Business Archives | A Cultivated Mindset

How To Use Technology To Boost Your Business Performance

January 9, 2020 in Cultivate, Startups

In the list of things that make a business to prosper, perhaps technology has today found the topmost place. In this age of science and technology, you can make the best use of technology for executing your business goals. Technology helps entrepreneurs keep everything in an order as well as ensure the best check and balance.

Invest in productivity software

Many things can create a block in the employees’ performance. It is very difficult to implement new strategies every day. Invest in the right kind of advanced software that can work fast with no errors. Such software help increase productivity by improving the performance.

Stay connected to your customers

Successful businesses must find ways to stay connected to their customers 24 X 7. A superior customer service can help attract and satisfy targeted people. Establish an online communicative environment to take the orders as well as solve the client problems.

Create a great website

Today most searches for businesses happen online than offline. Have a user-friendly website and implement the best SEO practices to increase the visibility of your business.

Use technology to evaluate your employees’ performance

It is necessary to compare and evaluate your employees’ performance by using the right kind of software. Compare their performance month after months and motivate them in order to boost up sales. Make some internal changes to get the most from them depending on how productive they are.

Take advantage of crowdfunding option

Capital is the basic requirement to start a business. Today no more are many entrepreneurs thronging at banks for getting business loans. You can project your business vision online using technology today to attract crowdfunding.

Benefit from Blockchain software

Companies make use of Blockchain software to keep the record. The inability to keep a proper record can lead to disorder. Blockchain can help verify and record this transaction. Use of Blockchain can help you rule out the need to depend on brokers who prove to be very expensive. By moving to Blockchain software you can save enough money to invest back in your business.

What Distinguishes a Startup from a Traditional Business

September 3, 2019 in Cultivate, Uncategorized

What does it to take to make or call a startup a successful one? Is it only the financial goals, if met, will be instrumental in making a startup successful or are there any other measures or parameters that should be considered?

If finance is the only thing, then why it is anyway different from a traditional business? Why give it a fancy name and worry about analyzing it?

If finance is not the only thing, then what else could be considered worthy enough to be considered?

On a simple but a bit deeper analysis, we will find few things that distinguish a startup from a traditional business:

One of the broader definitions of a ‘startup’ includes the impact that it should have on the world rather than simply making money. You check out any founder or co-founder of a successful startup across the world, they will aver that their first ambition was to do something that could change the world.
The startup works on the motive and objective of keeping their customers happy—the customer always is the priority, while for a traditional business this may not be true.
For a lot of the entrepreneurs, a successful startup means that they get to spend time with their family members and friends. The ability to have the ‘me-time’ or ‘we-time’ is all they count as currency.
Freedom of time, freedom of location, financial freedom, and even creative freedom often counts as a success for a lot of entrepreneurs when they plan to build a startup.

Now, if you look at a traditional business unit, you will notice that all the above things may be lacking or ignored for the sake of making money alone. In a traditional business unit, money, profits, financial gains are everything and there hardly any room for innovation and creativity.

Avoiding the Mistakes that lead to a Startup Failure

July 9, 2019 in Cultivate, Startups

It is not easy to make a successful startup because almost half of the founders do not do what is essential for this achievement—addressing a problem that is troubling the customers. If you have a business idea and you spend your time and money building a venture around it, you may or may not succeed because the question lies in the application of the idea. If it does nothing apart from selling goods, it is bound to fail.

So, what you need to do to make sure that you don’t fail:

Find out a problem that is still unsolved—try providing a solution to this problem. It could be a product or a service.
Try figuring out your customer-base—the more specific and focused you can be the better it would be. Starting from a small customer-base is not bad.
Talk to people—get feedback and suggestions from real life scenarios. Don’t simply depend on online surveys and simulations.
Talk to your customers—ask them what they want. Tweak your product or service based on the feedback. Don’t sell your product or service and ask the customers for its adoption.

The market is full of startups but a lot of them fail because there is no market demand for the products or services that they offer. It is like setting up a push-cart business of vegetables in a vegetable market—the probability of success is bleak. However, if you could sell these vegetables in housing communities, remote housing areas, you have every chance of succeeding.

You have to innovate on your idea if it revolves around a traditional business model. However, if you are bringing something very unique and previously unheard to the market, you need to make sure it addresses a problem and not simply a fancy way of doing things. The initial success (which you may have) will die down soon.