative tactics to help your audience understand how your product or service will help simplify their lives.

Apple, for instance, has been a master of this idea. While launching new products, they beautifully showcase it all on their website.

Creates A User-Friendly Space

Connecting to users is important and should be easy. Your website needs to be very user-friendly which means, it needs to load faster, must be updated with the latest web technologies, etc. A good design might help you with that.

Also remember, that most users use their mobile devices to browse. Make sure your website’s design is mobile-friendly and is known with the format.

Creates A First And A Lasting Impression

Your website reflects your brand. So when users come in contact with your website, it comes in contact with you. They instantly judge your brand by your website design. This is how design helps you create that lasting first impression.

Fact: According to studies, it takes a mere 50 milliseconds for people to form an opinion about a website.

Think about what may attract your customers and take action accordingly. Create a trustworthy and uncluttered design so that way it is easier for your customers to navigate.

Go for bold (but not on your face) color choices and make your content stand out front.

Make sure the people who visit your website, come again and again.

Increases Your Website’s Visibility

There might be thousands of companies like yours reaching out to that one particular group of people through online marketing. What makes you stand out from them?

Your website needs to catch the attention of the right prospect and hold it. Your design may vary depending on the goals of your campaign and target audience.

Always remember, a good design communicates with your users and helps them understand more about you.

Consistent Design Make Users Recognize You

When you have a consistent and strong design, it helps users recognize you.

For example, take McDonald’s. We can recognize the golden arches of McDonald’s from very far.

Consistency is important. Stick to the style, pattern, color scheme, etc rather than changing the layout now and then. It will create a more personal and loyal relationship between you and your customers.

Design, in the end, is the face of your brand on the internet.

Make it real and accurate. Make sure you show all the relevant things you want your customers to see out there. Make it bold but at the same time don’t make it complex.

Ready to take the next step? Connect with us today and let’s work towards building the best visual identity for your brand.

December 29, 2019March 25, 2021

10 Best podcasts every Tech Entrepreneurs must tune into!

Podcasts are an excellent medium to consume content these days. You can listen to them, well, almost anywhere and anytime. Commuting to work? Washing the dishes? Walking your dog? You can glean valuable information with a pinch of entertainment right at your fingertips. In this blog, we’re going to discover the 10 best podcasts for entrepreneurs.

Table of Content:

The Lean Startup Podcast
Clockwise Podcast
Rocketship.FM
The Twenty Minute VC
This Week in Startups
Masters of Scale
Product Hunt Radio
A16z
Recode Decode with Kara Swisher
Y Combinator Podcast

Podcasts are great for entrepreneurs who are eager to learn but just don’t have the luxury of time due to their tight schedule. This audio format lets you simply fuse entrepreneurial wisdom into your everyday life without taking precious time away from priorities such as fundraising, decision-making, and innovating next-generation products.

There are a variety of amazing podcasts out there to explore. Below are 10 of our all-time favorites and some of the best podcasts for entrepreneurs. Each has its own particular unique style with some of the biggest names in the tech world.

10 Best Podcasts for Entrepreneurs

1. The Lean Startup Podcast

The word “lean” has already been creating a lot of buzz in the entrepreneurial world, so it makes sense that we begin this list by talking about a podcast focused on lean tactics. Brought to you by the Lean Startup Co, co-founded by Eric Ries, this podcast hosts industry leaders covering a wide range of topics. From advanced management practices to enhancing product development, the podcast shares educational ideas, stories, and lessons for startups to drive long-term growth. The Lean Startup Podcast is one of the best startup podcasts available.

2. Clockwise Podcast

clockwise best podcasts for entrepreneurs

Hosted by Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent, Clockwise invites two special guests every week to discuss the current technology trends. Each episode begins with the host introducing four hot topics, then guests share their thoughts during a “rapid-fire” discussion. Cheap tech gear? Tech products during a pandemic? Future of AR? With a wide range of such exciting topics, you would only wish if every episode was longer than 30 minutes.

3. Rocketship.FM

Want to listen to encouraging tales of successful tech entrepreneurs and get useful insights that will alter your perspective on businesses? Rocketship.fm is the podcast for you! The top-rated podcast talks about product growth, management, and sales with some of the big names in the tech industry. What are the important things to remember while running a business? What to avoid? How to develop capital? You’ll get all the relevant information you need to scale your startup.

4. The Twenty Minute VC

Are you curious to know how investors make decisions? If so, The Twenty Minute VC got you covered. Founded by serial entrepreneur Harry Stebbings, the podcast provides 20-minute interviews with today’s most successful venture capitalists. By understanding what investors are looking for, you will get a competitive edge over other startups. Some of the topics discussed are the future of remote work, an investor’s decision-making process, and the customer acquisition funnel.

5. This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis’ This Week in Startups covers the most interesting, outrageous, and exciting entrepreneur stories from around the world. The podcast features a group of rotating experts who gives out strategies on growth and leadership and helps you catch-up with the latest news from Silicon Valley. Some of the most notable guests include Uber Founder Travis Kalanick and Founder & CTO of Basecamp David Heinemeier Hansson.

6. Masters of Scale

Masters of Scale is another great podcast for startups seeking important information on how companies grow. Hosted by LinkedIn Co-founder and Greylock Investor Reid Hoffman, the podcast contains stories of success as well as failed entrepreneurs. Being one of the most famous entrepreneurs himself, Hoffman discusses his theories about businesses, leadership, management, and fundraising, with other successful founders. Iconic CEOs of giants like Netflix, Spotify, Google, Facebook, etc. have been a part of this show.

7. Product Hunt Radio

Product Hunt’s website is a great place to discover the latest and greatest products from startups around the world. Product Hunt Radio offers practical and insightful interviews with funders, investors, and journalists in the startup community and discusses the stories behind product making. Hosted by founder Ryan Hoover and successful entrepreneur Abadesi Osunsade, the weekly podcast also discusses the latest developments in tech. Legendary angel investor Chris Sacca, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and famous author Robert Greene are some of the well-known people to be guests on this podcast.

8. A16z

Produced by Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, the A16z podcast mainly discusses the latest tech and culture trends. They bring industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting voices from around the globe and offer advice and useful information on academics leadership, entrepreneurship, investment, etc. You have something for every level of entrepreneurship making A16z one of the best business podcasts.

9. Recode Decode with Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher, one of Silicon Valley’s well-known journalists, presents candid conversations with tech executives, politicians, celebrities, etc discussing their big ideas and how they’re changing the world. Her questions and approach with the guests are rooted in her background as a journalist. She’s not afraid to ask questions that nobody else would dare to which sets her podcast apart from the rest.

10. Y Combinator Podcast

y combinator best podcasts for entrepreneurs

June 9, 2018December 28, 2020

What does it take to convert a product idea into reality?

What does it take to convert product to reality

Every product that we come across often starts with a mere thought. An entire mix of creativity, innovation, and confidence is what it takes to turn an idea or a concept into a successful product. But how to build a product that succeeds? Product development can be an extremely time-consuming and overwhelming thought process. While some product entrepreneurs succeed with their idea, some wonder as to what went wrong with their product development process.

In case you have an idea or are thinking of building a product, these few tips will come in handy to invest your money correctly into a product.

Keep your Company’s Goals and Vision Clear

You probably don’t want a product without a vision, right? It is highly important to set clearly defined goals and vision for your company that will subsequently be used to underline your product’s existence.

Know What You Aim To Accomplish

While the company’s vision is critical, you must answer these simple questions before executing the product idea:

What problem does your product aim to solve?
What makes your product so valuable?
Is your product idea viable?

If you’ve tried to answer, you’ll know that your product idea needs a lot more consideration and thoughtful approach to its actual implementation.

Be Well-versed With The Market

While it’s easy to get enthralled by your idea and overlook the most important steps in the product development process, you need to have a clear picture of the target market you’re looking to tap and analyze the market size that your product will cater to.

Be sure to gather all the essential information and validate your market before the actual product development process starts. It will also be beneficial to hold focus groups and make a note of all the factors pertaining to them.

Focus On A Simple Idea First And Build A Prototype

Since complex ideas require more time, money, and effort, it is recommended to plan for a simpler and basic version of your product idea making sure that it will solve the targeted vision.

People often spend excessive time in making the perfect product, only to realize that there is no perfect product since there is always room for improvement with technology being involved. It is, therefore, important to understand that product development is an iterative journey.

Creating a product prototype could help you figure out whether your big idea will actually work and succeed. The main purpose of a prototype is to validate the product concept and design before it is actually launched in the market. A product prototype can be anything from a sample, drawing, presentation or the replica of the final product design itself.

Analysis & Strategy Development

Now that you’ve worked on a product idea with a vision in sync with your company and gained an understanding of your target market, you should analyze, test and decide the business and marketing strategies that need to be employed.

This is the time when you need to further refine your product and identify areas of development based on the customer feedback received on the initial product prototype.

With a finalized concept of the product, start focusing on other factors and metrics like the cost to build and market the product, the competition for your product, marketing and branding strategies, break-even point, etc.
The testing results and a detailed analysis will help in reducing the risks and making your product ready for the perfect market launch.

The Cost Of Building A Product

When building a product, an entrepreneur would always try to anticipate the amount of capital it would require along with the other relatively reasonable expenses.

The development journey primarily comprises a development timeline, product/app team, elements to be incorporated, and post-release expenses. A basic app or a website development team would consist of:

Project manager
Developer
UI/ UX Designer
QA Engineer

The product development costs largely depend on the type of the product, the technical complexity it entails and the other needed support to successfully and innovatively implement the idea. It will vary for mobile app development (Android or iOS), desktop application, website development, and so on.

Nevertheless, you must figure out how much you want to shell out and have the visibility about what you are actually paying for. This will further guide you in understanding and analyzing the hourly rates that would be required for designing and development.

Besides, the price will further differ if you decide to get the product made in-house or outsource another company that approaches a kind of product development process.

Let’s hear your product idea! Drop us a line here and build your very own product with us.